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Sony Profits Low, Halts CRT Production
mtndue1 writes "Forbes is reporting that with lower than expected profits, Sony is halting the production of CRT's for televisions at many of its plants. The restructuring move is meant to catch the company up with other manufacturers who moved to LCD displays more quickly." From the article: " In the second quarter to September, net profit dropped 46.5 pct to 28.5 bln yen, pressured by 32.3 bln yen in restructuring expenses to write down the impaired value of its cathode-ray tube (CRT) plants. Under the plant closure program, Sony will shut down some of its CRT television assembly factories by March 2008 in order to shift its focus to the flat-screen TV business ... In a bid to revive its game division, Sony plans to release its next-generation stand-alone PlayStation 3 game console in the spring. To speed up development of PlayStation 3, Sony plans to devote 410 bln yen to capital investment in the year to March, up from 356.8 bln yen a year earlier."
I wonder if this means Sony is going to start improving their LCD TV quality finally? When I was shopping for an LCD TV recently, the Sony ones were overpriced, ugly and had poor image quality compared to competition.
LCD/DLP/Plasma are still not bright enough for well lit spaces (IMHO). I don't always want to use the basement for my Television viewing.
Kinetic stupidity has a new brand leader: Allen Zadr.
That's interesting. SONY used to be considered the top of the line. (Shows you how much time I spend shopping for electronics.)
I wonder what happened. Did they get tired of being the innovators and decide to become the followers: at least in consumer electronics?
Evil people don't think they're evil. - George Lucas, Making of Ep III
If this means there is a much greater supply of LCDs then the price should drop. Does anyone buy who isn't budget constrained buy CRTs anymore?
(Note: I'm looking for replies based on experience with Japanese reality, not on anime. TIA...)
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Welcome to variable resolutions, myriads of colors, quick response time, and incredible flexibility. Yes, I like my CRT's.
It looks to me like Sony are beginning to bet the farm on the PS3. The Walkman range is now outsold by Apple branded players, the TV market is awash with other makes of TV.. I could go on in any other markets (maybe brodacst - admit not too sure on that). They also seem to be losing their grip on their legendary quality of years back (though my admittedly late-era PSP is still a thing of beauty IMHO - lets ee how it stands up to time) - My Sony 6 CD player in my less than year old car has already taken to playing no CD's and has a radio that likes to retune at random... I could go on.. Sony are to me, at least, beginning to look more like a games company than anything else - if they don't succeed they may well be dodo, if not severely crippled.
I don't think this is very good news if you're in the market for a large screen TV in the future and want a CRT. With the supply from Sony dwindling, prices won't be dropping as much as we'd like them to in comparison to LCD. And I wonder how much easier it is to recycle components of an LCD screen device, compared to a CRT's? There will be less lead I'm guessing, but are there any rules about throwing LCD monitors/TVs into the landfill?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I havent seen any at sony retailers in 3 years at least! heh.
Sony oem's a large number of Trinitron crt's for other manufacturers.
it can only mean that other display types will become more affordable. Right now, the really nice TVs are way out of reach for Wal-Mart shoppers such as myself. I look forward to the changes coming soon.
It's too bad that Sony is phasing out it's CRT production. Granted, flat-screens have much better resolution, a smaller footprint and are lighther, but they're still extremely expensive. A 32" Sony Trinitron is going for around $400, while a 32" Sony LCD Wega flat panel is more than $2,000 (the cheapest 32" LCD flat screen I could find goes for $1,300). I just don't understand why anyone would buy one flat screen when they could get four or five CRTs for the same price.
It must have been a hard choice for mtndue1, torn between hyping up his scoop so that he would have a chance to be published on Slashdot and not telling outright lies. So he took both approaches:
Sony is halting the production of CRT's for televisions at many of its plants
Sony will shut down some of its CRT television assembly factories by March 2008 (emphasis mine)
No, I didn't read the fine article, but I did laugh out loud.
