According to this article........ Pioneer has or will be stopping ALL production of their fame Plasma tv's......

When it comes to plasma tvs, IMO Pioneer is a name that comes up to mind..... Just like Kleenex is to tissue.


Guess when the time comes for me to get a new tv......... i'll be looking at LCDs (originally I wanted a Plasma tv)

http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/plasma-tv-is-dead

Aye, but LCD's have always been better than Plasma's. So I read anyways. I also believe
Plasma's had a shorter life span compared to LCD's and even CRT's!
Tbh, I ..... damn i forgot what I was gonna say.... my mum just called me aarrrghh!!

Tam-the-Bam said:

LOL.....

so when she says " Jump "....... do you reply back " How high mum? "...... LOL..... just messing with ya....



in my opinion.... I have always liked plasma over LCDs because of all the ones that I have compared plasma to LCDs in different environments.... the plasma seems to have the edge on blacks being blacker, color is more vibriant, less motion noise on fast scenes, and came in larger format..... unfortunately, the good ones costs more than the best LCDs. But with that said, over the years...... LCDs have improved alot in all those areas I have mentioned and it cost less at it. The two things that I have seen in LCDs that I like are the introduction of 120hz frequency panel which I hope will improve the distortions you sometimes see in extreme fast scenes and the fact that LCD dont burn if you hook up your computer or any source that have stationary images (plasma are prone to some burn ins)

Haha I know... 36 and my mum phones me and I jump! She has that effect on me haha!

Good ol mothers!

Lol yea! Can't live with em can't live without em! Now... back onto those Plasmas... lol

I'm against LCDs so this is sad news but, the consumer base is apparently convinced LCD is the be-all visual apparatus so everything else goes the way of the dodo bird. Depressing.

FordGT90Concept said:

I'm hoping the LASER HD display lives up to its potential in higher performance and lower price.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/63255/?o=20#459494

Apparently, the launch date (which I assumed meant consumer availability) got pushed out to sometime in 2008...

"With a worldwide launch date scheduled for Christmas 2007, under recognisable brands like Mitsubishi and Samsung, Novalux chief executive Jean-Michel Pelaprat is so bold as to predict the death of plasma." (looks like it didn't take LASER HD to do it)

Some other links:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/01/ces-2008-mitsub.html
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006226.html
http://popsci.typepad.com/popsci/2008/01/mu-ha-ha-ha-las.html
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/08/mitsubishi-laser-tv-unveiled/

Well it's final, pioneer willl not be making plasma's in house. Might come back in 2010 though. For now though Pioneer lcds sound good, especially if they can get better black levels and no ghosting.

http://www.cepro.com/article/pioneer_to_stop_plasma_manufactur..._add_lcds/

There is also the pioneer restucturing pdf in the above link.

I prefer plasma over lcd and pioneer was the best when it came to plasma, but I guess we shall see what happens over the next couple years with pioneer.

FordGT90Concept said:

The LCD is not be-all, it's be-enough. That's why it's the leading display format. Many technologically superior products have gone the way of the dodo, and that will not change so long as other factors go into a purchasing decision.

Once again I see the VHS/BetaMax happening... same with Blur Ray and HD

It was doomed to happen eventually, and a friend who was a former Samsung employee told me about two or three years ago that eventually LCDs will be cheaper then Plasmas and that the LCD would likely become more popular then Plasmas. He predicted it, and while I doubted him at the time, it seems that he was right. He also mentioned to me how LCD TVs have higher profit margins than Plamsa TVs, but he said his favorite TV in his house out of the 7 HDTVs he owns is his Panasonic plasma.

My prediction is that we will probably see Plasma TVs pretty much disappear. I don't see how much longer Panasonic can continue to profit off of Plasma TVs, when no one else can. Sony stopped years ago due to the lack of profit, now Pioneer will stop making their own Plasmas. Give it a year and every plasma TV on the market will probably be made by Panasonic, whether it as branded as one or not. Hopefully they can continue to make a profit. I can see LCD technology progressing much faster than Plasma technology, if every plasma panel is made by Pansonic.

It is sad, because Pioneer was pretty much the best Plasma TV on the market, and their quality might not be quite as good with Panasonic technology inside instead of their own, but Panasonic's plasmas are very top notch as well and I doubt most people will notice much of a difference between a Pioneer with a Pioneer plasma inside or a Pioneer with a Panasonic plasma inside.


