Digital TVs: More screen for less green

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Who has better deals? Electronic stores or online retailers?
Buying a digital television online instead of in a retail store can save consumers as much as $1,500, said IDC's O'Donnell. Lower operating expenses, less expensive warehouses and fewer sales staff all give online outlets like Amazon.com the best chance at lower prices.

Still, buying a $3,000 display sight unseen can be daunting, O'Donnell said. Even Dell has set up kiosks in shopping malls to let consumers get a closer look at the company's products.

Who are the biggest names in this business, and who are the big price cutters?
Samsung, Sony, Pioneer, Hitachi, Toshiba, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric (Panasonic), Sharp, JVC, RCA and NEC dominate store shelves. Lesser-known manufacturers, which could put pressure on the big guys to cut prices, include Akai, Daewoo, BenQ, Planar, ToteVision, Jwin and Electrograph.

Then there is the Dell effect.

Dell currently sells two categories of digital televisions--19 inch to 26 inch and 30 inch to 42 inch. But the company is preparing to sell larger sizes in September.

In a recent interview with CNET News.com, Dell CEO Kevin Rollins predicted Dell's prices for big-screen digital televisions eventually will drop below $1,000, which would put plenty of pressure on consumer electronics giants such as Sony and Samsung.

Are manufacturers getting better at making these TVs?
No doubt, and that's bringing down prices. Russ Johnston, a senior vice president of marketing at Pioneer, said factory mistakes at his company were down as much as 40 percent from a few years ago. Because of that and lower component prices, Pioneer has been able to drop prices by as much as 30 percent every year since 1998, when it sold a large-screen television for $25,000.

These things are nice-looking, but are they durable?
While all televisions and displays degrade over time, IDC found the plasma variety only lost about 5 percent of their performance when subjected to accelerated aging tests.

Many plasma TV vendors now claim 60,000-hour lifetimes. That's eight hours of television every day for more than 20 years before the screen reaches half of its original brightness. But true duration tests will take several years to conduct.

What about dead pixels and plasma burn?
One of the more common concerns with plasmas is problems with residual pictures staying on a screen when the television is turned off. That was especially true of early generations of plasma TVs, according to IDC.

Even with more modern machines, IDC found clearly visible images from a video game menu after a 48-hour torture test of three plasma TVs. Similar tests with the LCD and DLP rear projection sets showed no image retention. However, after regular video material (a DVD movie set to continuously loop) was played through the sets for 24 hours, the image completely disappeared from all three plasmas, leaving no trace.

Dead pixels--malfunctioning electronic dots among the millions that make up a typical display--are also becoming more of an issue, partly because consumers have high expectations for the quality of digital television.

[gdmaclew]

Not Low Enough Yet

Even prior to this gasoline fiasco, prices for HD TV's were already too high for the average consumer.
Now that consumers will have even less money leading up to Christmas, prices will have to drop by 50% or more to entice anyone other than the rabid sports fans.
I want a $500 HD TV and I'm waiting until it's offered.

Waiting for 50 inch plasma below 2500

500 is still a way off. But I would like to see a consumer model 50 inch plasma for below 2500 *including shipping and taxes*. This is the first true HDTV Plasma so it is the least you should get.

Contrary to popular belief the 42 inch (1024x768) is not HDTV because 720p is 1280x720... so it is a bit short on the horizontal.

Still overpriced

Someday these will be cheap enough to buy, but not yet.

[shadowself]

Be careful with apples versus oranges

The different technologies are definitely priced differently. That is a given.

However, what is often overlooked is the native on screen resolution.

Sure... they all CLAIM to support all four HDTV formats (720i, 720p, 1080i, 1080p) but most of them don't really. The vast majority of currently shipping systems have only 1280x720 pixels showing on the physical screen. Most claiming support for the 1080i and/or 1080p standard down sample any 1080i/1080p signal to 720p and display it at that resolution.

I'll wait for a decently priced system that can natively show all four standards on the screen. Show me a 50+ inch which does that and costs less than $2,000, and I'll open up my wallet.

And where are the sets that support the new digital cinema format ratified over a year ago(4096 x 2160)? (Just joking. I don't expect to see a consumer system supporting that standard for at least 10 more years. Yet a 72+ inch system with that resolution and 7.1 sound would mean I'd never have to go to the cinema again!)

[Christopher Hall]

I want nothing less...

...than IMAX.

140 foot screen... 45.7 surround sound... 14,000 Watt rear speakers (all eight of them)...

Until I can put that in my living room and completely demolish every house in a thirty mile radius, my wallet's closed.

:-)

Okay, maybe not.

[fredmenace]

"HD"

Of course, interlaced 1080i sets can't show 720p in all its glory either. While individual signals or displays are meant to be at least 720p or 1080i to be HD, it's pretty clear that an end result of 720i is acceptable as "HD", since that's essentially what you see when formats are displayed on the "wrong" type of set. (And of course many "720" sets are actually different resolutions, like 1024x1024, or 1366x768, with the 1280x720 image scaled to that resolution.)

(Also note that 1080i loses a significant amount of resolution due to interlace, and generally doesn't display 1920 across anyway, with 1440 much more common due to limitations of cameras, displays, or just the compression needed to get it into the channel, plus interlace doesn't compress as well in the first place. So just because it has a bigger number associated with it does not mean that it's actually better-looking than 720p.)

In that sense, the 1080p sets will give the best of both worlds.

But you have a good point: the article is talking about DLP, plasma and LCD, but then at one point appearantly quotes a price for a *CRT* rear projector, which are much cheaper. Not that there's anything wrong with CRT projectors, but without noting that fact it seems a bit deceptive.

[Razzl]

Story was obsolete before it got written...

I'm kind of surprised a CNET writer is so out of touch with the marketplace--major retailers such as Best Buy, Circuit City, Walmart.com, and Sam's Clubs have all had a 42-inch price-leader plasma for under $1600 since the beginning of this year; in fact, they are down to $1400 for a couple of models. To say now in September that people are waiting around for prices to fall to $2500 is to make yourself look ridiculous. (Maybe it's time to go on sabbatical and teach a few classes for those cops who are still learning how to find the cache on their IE browser).

As for the new projection tv's, they're only in the running until people actually see one in the store and realize that the picture quality still rots and you still can't hang them on the wall. If only 20,000 units are being shipped (instead of the 18 MILLION plasma/lcd units mentioned) then 80% of them must be floor models to fill up space in retail stores. They will stay there until they can be donated to Salvation Army next year...

[baggyguy1218]

Forget about it...

HD TVs will not go down (meaning cheaper than today) in price until all programming is delivered in digital/High Definition. Once a digital TV is the norm, then prices will drop considerablly. For all of you not willing to spend the money, they do offer CRT HiDef TVs for around 500 dollars. December 31 2006 at 11:59 pm, we will find out what HD has in store.