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If you've been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to own the thinnest flat-panel LCD TV, now's your chance.

Hitachi's 1.5 LCDs are just that thick.

(Credit: Hitachi)

Though already available in Asia, the 1.5-inch-thick TVs from Hitachi are now available in the U.S. The sets come in three different screen sizes, 32 inches, 37 inches, and 42 inches.

One of the secrets, by the way, of how Hitachi managed to slim down the TVs so much is that they took out the ATSC tuner. And although it is definitely the thinnest LCD TV, it's downright bloated when compared to Sony's impossibly thin OLED TV, which measures a mere 3 millimeters thick.

See my colleague David Katzmaier's take on the latest TV from Hitachi here.

Panasonic has been tapped to pinch-hit for Pioneer.

The two television makers said Wednesday they had come to an agreement in which Panasonic will produce the panels for Pioneer's plasma televisions.

(Credit: Pioneer)

The news comes a month after reports surfaced that Pioneer was pulling out of the plasma business. When Pioneer confirmed it would be finding someone who could make the panels more inexpensively than it could, there was a sense of dismay and disappointment among fans of its Kuro technology. Pioneer plasma TVs are generally regarded by experts--including CNET Reviews' David Katzmaier--as having the blackest black levels of any TV on the market.

In a joint statement, the two companies said they will build a new type of panel that integrates Pioneer's Kuro technology and Panasonic's NeoPDP, which it currently uses in its Viera TVs. Panasonic will have the panels sporting the new, combined technology ready for Pioneer by the second half of 2009.

Panasonic is the largest producer of plasma TVs, so the panels should be more affordable for Pioneer, which is trying to cut costs. Neither has said how much the panels will cost.

Sony might be gaining share in the LCD TV market, but the overall television segment of Sony Electronics is still losing money.

(Credit: Target)

On Tuesday, Sony announced a change to top management intended to reverse its sagging TV profits. The head of Sony's audio business, Hiroshi Yoshioka, has been tapped to replace Takashi Fukuda, who has run the TV business, the Wall Street Journal reported. The change takes affect Tuesday.

Though Sony has aggressively stepped up its TV shipments recently--it shipped the most LCD TVs worldwide for the last quarter of 2007--profits are a different story. The company said earlier this year it did not expect to post a profit for the fiscal year that ended Monday.

Sony's TV unit has struggled over the last year, but its electronic business has improved overall. The head of its U.S. electronics business, Stan Glasgow, said last month that the holiday sales period in late 2007 was the company's best ever.

Many of the top-tier TV manufacturers were caught off-guard by upstart LCD TV brands like Vizio and Westinghouse, which quickly drove down the costs of LCD sets in 2007 by selling through club stores like Costco and Sam's Club.

In response, Sony, which has traditionally branded itself as a high-end electronics seller, began cautiously testing out LCD models made specifically for discount retailers Wal-Mart Stores and Target last summer. The lower-priced and more basic-featured models were a smashing success, according to Glasgow, and Sony has increased the number of models it offers through both retail outlets.

Update:This blog has been corrected to reflect that the total flat-panel display business value represents global sales.

SAN DIEGO--This year could be a turning point for the flat-panel TV industry, as it decides how it will face the dual threats of market saturation and rapidly declining prices.

The total flat-panel display business in the worldwide in 2007 was $102 billion, up from $11 billion in 1998, according to DisplaySearch. And while that growth is encouraging, it's not necessarily good news for all sectors of the market.

One of the success stories is the rise of LCD (liquid crystal display) televisions, which finally overtook CRT (cathode ray tube) TVs in units shipped in 2007 for the first time ever. Other good news for the industry: the prices of the actual panels coming out of the factories owned by Sharp, Samsung, and others, were actually up last year, something that hadn't happened since early 2003, according to DisplaySearch. Panel suppliers engineered that by creating a shortage through carefully controlled inventory.

But the picture for the year ahead isn't as rosy for everyone.

Second-tier TV brands like Westinghouse continue to drive down prices for LCD TVs, which is good for consumers, not so good for retailers and other TV makers.

(Credit: Westinghouse)

"It's going to be a tough year for (original equipment manufacturers), brands, and retailers," Ross Young, president and founder of DisplaySearch, said here at the U.S. Flat Panel Display conference put on by his firm.

That's principally because the average selling price of flat-panel televisions in retail stores continue to drop, thanks to second- and third-tier TV makers that are driving down prices, as well as the growing power of Wal-Mart Stores and other mass-market retailers in the consumer electronics space.

Wal-Mart in particular is positioning itself as a place to buy traditional top-tier brands, not just cheap imports. It's expanding all consumer electronics offerings in its stores this coming year. Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Fassler, who follows the CE industry, called it "a well-coordinated set-up" that displays and promotes brands like Samsung and Sony.

"Clearly, there's the beginning of a market-wide shift here, which for specialty retailers, doesn't bode all that well," Fassler said.