On a side note, anyone ever notice that the main producers of Plasma TVs started with the letter "P" and the major big time LCD makers all start with the letter "S":

Major Plasma TV makers: Pioneer, Panasonic
Major LCD TV makers: Sony, Samsung, Sharp

I always found that strange, but I guess it makes remembering the top brands for each technogloy a little easier.

Yeah, hardly see plasma TVs these days in stores anymore. LCDs though, you got whole freaking wall of them to look at. Here are two things I don't understand about LCD HDTVs.

One, I don't understand why are name brand HDTVs marked up as much as 40% in price compare to off-brand ones, even when they're very close in specs. E.g. you can get a 1080i 32" LCD TV as low as $500 bucks for el-cheapo brands, but same spec LCDs from Samsung, Sony, etc., cost at minimum $800 bucks a pop. A little bit more expensive can be understandable, but almost 40% difference is a bit outrageous. Is there really such dramatic difference in performance and quality between brand and off-brand?

Two, as we all know computer LCD monitors are far better displays than most LCD TV screens, in terms of resolution and refresh rates. Yes, for TVs, they have to add tuners, remote, speakers, and more types of A/V ports. But still can not justify the added price tag sometimes. E.g. you can get a good brand 24" - 28" LCD monitor about $400 - $600 bucks, with resolution of 1920 x 1200 (exceeds 1080p). You can get only 23" - 26" 1080i LCD TV with laughable 1366 x 768 res in about the same price range. For a comparable 1080p TV (usually only comes 32" and up though), it's easily exceeding $1000 bucks (name brands). I think it's just a way to rip off consumers -- ya, ya, it's 1080p, very very good, pay up idiots. Since most folks don't know they can make their PC into a TV, and enjoy far better quality entertainment with a screen fraction of the cost (though may not be as big).

Most people don't even need a TV tuner or speakers since they have cable boxes/satellite boxes with HDMI outputs and home theater systems to output the sound to. You could easily buy a "PC monitor" LCD with an HDMI input and use it as your TV. Main problem would be that anything over 30" you won't be able to find unless you got for a "TV" LCD.

Adam Kolak said:
That's where the LASER displays should really shine. Supposedly comparable pricing (perhaps between LCD/plasma), larger size, higher resolution, better optical performance.

Dr. Peaceful said:

To answer your first part, yes there is a difference! The difference being washed out colors, resolution, blurry, slow response times, contrast ratios, viewing angles, other features such as 120hz refresh rates, # of inputs, speakers etc...

Second part: For me in canadian dollars I can get a 32" lcd 1080p tv for less than a 30" lcd monitor. Resolution doesn't matter unless you are feeding it that resolution and nothing is in 1920x1200 so it would scale it to 1920x1080 anyway and native resolution produces the best image quality. In regards to using your monitor at a fraction of the cost, it depends what size we are talking about.

Same things apply to plasma, except imo plasma produces the best picture quality.

The weirdest part of this for me is not that future Pioneer branded Plasma TVs will have PDP's manufactured by Matsus**ta/Panasonic but that there will be LCD TVs with the Pioneer name on the front. Pioneer and LCD is sort of like if Toshiba started making Blu-Ray players (although they probably will eventually).

Tam-the-Bam said:

Ya up to a Certain Size, then they become pricier, due to amt of internal components to make each pixel compared to CRTs that use Light to make the Pixels. What we need is best of CRTs and LCDs in a Single Unit, DLP Tri Chip would work but its mainly used in Commercial Theaters-thus high dollar, Consumers get a Single Chip with a Color Wheel- which some can detect the rainbow effect.

I always hated those projection TVs/projectors that have that rainbow effect your talking about, where you look right or left and see some weird lines of colors, it bothers me so much. Oddly enough, some people don't see it as much as me. Some people simply don't seem to notice it, but I see it rather easily and often.

same with me for Monitors that are at 60Hz or lower, i always get headaches, also the office lighting (flourescent) does affect your sight after many years.

Not sure I ever used a monitor that was lower than 60Hz. I remember in History class one year, they had a DLP projector for the PowerPoint presentations and I would look away and see a bunch of yellow/purple lines at the corner of my eye. It drove me insane.