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UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif.--To borrow from the real estate cliche, selling the "HD experience" is about education, education, education, according to the top-tier TV manufacturers.

Mainstream consumers, apparently, still don't quite get it, and the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of TV manufacturers, according to Randy Waynick, senior vice president of marketing for Sony's home products division.

Manufacturers such as Vizio have come out of nowhere to take away market share.

(Credit: Vizio)

"In the past year, if we were to grade ourselves, we were barely passing as an industry," he told an audience at the DisplaySearch HDTV conference here. Citing a study by Best Buy, 40 percent of consumers that own already own high-definition televisions don't know they need HD channel services or HD movies to take advantage of their TV's high resolution, he said.

While Sony sounds upset on behalf of their customers not getting the full HD experience, it's quite likely that they would be mollified if the general public were purchasing HD camcorders and Blu-ray Disc players en masse. And, of course, more TVs. Sony had a bit of a wake-up call earlier this year when some no-name TV manufacturers--Vizio and others--came out of nowhere to eat way into Sony's market share. The change is rooted in the club store model that Vizio has used to its advantage.

"There was a shift from traditional consumer electronics and A/V retailers to warehouses, clubs and mass merchants," said Edward Taylor, vice president of TV market research for DisplaySearch. "Now the retail market is shifting--clubs have low-risk return policies, and much lower channel margin they operate on, (which) ends up in lower prices for consumers. Vizio, Funai and Polaroid have exploited that successfully."

It also helps that, according to DisplaySearch data, a 42-inch 1080p LCD TV from Vizio is 20 percent to 30 percent cheaper than the same TV from other manufacturers. Sony, for its part, says it's determined not to play that game.

The flat-panel TV industry is "in a race to see how fast we can take the price points down," said Waynick, leaving it in a "sad state." Value, he pressed, is determined by more than price point. "We play differently, and we take a lot of hits for it sometimes because we want to provide a better value." It should be noted, of course, that Sony has already started to rebound since dropping to sixth place among LCD makers during the second quarter. Its market share is up a few points to 21.6 percent now, DisplaySearch said.

Though it's successfully played the underdog in its battle for brand-name recognition, Vizio's director of marketing Jeff Schindler agreed with Sony, saying that his company would also like for consumers to have a better understanding of the nuances of high-def TV watching, particularly in the area of plasma versus LCD, he said.

Another TV maker that hopes change is in the wings is Mitsubishi, which is on the verge of releasing the very first laser-based television. The long awaited rear-projection TV technology will finally arrive at CES in January, said Frank DeMartin, vice president of marketing for Mitsubishi. At the same time, Mitsubishi wants to use laser to create "a whole new category" of large-screen TV, starting with the preferred nomenclature. "'Rear projection,' I really hope we lose that as an industry going forward. 'Microdisplay' is not much better," he said.

That's likely because the prognosis for rear-projection TVs is not good, thanks to the success of LCD and plasma. DisplaySearch projects that there will be fewer than 100,000 rear-projection units selling in 2011, down from 1.6 million units this year.

Lucky for Mitsubishi, even if rear-projection isn't what consumers go shopping for when looking to buy a TV, the large size could potentially catch their eye. DisplaySearch data predicts that 50-inch and larger size TVs will be the biggest growth category in the next five years.

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif.--So you've finally got your mitts on that 42-inch LCD TV you've been lusting after since last Christmas. Congratulations. The major television manufacturers would like to thank you for your business by finding ways to make your shiny new display look old and out of date very quickly.

SyntaxBrillian is making a 1080p LCD TV for mainstream consumers with the introduction of the Olevia 2 Series. Shown here at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference is the 52-inch version, which will retail for $2,999.

(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET Networks)

It's nothing personal, of course. But such is the nature of a commoditized and maturing industry like high-definition televisions. There are more than 70 TV brands on retail shelves competing for your dollars and eyeballs, and the only way to differentiate themselves is to keep tweaking the technology.

Lucky for consumers, this drive for innovation not only means better picture quality, thinner displays and lower power consumption, but potentially lower prices too.

OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) TVs are coming very soon. Sony made it official October 1 that its first OLED TV, measuring a mere 3 millimeters thick, will be available in Japan for approximately $1,739. The problem is that's the price for the 11-inch display, the only size available at first. The high price comes from the poor yields of OLED panels, according to Ross Young, president of DisplaySearch.

"With significant improvement in yields, they could get to the $1,000 price point next Christmas," he told attendees here at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference. Because of Sony's leadership, Samsung, LG.Phillips and Toshiba are sure to follow using OLED technology in their televisions. But the market for these new sets won't actually experience real growth until 2009, and by 2011, the largest screen sizes will be hovering close to 32 inches at a price of $1,200, Young added. In contrast, LCDs should be below $500 by then.

Though it lacks a fun acronym like seemingly every other display technology, plasma technology is also making vast improvements. So much is made of high-def LCD sets that it may come as a surprise to some that plasma isn't a dead technology yet.

A plasma set from Panasonic, the world's largest supplier of plasma TVs, showcased at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference.

(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)

The best resolution available, 1080p, is moving to smaller sizes of plasma sets. The main area of interest in bettering the technology is in luminous efficiency, which is a fancy way of measuring of how much of the light your eye can see that the TV puts out. Right now, plasma sets are at about 2.5 lumens per watt. Eventually the goal is 10 lumens per watt, but 5 lumens is far more likely in the near future.

The benefit of a higher luminous efficiency is that there will be fewer components necessary to build plasma sets, which in turn reduces costs, Young said. It can also reduce power consumption by up to 50 percent and reduce the heat coming off the TV. "Plasma has done a great job cutting costs," and will continue to do so over the next five years, he said.

Another hope for creating better brightness while reducing costs is the use of LED (light-emitting diodes) as light sources. Both Dolby and Texas Instruments are working on the technology to replace the main lamp in HD televisions. LEDs can improve picture contrast because the lights can be individually "dimmed," unlike the single lamp in a standard LCD TV. Darkening individual pixels helps eliminate color bleed and motion blur.

Dolby has several LED-related patents in the area of local dimming technology and high dynamic range. Pictured here is a demo display unit utilizing Dolby Vision (which allows for increased brightness) and Dolby Contrast, featured at the DisplaySearch HDTV Conference.

(Credit: Erica Ogg/CNET News.com)

Thus far, the challenge of LED TVs has been the brightness factor, said Adam Kunzman, HDTV manager for Texas Instruments.

"We're just now getting to...a bright enough picture. (Brightness in LED TVs) will essentially double next year," said Kunzman. He says right now 15 percent of all TVs sold using TI's DLP (digital light processing) technology use LED as a light source.

Dolby is focusing on using LEDs to create very high contrast ratios, using patented technology called Dolby Contrast. It is a dimming technology that can create very dark blacks and pure whites by turning down individual pixels as needed. As Bharath Rajagopalan, business line director for Dolby put it, "It's not just about black and white, it's about shades of gray," which standard LCD TVs struggle with.

The use of lasers in rear-projection TVs has been anticipated since Mitsubishi first announced its intention to release a laser-based TV last year. (Though some might not be eager to stare at a device projecting a laser beam, it's not as dangerous as it sounds.)

Mitsubishi's first product likely won't debut until early next year. In the meantime, TI is also working on laser-based TV technology. The benefits will be better color (it shows 171 percent of possible colors that the human eye can detect, according to TI's Kunzman), wider viewing angles and is capable of working with TI's 3D technology for televisions.