Slashdot Mirror
Panasonic Announces an End To Plasma TVs In March
An anonymous reader writes "You thought Halloween was for treats. Not this time. Panasonic announced to its investors today that its plasma TV business would be over by the end of March 2014." Blacker blacks and brighter whites aside, there are some good reasons for the shift.
Many sales people are poorly informed and give out extremely inaccurate information. First of all, that number is the half-life rating (the amount of time it takes for the display to degrade to half it's original brightness). Secondly, most decent model plasma screens had a half-life rating of 60,000 hours, the exact same as what most LCD models are rated at; and most of the newer Panasonic models were rated at 100,000 hours, so they actually had a LONGER lifespan than most LCD TVs until LED backlights became the norm. For context, old CRT TVs were rated at 25,000 hours. How long have you seen some of those last?
The Decline of Japanese Consumer Electronics Continues...
As a consumer I'm fine with that - I just bought a great new plasma TV form a Korean manufacturer. As long as someone, somewhere, keeps pushing the state of the art. Longterm though I think Japan has deeper issues, with its ongoing demographic implosion (and the same thing would be happening in the US without immigration).
More on-topic: plasma is great, and remains great, if you're not shopping for the cheapest model line. Great color accuracy (not just the great blacks), no problems off-angle, and no problems with fast motion. I've yet to see an LCD as good at a similar price-point.
Still, OLED is the future (combines the picture quality of plasma with the lower power and weight of LCD), and has finally made it to top-end TVs as a consumer product. Absurdly expensive, but everything starts that way. (OLED was "the cool new technology sure to be in TVs soon" when Slashdot was new). Give it another 5 years, and merely "expensive" TVs should be OLED.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.