HDTV

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.

RIP: First CRTs, now RPTVs Read More

I hit up six different stores recently trying to pick a 50” plasma to replace my 52” JVC LCoS rear projection 720p HDTV which is now three years old. The goal is to regain a foot of space in the room and then move to a larger front projection system (the screen hangs in front of the TV); the TV is used for broadcast material with the lights on, while the projector is used for movie watching with the lights off. I could have asked vendors to send over review units and then buy whichever one performed the best, but I’m time constrained – my contractor wants to start hanging everything already. (I’m using a general contractor for installation, a practice I do NOT recommend to others – good custom installers are almost always worth paying for.)

At the 50” size, plasmas are still less expensive than LCD, and the primary benefit of LCD – blinding brightness – is not important in my light-controlled room (we have directional halogen track lighting, so even with the lights on, no direct light falls on the set). Our seating position is 12 – 13’ back from the set; at that distance, there is no visible difference between 720p and 1080p sets, so a more economical 720p model makes sense. Then it came down to selecting a brand and model. When there is a difference between lower priced brands (Vizio, Sanyo, Zenith) and midpriced brands (Samsung, LG, Panasonic) it often shows up in how the sets process non-HDTV sources (there are other differences, too, but some of the budget sets are actually quite good). The difference between the mid-priced brands and the Pioneer Kuro is primarily in the black level and shadow details. Since we still watch a lot of non-HD programming, I felt it was worth the extra money to buy a set with slightly better processing, and I gave mid-priced brands primary consideration once I saw (when looking at the various sets at retail) that there did appear to be a difference. If the television was our only display, it would have been worth spending even more to get the best available (in my opinion, the Pioneer Kuro), but since the projector will be handling most of the movie duties, I wasn’t willing to spend too much of my budget on the plasma.

That left a showdown between Samsung’s 54 series and Panasonic’s 75U (there are slightly more expensive versions of each that add anti-glare shields, but that isn’t necessary in my room). