DailyTech - Sony Exits Plasma TV Market

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Hardware Sony Exits Plasma TV Market
Brandon Hill (Blog) - August 7, 2006 3:28 PM

75 comment(s) - last by exdeath.. on Aug 9 at 12:09 PM

Sony gives up on plasma

Sony has announced plans to exit the plasma TV market. The company has been facing increasing pressure in the market and it doesn't own any plasma display panel (PDP) plants to support its business. Sales for Sony PDPs for fiscal year 2005 were down 67% compared to the year before and the company has failed to disclose its targets for the current fiscal year. Coupled with the enormous amount of backing Sony has committed to LCD, the move to exit the plasma market was almost inevitable.

With PDPs now out of the picture, Sony can now focus its efforts entirely on LCD TV production where it has seen much success. Back in February, DailyTech reported that Sony was number one in global sales for LCD TVs for Q4 2005. To keep up the momentum, Sony and Samsung invested $2 billion USD into the expansion of their jointly owned 7G LCD facility. The investment increased monthly production by 50,000 units per month. Sony is seeing large profit margins for LCD TV panels of 40" and above so the company is focusing on that sector of the market and is preparing for 8G. DigiTimes reports:

In a bid to secure more panels with which to win the large-size TV battle, Sony has signed a contract for the construction of an eighth-generation (8G) TFT-LCD production line through S-LCD, a joint venture with Samsung in July. The new plant is targeted to start production in fall 2007, with a monthly capacity of 50,000 glass substrates.

Earlier this year, Sony had to issue a recall for over 400,000 of its Bravia flat-screen and Grand Wega rear-projection LCD televisions. It was found that affected models wouldn't turn off after prolonged usage.

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RE: Quality

By jskirwin on 8/7/2006 4:32:55 PM , Rating: 3

Ghosting isn't a problem?
I'm not pro, but whenever I see images on LCD I see ghosting. A few weeks back the stores had on the World Cup (beats me why - this is baseball/(US)football territory) and the ghosting was so bad on the units I could barely stand to watch.

The Panasonic TH-50PX60U was simply gorgeous. It was bright from all viewing angles, sharper than the LCD and no ghosting.

Honestly I'm no fanboy of either tech and am happy to watch the prices fall as the quality improves. But if I had an extra $3k that day, that Panasonic would have been mine.

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RE: Quality

By RamarC on 8/7/2006 4:42:30 PM , Rating: 2

I've got a Sony 50" LCD and don't find ghosting a problem at all. When watching broadcast content, there's always the chance that the problem lay in the feed. Compression artifacts are common in some broadcast feeds and they may have been squeezing its excessively for the satellite bounce.

Watch FOX's NFL football, NASCAR, or better yet, hockey this season to get a better benchmark. The black puck/uniforms on white ice will definitely point out any ghosting. If you're buying a set, ask them to put in a copy of video essentials and some HD discs.

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RE: Quality

By Samus on 8/7/2006 6:19:17 PM , Rating: 2

A Panasonic Plasma literally abliterates any competition from any LCD manufacturer. They have unbelievable picture quality.

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RE: Quality

By BladeVenom on 8/7/2006 7:11:31 PM , Rating: 2

As long as you can ignore the humming sound plasma TVs make.

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RE: Quality

By Xavian on 8/8/2006 2:03:57 AM , Rating: 2

this is the truth, Panasonic Plasma's put every single LCD TV i've seen to shame. The Contrast and sharpness on a panasonic plasma (even in 720p) is amazing. The only drawback of plasma's is that its difficult to get them up to 1080p resolution since the 'pixels' or rather cells on a plasma are much larger compared to LCD's.

Until the glaring overbearing brightness on LCD's is fixed (probably with OLED's no doubt) i will go with plasma for any TV purchase i make.

Then again, i wish SED came out, since that seems to be the best of both worlds.

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RE: Quality

By Xavian on 8/8/2006 2:06:24 AM , Rating: 2

oh and screen burning is simply not a problem after approximately 200 or so hours of use. For those 200 hours i would put the plasma on something that has no permanant logo's or static images.

Once you have completeled 200 hours of burn in, you'll never have to worry about screen burning for the remainder of the plasma's life.

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