You and me both. I'm going to go right out and get a Sony Trintron in theu nfortunate event that I won't be able to find them in stores come another couple of years. But yeah, Trinitron CRT is the best picture quality you can get hands-down. Heck, CRT's period are surprisingly superior to LCD's in many ways. I hate how the industry is practically forcing the change upon me, but I guess I'll have to conform sometime.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
That's interesting. SONY used to be considered the top of the line. (Shows you how much time I spend shopping for electronics.) I wonder what happened. Did they get tired of being the innovators and decide to become the followers: at least in consumer electronics?
... etc.
China, Korea and Malaysia happened. They just couldn't compete with electonics dumping from Samsung, Goldstar, LG, APEX
Of course, myself, I got a second hand 21" Sony Trinitron VGA monitor for about $80, so I'm fine :)
Mmmm, obscenely high resolution...
The implication there is that it needs reviving. As far as I'm aware it's the healthiest part of the company by a long shot. Sony really are banking on SCE: when the PS2 began to approach saturation point (pre-slimline PS2) and sales dipped, Sonys profits dropped by some obscene percentage.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
For computer monitors CRTs are still superior for a number of reasons.
Some examples:
Much higher contrast between black and white.
better color definition.
gamma/color/brightness doesn't change based on fewing angles.
much faster response/no ghosting.
People who complain about flickering with CRTs are usually just running the monitor at a to high of resolution. There problems are more related to not spending enough on their monitors rather then serious flaws in CRT monitors.
even on very nice LCD monitors I get headaches. This is because I habitually read scrolling text. This works on CRTs, but ghosting and inferior response rates blur everything. I bought a LCD monitor a while ago and I learned this. I bought a CRT to replace it and gave the LCD to a friend.
Of course now bunches of people will jump on me to justify buying a LCD monitor instead spending a 3rd of the price on a CRT monitor with similar capabilities. (You probably spend a lot more on your jeans then me, too. Oh and ipods with harddrives and unreplacable batteries that have failures with batteries and harddrives, rather then going out and buying a flash-based device for a 4th of the cost and 400% of the reliability.)
LCD is a dead-end technology. It's great for places with low amounts of space... like if you want a 50 inch TV in your living room, or 30 inch displays on your desktop, and in laptops, but it's not ever going to go anywere beyond that.
Once we get stuff like OLEDs or whatever replaces LCD, then it will be superior to LCD AND CRTs in terms of price, performance, energy usage, and mass.
Yes, poor people are in trouble because they keep buying overpriced luxury goods. That's the real root of the problem.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Sony are very good at refusing to drop their prices to be competitive. As others have said here already, many other manufacturers have caught up in picture quality, the new Samsungs look & sound beautiful, as do many other brands.
Yet Sony still price their sets like they have no competition.
No France
LCD/DLP/Plasma are still not bright enough for well lit spaces (IMHO). I don't always want to use the basement for my Television viewing.
While I agree with your point I think it is nice that companies are discontinuing production of CRT at once. I think this will increase the competitivity for better flat display TV. And I am sure it will also make its prices drop (and this is something I would really want because the prices are still not affordable for people like me).
Also, as there is more companies concentrating on competing in this technologies I am sure the issues you state are going to be lessen. I would really love to see the flat[or other than CRT] technologies catching as standard alternatives NOW!! (even for developing countries like mine [.MX]) becuase, as a slashdoter said before, when you watch a web page with a CRT tube is like "staring at a 60watt lightbulb", and that is why after 8 hours of continuous work you end with a just-shoot-me-eye strain*.
*Just as a side note try making ALL your background color BLACK and your fonts color white just for 1 day and yo will see how nice is that setup for your eyes [of course, you will also see how ALL the internet pages AND Operating System applications are soooo badly designed specifically for white/bright backgrounds].
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Didn't the patent on Trintron expire?
Yes, but remember -- when it's a patent/copyright/other IP that you hate then it's evil and wrong. When it's something you like, when the IP expires then others "rip off" your hard work.
And I heartily disagree with the grandparent about the brightness factor of LCD/DLP -- my 46" DLP is visible in normal light conditions, in a well lit room. No, I can't see shit on it when the sun is shining directly on the screen, but I can't see shit on a CRT in those circumstances either.
