By John Bugailiskis, AT CES
LAS VEGAS – Judging by the hundreds of flat panel TVs on display at this year’s CES, the war between LCD and plasma is showing no signs of coming to a quick end.
In fact LCD and plasma displays have improved in picture quality so much over the past year that manufacturers are scrambling to find ways to stand out in a crowded field. The fact is having reached 1080p or 1,920 by 1,080 resolutions for most sets there really is no need to further improve resolutions since 1080p is the maximum that high-definition discs can reach, and it’s higher than any HD signals being broadcast.
To stand out amid the fierce competition manufacturers are making their sets sleeker and slimmer to resemble more like pieces of art then just a TV.
Plasma makers seem to have the most to lose as there’s no doubt that LCDs definitely have the market momentum. Philips is exiting the plasma business and Sony will no longer make microdisplay sets. Even the industry's strongest advocate of plasma, Panasonic, is now selling a wider range of LCDs in larger sizes than before.
Toshiba’s strategy is to flood the market with new LCDs, 20 in all. LG is pimping its plasma by outfitting models with wireless capability.
LG Electronics response to the LCD and plasma debate is to offer displays that support both technologies and let consumers decide. It’s offering a 120Hz LCD TV and a 180 HZ bezel-less plasma screen. The LG60 LCD TV will come with a 120 Hz 1080p panel, and the PG60 1080p plasma has a bezel-less design that removes the usual gap between the screen and the housing. It also has a 30,000:1 contrast ratio, which LG claims is the industry’s highest, and it also almost doubles the current fastest refresh rate, with 180 Hz.
The releases come as Simon Kang, LG digital display company chief executive, said LG plans to become one of the top three global TV makers in 2008. He’s pinning the success of the new LCD and plasma TVs on their innovative designs and upgraded features as well as more aggressive marketing.
The marketing will focus on its premium products with extensive marketing campaigns to improve its reputation as well as its market share in developed countries.
Samsung is one of the few companies that still sell both LCDs, plasmas and microdisplay (DLP rear projection) sets. Samsung said that in 2007, about 18 million LCD TVs were sold in the U.S., compared to roughly 3.5 million plasma screens and 1.5 million microdisplay sets. In 2008, Samsung expects industry-wide sales to total 24 million LCDs, 3.8 million plasmas and just a million microdisplay sets.
LCD technology still can’t compete with the best plasmas in the areas of picture quality and response time, but manufacturers are making improvements. Upgrades to LCD backlights and other components keep expanding the contrast ratio of new models, allowing them to display darker shades of black.
Another feature that appears will become a standard in 2008 are LCD sets that show 120 frames per second. These 120 hertz sets compute frames to insert between the signal's frames, yielding visibly smoother motion and sharper pictures in action scenes that can compete better with plasmas.
Going to the dark side
Pioneer Corporation at CES unveiled concepts for future plasma display technologies under the code name "Project KURO." I was able to attend Pioneer’s showing of its prototype set showing extreme contrast and advanced design.
Pioneer says the extreme contrast concept will challenge the contrast ratio debate by producing the industry's first plasma that is absolute black with no measurable light emitting from the television. Contrast ratio is defined as the ratio of the luminosity of the brightest color (white) to that of the darkest color (black). While manufacturers all measure this differently, they agree that a high contrast ratio is desirable to recreate ideal picture quality. In televisions, the truer the black, the more accurate the color. If the prototype I saw at the Pioneer booth is any indication, then they seem to have achieved their goal of producing a set that displays absolute blacks.
The 50-inch display I saw was so black that even when it is on with no image displayed, the television is invisible when you walk into a completely dark room.
Pioneer says that thanks to the self emitting principle of plasma, they were “able to crack the code on plasma luminance.” The result they claim is absolute black with no measurable light coming from the television. For consumers, this creates the experience that the image is floating in space, with a picture that has exceptional detail and vivid color.
Pioneer's concept for the world's thinnest 50-inch flat panel display is also part of Pioneer's engineering passion. At only nine millimetres (mm) thin, this groundbreaking Project KURO technology results in a set that appears to be part of the wall, In addition, it’s extremely light weight (18.6kg/ 41lbs) allows the television to be easily wall mounted, contributing handsomely to interior decor without distracting-providing a spectacular setting for watching films. The downside, neither of these technologies will be available to consumers in 2008 and Pioneer wouldn’t speculate when they would hit the mass market.
Not to be outdone, Panasonic also showed a prototype of its next-generation, ultra-thin plasma TVs with a depth of less than 1 inch ( 24.7 mms to be exact) and also demonstrated a wireless HDTV set that eliminates the need to run cables.
Panasonic said it will introduce Internet-connected features to its new line of Viera TVs. Initially, the “VieraCast” feature will provide access to YouTube videos and Google’s Picasa photo-sharing Web site. VieraCast TVs may also include weather information from The Weather Channel, and stock and financial information from Bloomberg News.
Panasonic said the technologies are designed to fulfill its “digital hearth” concept that consumer electronics can bring families and friends together to share photos and videos and watch TV.
With its Living in High Definition project, the company aims to provide HD video products to 100 U.S. families by early 2009 “to get an understanding of how people use these devices” said Panasonic.
Hitachi Ltd. is bringing LCDs to the market this spring that are 1.5 inches thick but prices were not announced. Hitachi plans to offer monitors of 32, 37, and 42 inches, which are the most popular sizes in the mainstream consumer market.
The ultimate in thinness has been achieved with a completely different screen technology: organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs. Sony Corp. announced it is now selling the first OLED screen in the U.S. It's just 3 millimetres, or one-eighth of an inch thick. Sony executives contend that OLED technology will eventually replace the current LCD (liquid crystal display) and PDP (plasma display panel) sets that dominate the market as the technology of choice for flat panel high definition TVs.
The catch is that the current model’s screen is only 11 inches diagonally and costs $2,500. But it does produce a very pleasing image.
A set's thinness may not be readily apparent in an electronics store, so some manufacturers are adding color to the bezels of the TVs. Both Samsung and LG are adding accents of color to their otherwise black LCD bezels.
Manufacturers are realizing that the purchase process for flat-panel TVs is no longer dominated by merely size but often must pass meet women’s design expectations if they are to become part of the decor.
Countdown to the death of analog TV
Tuesday morning’s Industry Insider program featured Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Kevin Martin, who joined CEA President and CEO Gary Shapiro for a one-on-one conversation about broadband deployment in the U.S., net neutrality, two-way CableCard and the balance of copyright. Chairman Martin took questions from the audience, many of which focused on the transition to digital television (DTV).
When asked about the upcoming year, Martin said, “The spectrum auction and the one-year countdown to the DTV transition will be at the forefront off the FCC’s work.” He said the Februrary 17, 2009 analog cutoff was a “hard date” and would not be extended.
Cartt.ca consumer electronics editor John Bugailiskis is in Las Vegas this week covering the Consumer Electronics Show.
