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Sony says no more to rear-projection TV market, OLED on the way

With the strong growth in LCD and plasma HDTVs, the rear-projection TV that once ruled the big screen realm is quickly heading the way of the Dodo.

Sony announced today that it will withdraw from the rear-projection TV market. Sony already reduced its rear-projection TV sales target by 43% to 400,000 units for the year.

The company does not carry digital light projection (DLP) TVs, which dominate the rear-projection market.  Two additional 60" and 70" XBR SXRD models were embargoed for launch at CES 2008 next week, though the company claims prototypes will face cancellation.

Sony isn’t the first major maker of TVs to pull out of the rear-projection market.  With prices falling for comparably sized plasma and LCD screen HDTVs, rear-projection set makers found it hard to compete for consumers dollars in 2007. Seiko Epson stopped production of its rear-projection TVs earlier this month; Hitachi withdrew from the rear-projection market earlier this year as well.

All three companies planned to take on Texas Instruments' DLP technology with alternatives like 3LCD and SXRD.  However, these alternatives were inferior to DLP either in cost or marketshare, and spent the majority of their short lives playing catch-up. 

Sony will stop its rear-projection TV production at three plants in February.  The company still plans to announce SXRD front-projection units, including the anticipated WPL-VW40.

Reuters speculates plasma TV will be the next technology on the chopping block with TV makers rushing towards OLED panels and larger LCD panels in 2008. Earlier this year Sony exited the plasma TV market; the company is placing all its eggs into the LCD and OLED basket.

Yet Sony does have one unplayed ace.  After national rival Toshiba exited from the OLED market earlier this month, Sony became the only company in the world with working large-screen OLED displays. 

Anyone at Texas Instruments will tell you: being first has its benefits.

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Whats better?
By GhandiInstinct on 12/27/2007 3:00:36 PM , Rating: 2
DLP LCD or Plasma?

I've been eyeing Pioneer Kuro but they say Plasma degrades faster than others and is more pricey.




RE: Whats better?
By djc208 on 12/27/2007 3:33:55 PM , Rating: 5
Depends on what you want out of it?

DLP (or any rear projection) gives you big size for less money. TThey can't be wall mounted, many still have bulbs that will need to be replaced periodically, and some DLPs can have a rainbow effect that's distracting to some people. But if you want a 70" screen without having to take out another mortgage it's your only option.

LCD's are thin, use less power, and can have very good pictures. Black levels are not as good as the others, they can suffer from a narrow field of view, and lower quality pannels can suffer from motion blur. These are probably the best for most uses right now and the prices have been dropping so fast it's hard not to get one, but they get very expensive the bigger you go.

Plasma has better picture quality since it works more like the old tube TVs, come in larger sizes, and can still be wall mounted. They can have issues with screen burn-in over time, and they use lots of electricity when they're on.

In the end Plasma and LCD do not compete much any more, LCD has slowly pushed plasmas back from the smaller 37~46" sizes. Above that (50"+) LCD's get too expensive to compete with a plasma.

Rear projectors are slowly being phased out at the smaller end as well (42" and 46") by cheaper LCDs, and tend to compete against plasmas in the 50+" size and are the only reasonable option above about 60" to about 70" when you start looking at regular projectors (with seperate screens).


RE: Whats better?
By jpeyton on 12/27/2007 4:47:23 PM , Rating: 2
Typo:

Earlier this year Sony [b]excited[/b] the plasma TV market;

The correct spelling is "exited".


RE: Whats better?
By Oregonian2 on 1/2/2008 3:00:15 PM , Rating: 2
I thought they left that market a long long time ago (at least in terms of making product). They were very very late getting away from their proprietary CRT Trinitron technology and got too far behind on Plasma technology to catch up and went to concentrate on LCDs.


RE: Whats better?
By scrapsma54 on 12/28/2007 2:38:44 AM , Rating: 2
We are missing another important factor in why dlp is superior. Contrast ratio. Dlp so far is the current market production that boast really superior and consistent contrast ratios. As for the raibow effect that many see, this has been remedied in Lazer dlp which removes the motorized colorwheel and replaces that with 3 straightfoward lazers each a specific color.


RE: Whats better?
By Oregonian2 on 1/2/2008 2:55:46 PM , Rating: 2
I thought it was plasmas that ruled contrast ratios?


RE: Whats better?
By timmiser on 12/28/2007 2:12:14 PM , Rating: 2
That is a great summary of the pros and cons of each type of TV. I have a 72" Toshiba DLP and love it.

One thing I would add to the LCD summary is the tendencies of LCD monitors to have stuck pixels.


RE: Whats better?
By elmikethemike on 12/28/2007 10:46:35 PM , Rating: 2
Sorry but your entire post is rife with misinformation. It's too much to even correct here.

As an example:

quote:
Plasma has better picture quality since it works more like the old tube TVs


I mean, that's not even remotely true.


RE: Whats better?
By Oregonian2 on 1/2/2008 2:52:07 PM , Rating: 2
The better PQ part is correct, but the only resemblance to CRT's is the use of phosphors.


RE: Whats better?
By MajorPaver on 12/27/2007 3:41:11 PM , Rating: 1
Man - you should never have asked that question as the deluge will now commence.

