Panasonic to Exit Plasma TV Panel Business

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

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Panasonic will be leaving the plasma TV market in about six months, according to sources in Panasonic. The move has been predicted, but was not expected to take effect this quickly. Panasonic is cutting the less profitable products to reduce overall corporate losses.

The move is in line with the strategy adopted by company President Tsuga since he took charge in June 2012. Panasonic is trying to engineer a turnaround away from low-margin consumer electronics goods to products catering to automakers and other business clients.
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Just bought a new plasma from them. Best PQ I have seen. Sad to see them go, but maybe they will bring the same level of performance to the market with some OLED offerings.
 
Plasma's dead tech. It doesn't scale into the 4K arenas like OLED, LED, LCD etc. Goodbye Plasma, Goodbye DLP.
 
NOOOOOOOOO, I love my Panasonic plasma screen!!!!!!!!

And I really don't give a darn about the 4K arena, there won't be content for a long time in the mainstream
 
Panasonic is trying to engineer a turnaround away from low-margin consumer electronics goods to products catering to automakers and other business clients.
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Completion is fierce for sure. We need more competition to keep innovation up and pricing down.
I just got a Sony 50" led. Very nice for under $600. No smart or 3D but i just wanted a great panel.
 
That was their jam though!
 
k1pp3r said:
NOOOOOOOOO, I love my Panasonic plasma screen!!!!!!!!

And I really don't give a darn about the 4K arena, there won't be content for a long time in the mainstream
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Actually the jump to 4K looks like it will be much quicker than 1080p. Almost all big buget digital movies are being filmed in 4K format anyway. Samsung and Sony are offering digital boxes (external HDDs really) that download 4K movies. We should see a bluray(redray) format soon after, maybe late '14 early '15.
 
4K does nothing for a 50" TV from 12' away. People can't see the difference between 1366x768 and 1080p from 12' away. A 4K projector sounds interesting though.

I would expect there won't be any good prices on these TVs as connoisseurs buy them all up knowing they're not going to get any more.
 
Sad.
I just gave my plasma away as I use a projector now, its new owners are in awe of the PQ.
I would buy another large one at some point if they still made them.
Guess I wont buy any more TVs unless they can match the PQ.
 
Panasonic were thetrue innovators of the Plasma world. Now we're stuck with Samsung, and I dont think they care too much about plasma these days.
 
So what's the next thing I'm going to buy when I need a TV in 4 or 5 years?

I haven't paid attention to LCD/OLED and the last two TV's I purchased were Panny Plasmas because I'm one of those "black level" guys. I guess I'll never own a ZT series, since I have no need for one at the moment, nor will I in 6 months.
 
OLED will be the next big thing in 3 years or so for a good portion of consumers I am guessing. The fun thing about the Sony boxes that have 4k content on them is that they are 100% incompatible with every 4k Sony TV made so far. If you want to actually view 4k content on a Sony 4k TV made before today, they will have to come out and completely replace the board on the unit. Sony has also said that once HDMI 2.0 comes out, they will have to replace the boards again to support. 4k format is definitely not rewarding early adopters at this point.
 
The HDMI 2.0 will have some early growing pains as well. I fully expect a 2.0a / 2.1 etc...

Mass 4K content aside, gonna be a while before hardware things settle in the mainstream.
 
Projectors >

If you want 4k, you should move to projectors. 120" at minimum for your screen. If you don't have room, you probably don't need 4k anyway.
 
Price being the biggest thing to settle. A Seike 50" is a good deal at its price, but 4k is still unreachable to Tue masses who don't want to bother with cheap Korean TVs.
 
Sigh I guess that means no new TV for me until I can find a 50" OLED for 799$.

I hate how samsungs 2699$ Ips led panels are finally matching the contrast and black ratio of a 799$ Panasonic st plasma... And even then, the measured input lag is still 20ms or so higher on the led. When I scammed - er worked - in the tv sales industry (I lasted 3 months before I felt like too much of a shill and quit) we didn't even display the st Panasonic models... Their true black technology cannabalized sales of expensive (read 100$ commission) Ips LEDs... Customers could only get them by asking.
 
So Panasonic FINALLY starts to catch up to Pioneer's KURO and now they bail.