Sony first started offering specific models of its LCD TVs to Wal-Mart (and also to Target) midway through 2007 on a limited basis. Last week, Stan Glasgow, president of Sony Electronics in the U.S., told CNET News.com that his company would be expanding the number of TV models in the deal with Wal-Mart by 40 percent.

There seems to be a number of shifts occuring, including one back toward the established brands like Sony, Sharp, and Samsung, and away from the smaller players.

"This could be a shake out year in LCD TV market," DisplaySearch's Young said.

More than others, he added, it will probably help Sony in particular. "They're well positioned in the high end of market, and well positioned to take lots of share. They're making a lot of aggressive moves with OEMs, which makes things more difficult for second and third tiers."

The signs are already pointing that direction. After a poor showing in the first half of 2007, Sony rebounded in a major way in the most recent holiday season and despite its tradition of charging higher prices than its competitors, came away in the fourth quarter of 2007 as the top supplier of LCD TVs.

Pioneer plans to let someone else make its plasma TV panels, according to several reports.

Reuters reported Tuesday that the company will cease production of its own plasma panels because that portion of its business continues to lose money. The company will still sell plasma sets, but plans to get its plasma panels from Matsushita, parent company of Panasonic, the Nikkei business daily reported. Panasonic is the biggest plasma TV vendor in the world, shipping nearly 40 percent of all plasma displays, while Pioneer ranks fifth, shipping just over 6 percent of plasmas worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2007, according to DisplaySearch.

(Credit: Pioneer)

So far, Pioneer isn't confirming or denying the reports ("Our headquarters are planning to publicly discuss our TV strategy at the end of this week, so we'll have no information until then," said a spokesperson), but it doesn't look good.

As CNET colleague and resident TV expert David Katzmaier put it, this news amounts to "a black day for black levels."

Pioneer has been repositioning its plasma business over the last few years as a premium brand, most recently pushing its "Kuro" technology, which emphasizes deep black levels and contrast, at CES 2007 and 2008. CNET Reviews ranked the 50-inch plasma from Pioneer as "the best it's ever tested" last year.

Though it appears Pioneer will continue to sell plasmas sets, if it's not making the panels, it seems unlikely that it will prolong the life of its Kuro technology. Pioneer is, however, already planning to buy liquid crystal display panels from Sharp in order to start selling LCD TVs. LCD sets have quickly become the fastest-growing TV technology, displacing traditional cathode-ray tube sets, as well as rear-projection and plasma.

Sony is suddenly in unfamiliar territory. And that's not a bad thing.

The consumer electronics company, which has long put a premium on quality over TV volumes, was the leader in LCD televisions shipped in North America during the fourth quarter. At an almost 13 percent unit share, it's a fairly dramatic leap for the company, which jumped from fourth place to first in the space of one quarter.

(Credit: Vizio)

Sony entered the last year with caution, saying that flat-panel TV prices were dropping too fast, but ended on a decidedly different note.

Sony Electronics President Stan Glasgow seemed to have seen this one coming. Back in November he told CNET News.com that judging by the orders the company had taken, "it could be the best holiday season in the last couple of years."

Display Search analyst Paul Gagnon said it wasn't any particular pricing scheme that pushed Sony into the lead, but rather that the company was able to provide exactly what big-box retailers wanted to sell. "They pushed big screen sizes, 1080p (resolution), and high-value, high-margin products," Gagnon said.

Sony seemed to recognize early in 2007 that something needed to change and altered its traditional strategy, coming out with some less expensive TVs for Wal-Mart and Target stores. To get these TVs to the price points they wanted, Sony bought off-the-shelf components from third-party suppliers.

After Sony, Samsung shipped 12.3 percent of all TVs, followed by Vizio with 10.7 percent, Sharp with 8.4 percent, and Polaroid with 8.1 percent.

An industry stalwart taking hold of the LCD marketplace again signals yet another shift in a market that's showing itself to be hard to predict. In August, upstart brand Vizio shocked its competitors by earning the No. 1 crown in units shipped to retailers. Vizio has since dropped to third place in unit share, but its overall market share remained steady.

"It's not like they lost ground," Gagnon said. "We've just seen a much stronger reaction from top-tier guys, Sony and Samsung, who were surprised by the upstart. They reacted with aggressive promotions, heading off Vizio at certain screen sizes. But by no means is Vizio falling."

Former leader Sharp failed to maintain previous strong growth during the last quarter of the year and fell to fourth place with 8.4 percent of all TV models shipped to retailers.

With talk of an impending economic recession, it's quite possible that consumers are going to be spending less on luxury goods like high-definition televisions, but that shouldn't have too much of an effect on the TV manufacturers, according to Gagnon.

"Maybe there won't be quite as many super-big-screen sales 40 and larger (as) we expected, but I wouldn't expect a real dramatic shift. Consumer demand has been exceeding supply for quite a while," he said.