A deluge of such staggering proportions that Noah will start building that pesky boat of his again.

So, here's my $2:

DLP - generally quite good, but I can't get around the viewing angle issues, even on the best sets.

LCD - 2 years ago, I would've run from them like the plague. Blacks were grey and colors were just - weird. Now that's been improved. LED backlit displays are looking particularly promising, but even traditional CCF backlit is pretty good now.

PLASMA - still my tech of choice - and with screen half-lives of better than 60,000 hours, degradation is not an issue. Generally still the brightest and blackest. BUT, eats power like a Packers Fan eats bratwurst. Also, before the old saw about "burn-in" pops up AGAIN. It's not a problem anymore. I game and watch letterboxed movies regularly and have for nearly 2 years. Not a single problem.

Really, I'd say I'd pick between LCD and Plasma and base the choice on inputs and picture processing.


RE: Whats better?
By rikulus on 12/27/2007 4:19:57 PM , Rating: 2
I'll believe burn-in is no longer a concern for plasma televisions when I see an owner's manual for said TV that doesn't list it among their warnings. When even the best plasmas (which presumably incorporate the best means of avoiding burn-in) still warn against still images and have a break-in period, you can't say it's no longer a problem for any plasma TV's.


RE: Whats better?
By bigboxes on 12/27/2007 5:47:46 PM , Rating: 2
My LCD monitor also has a warning of burn-in. The point is that it's bearable and fixable, just as are today's plasma televisions.


RE: Whats better?
By kmmatney on 12/27/2007 4:46:15 PM , Rating: 2
I can speak from first-hand experience that Plasma screen still suffer from burn-in. I bought mine about a year ago, and there there is definately burn-in. There is a screen scrubber utility that you can run for 2 hours to remove most of the burn-in, but it still happens. The picture is still good, but I probably won't buy another plasma.


RE: Whats better?
By MajorPaver on 12/27/2007 7:18:19 PM , Rating: 2
I suppose if you leave Bloomberg up for 12 hours a day or play Halo or an equal time-waster for an equivalent length of time...you WILL get burn-in. You'll also get it on an LCD or a CRT.

It's the dirty little secret people forget about CRTs, they were tremendously burn-in prone - primarily because they use phosphor based screens just like plasma.

I and 3 friends all have plasmas at least a gen old and no one has had a burn-in issue. The sets run the gamut from Philips to Panny to Samsung and see heavy use.

I don't know, I guess treat them rationally and don't crank the brightness up to 90 and problems are non-existent.


RE: Whats better?
By giantpandaman2 on 12/27/2007 8:57:51 PM , Rating: 2
Old CRT's were tremendously susceptible to burn in. That last gen, though, was not. I'm still running a 19" CRT. Play games on it for ungodly marathon sessions on it every once in a while. No burn in.

Moot point, however, since they don't make any good ones anymore.


RE: Whats better?
By therealnickdanger on 12/28/2007 8:48:49 AM , Rating: 3
You all should take note that there is a difference between "burn in" and "image retention". The latter goes away when the image is white-washed or refreshed. Newer plasmas use improved phosphors (specifically green) that reduce IR considerably. For the most part, IR is no longer noticeable unless you go from bright text to a black screen. Burn-in is something that can never be removed: the phospors are literally burned.


RE: Whats better?
By Moishe on 12/27/2007 3:43:24 PM , Rating: 2
Rear-projection was really just a stopgap product until large flat panels became cheap. Obviously there has been a decent period of time for RP TVs to fill that gap, but their time is basically all but over.

Flat panel TVs are "it" for the viewing angle, brightness, clarity, etc. The different techs within the flat panels have their own pros and cons of course. For the money right now though, Plasma and regular LCDs are in the sweet spot.

OLED and the special backlit LCDs, and stuff like SED are either not here yet, or are still too expensive for the average person.


RE: Whats better?
By DigitalFreak on 12/27/2007 7:57:36 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Rear-projection was really just a stopgap product until large flat panels became cheap. Obviously there has been a decent period of time for RP TVs to fill that gap, but their time is basically all but over.


Ever bothered to price a flat panel screen over 50"? I'd hardly say they're cheap.


RE: Whats better?
By Moishe on 12/28/2007 8:06:36 AM , Rating: 2
They're not cheap, and the rear projection stopgap is still in effect. However, a 42" LCD was more than double the price of a RP TV just a couple of years ago and now they're in the sub-1k sweet spot.

As LCD gets cheaper RP's only advantage (price) will dissolve and they will be gone. It's already happening.


RE: Whats better?
By Khato on 12/27/2007 6:17:58 PM , Rating: 2
Well, my favorite by far are the 3LCD projectors. Purrsonally don't care for anything DLP due to the distraction that rainbow artifacts provide. (The LED powered DLP still suffer from this, but to a -much- lesser extent.)

But anyway, the only reason to get a rear projection tv is if you don't have a good spot/can't get a room reasonably dark. If you have a wall you can project on in a room that you can get reasonably dark... Well, it's hard to beat 100"+ screen sizes that don't suffer from -any- viewing angle issues.


RE: Whats better?
By ZeroGuardian on 12/27/2007 7:56:14 PM , Rating: 2