Man when my Kuro dies it's going to SUCK. Just the other day I had someone come over and couldn't believe how good my TV looked.
 
I bought a Panasonic Plasma a couple years ago and I'm very happy with it. No motion blur, good blacks, etc. I do have a very slight burn in from 4:3 black bars, though. Can't notice it unless I put the screen all white.

Plasma's from 10 years ago have ruined their reputation.
 
Fooshnik said:
4K does nothing for a 50" TV from 12' away. People can't see the difference between 1366x768 and 1080p from 12' away. A 4K projector sounds interesting though.

I would expect there won't be any good prices on these TVs as connoisseurs buy them all up knowing they're not going to get any more.
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Who sits 12 feet away from their TV?
 
The 720p Panasonic 42" plasma I gave to my parents a couple years ago looked better than the 1080p LCD I have now. Much better brightness, much better color depth, Black level was absolute BLACK unlike my LCD, much better field of view. I pondered a 1080p plasma 55" but I have my sights set on a DLP projector now.
For picture quality Plasma wins hands down in my book.
Likely for most people they never notice the difference that a videophile would.
Down side
They are usually more expensive, consume more power, are usually much heavier and are hot when running but hey, its plasma baby!
 
I guess the single glass and no spacing panel will be the last one from Panasonic. Too bad it costs so much. Hope lg makes a lap in their panels, don't care much for Samsung quality.
 
owned a
PX60U, V10 , GT25, ST 30, tried out a VT60 and hated it

Switched over to a 64" F8500 and it is the closest you can go to OLED until they come down in price.
smart functions are top notch panasonic was a joke in this area.

Samsung is taking all areas in the electronic market for the future.. They are in the Green 700million last year while sony and panasonic are shutting down factories and losing almost billion last year

I got tired of a washed out picture on the panasonics

the whites are white on samsung and black as a panasonic

The japs should just stick to making cars and sony and panasonic need to come out with Sanyo OLEDs haha
 
Trimlock said:
I guess the single glass and no spacing panel will be the last one from Panasonic. Too bad it costs so much. Hope lg makes a lap in their panels, don't care much for Samsung quality.
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The Samsung F8500 uses the same tech which produces alot less glare from sun. The panasonic ZT has it also.

Supposely rumur has it the IPAD 5 will have the same filter tech
 
Wow this SUCKS, I am not really ready to buy another TV, but I will need one of those ZT or VT sets.
 
Just to clarify this sucks really bad because I expect that all the people trying to make sure they get one before they are gone will keep the prices high. I imagine the ZT and VT 60 are going to be similar to the FW900 or Kuro that freaking everyone wants for another 5 - 10 years.
 
I've had my Panasonic plasma for almost 7 years and it still going strong. It was a great buy.
 
I wonder if 4k sets had anything to do with it. Maybe they just weren't going to scale plasmas well to the higher DPI. Seems likely since they never seemed to be able to move their sizes down below 40ish with much success at 1080p.

Still sucks this ruined my day.
 
Yeah this sucks. I have a 55" and a 50" in my bedroom which doesn't get much use. So if the 55" dies I'll have a backup for quite a while.
 
This is very sad news. Well, all I can do is hope that the prices are reasonable next year. I was going to give my daughter the GT10 in the living room for use in her bedroom, move the GT35 from the man cave to the living room and get a 60 VT model of whatever is out next year, or get this year''s 60" VT at a nice discount to replace the man cave unit. I've read nothing but great things about the 2013 models.
 
UnrealCpu said:
owned a
PX60U, V10 , GT25, ST 30, tried out a VT60 and hated it

Switched over to a 64" F8500 and it is the closest you can go to OLED until they come down in price.
smart functions are top notch panasonic was a joke in this area.

Samsung is taking all areas in the electronic market for the future.. They are in the Green 700million last year while sony and panasonic are shutting down factories and losing almost billion last year

I got tired of a washed out picture on the panasonics

the whites are white on samsung and black as a panasonic

The japs should just stick to making cars and sony and panasonic need to come out with Sanyo OLEDs haha
Click to expand...

I wouldn't be surprised if Samsung drops Plasma the day after Panny does.
I think the F8500's main purpose was to take enough PDP market share away from Panny to make them feel pain and quit. They are feeling pain.
 
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