And I suspect he was comparing apples to oranges anyway -- direct view CRT to projection LCD/DLP (since projection is the only way you can view DLP). Compare projection CRT and the LCD/DLP literally shine -- you need as dark a room as possible for projected CRT. Also, if you want much more than 36" diagonal you can't use direct view CRT -- the tubes are just too big, heavy, and expensive (IIRC, the largest direct view tube ever produced for home use was a 44" Mitsubishi).
LCD may not be superior in all ways, but for the average consumer the small size is ideal.
Indeed, and this story really has very little to do with CRTs versus LCDs - It's a simple tale of a very large corporation that lost its way (I stopped buy Sony stuff because what once was an extremely high quality brand turned into an overpriced garbage brand) that's now spastically shifting around to try to regain its footing.
Even more ridiculous is the "SONY IS STOPPING PRODUCTION OF CRTS!" followed by the rather important disclaimer "at most of its plants". That entirely counters the headline, and it more accurately should be "Sony is scaling back CRT production", which seems obvious given how many computers, for instance, come with LCDs now, eliminating the need for such a glut of CRT supply.
You know you can just use Google for that, right?
Google "38,500,000,000.00 JPY in USD" (no quotes) and you'll get "333.42001 million U.S. dollars" as the answer. I'm not sure why the number is different.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
But not when it comes to weight. Be sure to get someone to help you lift it. Their 32" flat-CRT HD-ready models weigh around 175 pounds. I've had one for about 2 1/2 years and I had it delivered. If I need to get behind it, I can slide it around on the stand. I'm glad I spent the money for the official Sony stand, it's fits perfectly, and it can hold half a dozen video game consoles.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
I think people who hype LCD and plasma quality are in one of two camps:
1. They have sensitive vision and the brightness of the CRT hurts their eyes (this is why my work computer has an LCD monitor).
2. LCDs are newer and these people keep reading about how great they are.
Side by side in a store it's easy to see that a good CRT provides much better color, brightness and contrast than any LCD or plasma TV. Considering that they are a third the price, I often wonder why there is such a big market for skinny TVs. Can the depth of the TV really make someone spend so much more money?
I also have an issue with plasma vs projection large screen TVs. A good projection TV is indistinguishable from a plasma TV and costs half the price. Why aren't people buying projection instead of plasma?
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
No one wants to purchase CRT. DLP is the new Plasma.
[%] Cingular Ringtones
WOuldn't it be funny if one day, only the expensive TVs will come with CRTs, what with the better colors and saturation...
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
It's hard for me to say that CRTs are still superior to LCDs because I haven't actively researched the best LCDs, but of the many LCD displays that friends and labs use, I can't imagine what I'll do when my current CRT comes up for replacement. There's simply no comparison. The LCD blacks are fake on many of the Dells (they seem to cheat to get a good contrast ratio - perfect black is dark, but the dark grey levels are much lighter). There's also the abrasiveness of the tri-color split of LCD pixels.
I guess I'm an old-fashioned dinosaur, and maybe the CRT v. LCD battle is comparable to the tube v. solid state amplifier battle, but this day marks the end of the era of beautiful CRT displays. I'll mourn.
Aside from CRTs having better picture quality than LCDs they
were also invented in 1897, not 1990 (which I suspect is when
you were born sonny).
Thanks but I chose to stay with CRT's forever.
I do not like LCD or flat panel TV's or monitors at all.
The response time is god awful, the resolution is god awful.
They just flat out suck... Not to mention the abysmally short life span of the LCD/plasma/whatever screens.
I have a number of 21" Sony Trinitron CRT's stockpiled as backups.
I have a matched pair sitting on my desk right now and 4 spares stuck away because I KNEW this was going to happen...
I have a few 27" TV's that I never really watch but I suppose that sometime in the not to distant future I'll go out and purchase a few of the very large Sony Trinitron CRT TV's. My uncle is a big Sony fan (100% Sony in his home) and has several very large Sony Wega CRT sets in his home and man, I'm here to tell you those sets have magnificent pictures!