The demand has so outweighed LCD manufacturers' ability to produce enough panels for TV makers that vendors are beginning to turn to computer monitor manufacturers to fill in the gap. Next year there will likely be an influx of more 19-inch and 22-inch wide-screen televisions, Gagnon predicts, as monitor panel makers rise to meet the demand for TVs.

Hitachi's sexy new flat screens.

(Credit: Hitachi Japan)

At a press conference in Tokyo on Tuesday, Hitachi unveiled its new "Ultra Thin" LCD TVs, a new line of flat-panel sets that measure only 35 millimeters (1.5 inches) in thickness. While other companies have also announced uberskinny flat-panel TVs recently--some even thinner than Hitachi's--the Ultra Thin (or UT) LCD line is the first to actually hit the market.

"Our focus for the last few years in the flat-panel business has been on the plasma side, but we've been working very diligently on the LCD side," Kevin Sullivan, Hitachi's chief strategy officer and senior vice president of sales, said in a conference call with the U.S. press.

Three models of the Ultra Thin LCD TVs, all with 6-watt speakers built into the base, are being manufactured: the smallest is a 32-inch model with 1366x768-pixel resolution, and two higher-end models (one 37", and one 42") with 1920x1080-pixel resolution.

The televisions will be available in Japan, where the line is known as the "Wooo," starting in mid-December with the 32-inch model. In the United States, the 32-inch model will hit stores in the first quarter of 2008, with the larger TVs coming in the second quarter. The Japanese versions will have a variety of color choices (black, white, and limited-edition blue and red for the 32-inch model) but it does not appear that the color variations will be coming stateside.

Pricing for the U.S. market has not yet been announced, but don't expect anything cheap. With the ultrathin TVs, Hitachi is targeting "a highly affluent consumer," said Daniel Lee, vice president of marketing. "This person or this family is going to seek luxury, prestige (and) style." He added, "Our marketing theme was 'accessible luxury' in '07. We're going to be moving into that 'pure luxury' category in '08."

Rear-projection TV: heading toward extinction.

(Credit: CNET)

Will rear-projection TV sales plunge to near zero within the next 48 months? That's what a new study from IDC Group claims. With ever larger plasma and (especially) LCD flat-panel HDTVs becoming ever more affordable, IDC sees sales of RPTV sets--those utilizing DLP and LCoS microdisplays--dropping to under 30,000 units by 2011. That's a dramatic drop from the peak of 3.51 million sold in 2004 (according to the CEA).

None of this is shocking news, of course--the trend toward flat panels has been increasingly irreversible as large plasmas and LCD screens continue to break key price-point barriers. For the consumer, however, it's the best news of all: LCD and plasma prices continue to drop, and even larger rear-pro TVs will approach fire-sale prices as they have their last hurrah.

SOURCE: CNBC video interview--Becky Quick discusses the IDC report with Ruben Roy, Pacific Crest Securities semiconductor analyst, and Eric Haruki, IDC research director.

Pioneer's new plasma TVs boast the technology's best-ever black levels

(Credit: Pioneer)

Gizmodo's got the early scoop on the new Pioneer plasmas. Early prototypes of these eighth-generation panels turned heads when they were originally on display at January's Consumer Electronics Show, and the company has finally supplied the pricing and availability details for the entire line:

Pioneer PDP-4280HD (42-inch, $2,700, June)
Pioneer PDP-5080HD (50-inch, $3,500, June)
Pioneer Elite PRO-950HD (42-inch, $3,200, July)
Pioneer Elite PRO-1150HD (50-inch, $4,500, July)

1080p models:
Pioneer PDP-5010FD (50-inch, $5,000, September)
Pioneer PDP-6010FD (60-inch, $6,500, September)
Pioneer Elite PRO-110FD (50-inch, $6,000, September)
Pioneer Elite PRO-150FD (60-inch, $7,500, September)

The big selling point that Pioneer is talking up on these models is the contrast ratio, which is said to be as high as 20,000:1 on some models. With flat-panel LCDs offering larger screen sizes, lower prices, and ever-better black levels (check out the Samsung LN-T4665F, for example), these new Pioneers are looking to raise the bar for plasma yet again. Senior Editor David Katzmaier--who's not easily impressed--suggested that the CES technology demons of the new plasma technology "evinced some of the deepest blacks" he'd seen yet in a flat-panel TV. And there's no denying that Pioneer has an impressive pedigree when it comes to plasma technology--its recent PRO-FHD1 and PDP-5070HD models are two of the three top-rated HDTVs on CNET Reviews. In other words, if you're a critical viewer who's in the market for a flat-panel TV, it's worth waiting a few weeks to see if the shipping versions of the new Pioneers deliver. (CNET will have full hands-on reviews as soon as samples are available.)

Read pricing and details of Pioneer's new plasmas (Gizmodo).

Additional resources:

• Read the CNET review: Pioneer PDP-5070HD
• Read the CNET review: Pioneer PRO-FHD1
• CNET editors' top TVs
• HDTV World