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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.
(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 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'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.
Well yes, me. I just opted for the 30" CRT Television (HDTV widescreen) instead of the 30" LCD. The reason? True black on the CRT and better colors overall. People have mentioned size constraints with televisions and yes, I got a slim fit CRT but it sits on an entertainment center which houses my reciever and DVD player. Since thats a dedicated area for the TV, I don't have a problem with that space being used for the TV and having the best picture I can. When it goes kaboom, I figure LCDs will be the standard and the picture will have improved.
...
Now, my desk is another story. I have a CRT for my computer there too but when that goes, the LCD cometh
All people in need of real colors still use CRTs...
Those LCDs are ugly, none of them come near to what colors should look like.
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
Actually there are a few that cover the gamma curve of CRTs nicely, and can be calibrated further for color temperature and such. The downside is those LCDs cost around $2K for a 17-19 inch.
Tom's Hardware did a nice piece on them.
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
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.
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.
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..
So this is what gets modded as +5 Insightful on /. these days? Guess the trick is to say it like you know what you're talking about and the mods will follow. LCD 'refresh' rates are measured in 'ms' not 'Hz'. Poster also seems to be stuck in 2002...todays LCDs with sub-10ms refresh rates (I believe I read about a 3-4ms LCD coming soon as well) have eliminated the 'blurring' problem evident on older units. I've played many BF2, Doom3 and several others on my 19" 8ms LCD and it's been excellent...no ghosting. Todays units are greatly improved over the old 20ms+ ones. The only area CRTs still maintain an advantage are in displaying high resolution...LCDs outside their native resolution just aren't as nice.
LCD 'refresh' rates are measured in 'ms' not 'Hz'. Poster also seems to be stuck in 2002...todays LCDs with sub-10ms refresh rates (I believe I read about a 3-4ms LCD coming soon as well) have eliminated the 'blurring' problem evident on older units. I've played many BF2, Doom3 and several others on my 19" 8ms LCD and it's been excellent...no ghosting. Todays units are greatly improved over the old 20ms+ ones. The only area CRTs still maintain an advantage are in displaying high resolution...LCDs outside their native resolution just aren't as nice.
Well, ms and Hz are just two different units of measurement. What they mean by "refresh" is completely different though. For one, a CRT will flicker, an LCD will not at low refresh rates. Furthermore, a CRT will actually refresh exactly so, while an LCD will not (you will see different numbers for gray-gray, black-white-black, averages vs worst case). Not to mention you have ringing caused by trying to speed up the process. Take the "3ms" screen on slashdot here recently, it has 5ms black-to-black, more like 8ms before the ringing stops. Effectively, that means ~125fps, not ~333fps. Realisticly, most people don't notice more than ~60fps (as it doesn't flicker), so around 16ms actual response time. To make up for the marketing BS you need to buy a "8ms" screen though.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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.