The AP is reporting that Sony is now exiting its "money losing" RPTV business to focus exclusively on flat panel displays; Sony's technologies of choice are LCD and OLED. (As an aside, I thought Sony's TV business had finally pulled into the black after years of losses - the Playstation business was supporting everything else until the PS3, and then the situation reversed. I guess the flat panels were profitable but the big sets weren't.)
This is the second major television technology/form factor to get the boot - outside of mass merchandisers its pretty hard to find a CRT any more, and none of the high performance brands (which is a bit of a shame, because picture quality on high end CRTs is really exceptional). While there are bound to be holdouts for another year or two it's also clear that Sony is acting rationally. Flat panel prices don't need to match RPTVs, just get within the ballpark for consumers to move to the thinner, brighter displays. We already saw a similar transition in computer monitors which transitioned to LCD from CRT well before price parity in popular sizes was reached.
I'm actually seeing a bit of this first hand as I try to sell my JVC LCoS RPTV in favor of a Panasonic plasma I bought to save space in my own home theater (and make room for a significantly larger screen that will hang in front of it for use with a new projector). When I talked to a friend who is in the market for a new big screen TV he was interested in buying the JVC only until he realized that it's a projection unit rather than a flat panel even though he has no real need for a flat panel - it would go into the same cabinet regardless.
I am glad you are going front projection, many folks buy tv's thinking they will get the true home theater experience some believe they do however they really are cheating themselves watching blu ray on a tv. I started one of the premier
Home Theater web sites htmarket in the year 2000 back then home theater the word was used to describe a dedicated room with a very large screen at least 7 feet wide with front projector and most rooms incorporated Home Theater Seating usually with a raised platform. Since then the large players, panasonic, best buy etc have taken the word home theater and used it to mean "tv room". I still think a true home theater is using front projection with at least a 7 foot wide screen and should have some elements of a real movie theater experience including surround sound. We show some Home Theater Pictures on htmarket.com to show what it's like.
I like you that you emphasize true home theater screens and don't just do tv reviews on your blog.
Posted by: home theater | April 11, 2008 at 04:43 PM
i thought Sony's TV business had finally pulled into the black after years of losses
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