Plasma fights back

chris

To date it is the LCD display that has won the battle of the flat-panels, certainly for sizes up to about 37”. But plasma set manufacturers are fighting back with thinner, brighter and more energy-efficient sets.
GfK’s latest numbers from Asia confirm the global trend where LCD televisions outsell plasma units by five to one. Incidentally, GfK Asia says the region (excluding Japan) will buy 22m flat-panels this year, up 60% on 2007. Plasma sales rose “only” 37% in Asia.

Globally the Plasma Display Coalition (PDC) suggests that consumers will buy 30m Plasma displays this year, up from 25m last year. These are still good numbers on a technology that is only eight years old in terms of mass availability, but “next generation” displays are approaching. Jim Palumbo, PDC’s president, talking to Fox Business said there was plenty of scope for technological improvement. “Plasmas are going to get even thinner and have extremely better quality," said Palumbo. “Flat panel is where the industry is moving.”

First step is thinner displays with most well-known brands moving towards ever-thinner units, with “Ultra-Thin” displays having 1.5” thickness likely to be on the shelves by 2009. Panasonic is reportedly working on 1” units, while Pioneer has shown off a 50” display that’s just 9mm thin (less than half-an-inch).

Second stage is to cut down on power-consumption, and this process has been on-going for the past few years. Panasonic, at January’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) demonstrated a 42” display that has what was described as “double efficiency”, in that it consumed about half the normal power but delivered a much-enhanced brightness. Panasonic says its plasmas now have a typical life of 42 years when used for an average 6.5 hours a day.

Step three is to boost the display size while at the same time keeping costs affordable. While 42” has for some years been the nominal size of a plasma unit, most manufacturers see 50”-65” as being the sweet spot for sales, although most are also testing 100” units and above. Panasonic is planning on commercialising a wall-busting 150” unit (for a reported $50,000) shortly. Just to put that price into perspective, Sony was the first Plasma manufacturer to introduce a 42” unit in the mid-1990’s at $10,000.

But Panasonic’s 150” (almost 11 feet wide) concept is for a “digital hearth” or “life wall” of a television screen with 2K x 4K resolution, measuring less than one inch thick (and with half the power consumption of today’s units). Demonstrated at CES in January, Panasonic suggested that wireless technology would be used to “transmit” images from and within the home (using their Viera Link product). The vision for “life wall” is that the technology will recognise viewer’s faces in a home, putting up a user interface for that individual, and using simple hand signals (and thus do away with a remote control) bring up more than one TV image with the Life Wall providing space for an individual or a family to view multiple images – or one massive screen for special “all family” screenings.

It might all be a bit far fetched, but so were 42” Plasmas just 10 years ago.


Source: Rapid TV News