I can imagine they are very expensive but I expect the price to drop as Sony tries to push old stock out the door to make way for the dinky little flat screens that all the LEMMINGS just *have to* run out and buy. It's the "me too syndrome". You know, keeping up with the Jones and all that.
People are basically stupid and will buy stuff just because the voice on the idiot box tells them it's cool and trendy and that you MUST run out and get yours today.
Not me. I stick with yesterdays technology. It's tried and tested and no one is jealous of my Fred Flintstone equipment and decor... Not to mention, I save a lot of money by not replacing all my stuff every commercial break..
Have a look at the JVC HD-ILA projection, and the new SOny equivalent. The use reflective LCD (non-organic), and are icredibly bright. One of the reviewers of the JVC said something like "If you watched the winter olympics on this at max brightness, you'd get a tan".
I'll be sad to see CRTs finally become extinct. Although LCD and plasma screens have come a long way in the last few years, there's nothing like a good CRT when picture quality really matters, and this news of Sony cutting back production brings back nostalgic memories of the old days.
Many people today don't realize how far CRT TVs have come in quality and usability. I got my first TV set, a 19" Admiral B&W set, for my 8th birthday back in the 1960s. Admiral was one of the big brands back then, along with such former household names as Philco, Zenith, and Packard Bell. Japanese TVs were as rare as Japanese cars.
My TV was a tube set, of course. Not just the CRT itself, but all of the active circuit elements were tubes. If you think today's CRTs generate heat, then you've never seen a tube set--they're in a totally different league. I don't miss the heat, but back then TVs had a warm, satisfying orange glow eminating from the rear of the set, and a peculiar smell as well.
Tuners were not digital PLL back then either. They were analog with click stops for the VHF channels and a fine tuning ring around the main tuning dial to make fine adjustments. UHF tuners didn't even have click stops--you tuned until you found the station you wanted--and the channel numbers on the dial sometimes weren't even close.
Then there were the controls I haven't seen on a TV in 30 years--horizontal and vertical hold. These were used to prevent the picture from "jumping" vertically and smearing out horizontally. The settings would drift, requiring frequent readjustment, and a trip across the room, as remotes were nonexistant.
When a TV broke down back then, fixing it was an adventure. You took the back off the TV and removed all the tubes and took them down to the supermarket or drugstore and plugged them into a tube tester. You'd look up the settings for the particular tube in a book, set a bunch of dial settings, and then push the "test" button. If the meter needle moved into the green, the tube was OK. After buying replacements for the bad tubes, you went home and plugged them all back in and hoped everything was fixed. In my experience, replacing tubes fixed 90% of all TV problems.
Ah, the good old days!
I've noticed that if I change the settings on my video card (I have a GeForce FX 5900XT) under "Digital Flat Panel" to "Video Card Scaling" (actually, I prefer "Aspect Ratio Scaling" even better), the picture at sub-optimal resolutions looks outstanding. Apparently what it does is use the scaling features of the video card to output a lower resolution to the monitor at the monitor's optimal resolution. Seriously, you need to try it and see it for yourself, but it can be night and day for certain monitors.
Got one or more Sony Trinitron monitors or TVs that are in great operating condition?
;-)
Quit using them now (to stop wear & tear on the tube) and stash them away. When CRT monitors and TVs disappear from the market after a few more years and there will be no more spare replacement tubes available, you'll be able to sell a good working unit to the CRT addicts for much more money than they are worth on the used equipment market right now.
I'm unsure if I'm being serious or sarcastically humorous on this comment
Yet Sony still price their sets like they have no competition.
That makes an interesting corrolation between American automakers in the 70's and 80's getting beat out by the Japanese (and slowly adapting), and now the Japanese electronics vendors vs the Korean and Chinese electronics vendors seem to be going through the same thing..
China, Korea and Malaysia happened. They just couldn't compete with electonics dumping from Samsung, Goldstar, LG, APEX ... etc.
Not to mention Sorny, Magnetbox, and Panaphonic.
I yearn for you tragically. A. T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.