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Pioneer will get plasma panels from Matsushita

The LCD and plasma TV market is becoming so competitive that companies that were once rivals are teaming up to drive costs down and profits up. The latest victim of the competitive plasma panel marketplace is Pioneer.

Pioneer made plasma HDTVs under the Elite brand and now makes Kuro plasmas that were seen at CES 2008. Several sources are reporting that Pioneer will stop making its own plasma panels. According to Reuters, Pioneer Corp is finalizing plans to halt all internal production of plasma panels.

Pioneer is currently the 5th largest plasma TV maker and is reported to be losing money on the plasma business it operates. Nikkei says Pioneer originally planned to sell 720,000 plasma TVs for the latest fiscal year and were forced to revise its projections to 480,000 units. Pioneer is expected to report a loss of 10 billion yen or about $96 million USD for the fiscal year.

Pioneer is said to be closing down one of its three Japanese plasma manufacturing plants and focusing the remaining two plants on assembling TVs. Pioneer already teamed up with Sharp to procure LCD panels for its line of LCD TVs, and it will do the same thing to source panels for its line of plasma TVs.

Pioneer will get plasma panels from industry behemoth Matsushita, which has been on a spree recently with agreements to buy portions of Hitachi and teaming up with Canon and other manufacturers for LCD panels.

Mitsushige Akino, chief fund manager at Ichiyoshi Investment Management told MSNBC, “This is an excellent development [Pioneer stopping plasma production]. Pioneer could have chosen another way and stepped up its plasma investment despite the fact that the business is bleeding red ink, but it's a wise step to decide against that. A quicker decision would have been even better, though.”

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Time to Pioneer another format...
By daftrok on 3/4/2008 3:31:58 PM , Rating: 1
I predict that in a couple years OLED will start to really explode just like 1080p televisions did. It seems like yesterday when those 1080p sets cost 10 grand, now they cost around 1 grand.




RE: Time to Pioneer another format...
By JackBurton on 3/4/2008 3:53:43 PM , Rating: 5
OLED has quite a few hurdles to overcome. I'd say more like 5 years before we get a good 50" panel.


RE: Time to Pioneer another format...
By HaZaRd2K6 on 3/4/2008 4:03:41 PM , Rating: 5
And even then it'll still cost you your left kidney.

But that's alright, you've got two for a reason :)


RE: Time to Pioneer another format...
By Hulk on 3/4/2008 5:08:24 PM , Rating: 3
Yeah but all those kidneys for OLED trades will drive down the value of kidneys!


RE: Time to Pioneer another format...
By exanimas on 3/4/2008 10:27:24 PM , Rating: 2
That's one less thing to worry about after falling asleep around a hooker.


RE: Time to Pioneer another format...
By Jedi2155 on 3/5/2008 12:59:18 AM , Rating: 2
Or worse when they realize its already gone, and take something even more valuable!


By erikejw on 3/5/2008 1:58:47 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
Or worse when they realize its already gone, and take something even more valuable!


They probably leave with your new OLED TV and you wound up wondering if it is worth your last kidney to get another one :)


RE: Time to Pioneer another format...
By mikeblas on 3/4/2008 4:23:59 PM , Rating: 2
We've been hearing these predictions since the first OLED devices were announced at CES in 2000. What makes you think you'll be right, this time?


By daftrok on 3/4/2008 5:03:32 PM , Rating: 3
A hunch.


RE: Time to Pioneer another format...
By Oregonian2 on 3/4/08, Rating: 0
RE: Time to Pioneer another format...
By slunkius on 3/5/2008 5:35:37 AM , Rating: 3
Why is the rating so important? Every time i see a "...why was i rated down, wah wah..." i put one more negative point for it, just fort the fun


By Oregonian2 on 3/6/2008 7:46:39 PM , Rating: 1
If it were important, then I wouldn't have posted that same idea again about incorrect assumptions of the competition standing still while new technology wipes them out.

I was just helping those who wanted to nick the posting without having to read it and risk being convinced. :-)


By Raidin on 3/6/2008 10:20:12 AM , Rating: 2
Hell, I marked him down for excessive abuse of paragraphography.

Just kidding...


By melgross on 3/4/2008 6:03:45 PM , Rating: 2
Now that the first OLED Tv is out, others will follow by the end of the year. That's the way it works. It could take five years before a 50" model comes out. Cost is less obvious. I don't think the $2,500 for Sony's 11 incher will be typical.

Don't forget that the first plasma cost $20,000 for a 42" 720p model.

Once the problems of OLEDs are solved, which seems to be pretty much the case, the production costs will be much lower once the R&D has been paid off.


shame
By GlassHouse69 on 3/4/2008 10:18:55 PM , Rating: 3
It is a shame. the panasonics were a close second but only second. 720p pioneer 50 inch beat a 1080p panasonic easily. the 1080p definitely.

not like i wouldnt mind either one ;)




RE: shame
By Integral9 on 3/5/2008 12:54:16 PM , Rating: 2
agreed. I have a 720p 43" pioneer plasma and it looks as good or better than every 1080p screen I've seen to date. Even the 60" at the Sony Style store running a BD movie couldn't top it. It did look damned good though. i'd bump you but, I haven't figured out how to do that yet.


RE: shame
By ernhamDjinn on 3/5/2008 1:32:29 PM , Rating: 2
Unfortunately it's all too easy to sell pixels vs. quality, because the former is easy to measure (1080 > 720, right ?) whereas quality is kind of harder to judge.
The truth is, no one can tell if they're looking at a 1080p or 720p image from 10 feet away, which is a pretty standard viewing distance. The video scaler is one of the most critical part of the display - buy a cheap TV, you'll see a bunch of artifacts like macroblocking or aliasing of color, no matter the resolution of the set. That's one of the reason why the Pioneer indeed looks better than some bigger or higher resolution TVs, and also why it's (sightly) more expensive. Pioneer is of course not the only good brand, but I don't think you can go wrong with a Pioneer plasma. Until they stop manufacturing them, that is.


RE: shame
By Raidin on 3/6/2008 11:33:18 AM , Rating: 2
You can't rate anyone's comments in an article you've posted in. =(


RE: shame
By Integral9 on 3/11/2008 10:19:45 AM , Rating: 2
Thanks, but I already know that. I'm looking for a '+' or '-' or 'rate' button, but am not seeing it. Is there supposed to be one there? Will it appear after I do x y and z?


Wow - this is bad news...
By Ohji on 3/4/2008 5:50:26 PM , Rating: 2
This is potentially very bad news for the plasma display market. Pioneer demonstrated some of the most exciting future technology at CES this year with their 9mm thick plasma displays and "Extreme Contrast" technology. If any of you own plasma or LCD displays, you know how blacks are often not truly black, but instead a very dark gray. Over the past few years, advances in panel technology as well as innovations like dynamic backlights have made things better, but pitch blacks are still not possible on (available) flat panel displays. Pioneer, however, demonstrated extreme contrast sets at CES that left many seasoned videophiles with their jaws on the floor. There was a great deal of excitement generated by the Pioneer presentation, and you can see some of the pictures at the link below:

http://gizmodo.com/341434/battlemodo-pioneer-super...

I'm not sure how much of this technology is in the glass versus the ancillary electronic components, but hopefully Pioneer will license or sell this technology to Panasonic if they do dismantle their plasma production. I, for one, have been lusting for absolute black levels for YEARS, and I hope to see it available at a reasonable price point in the near future. Where are you SED? :)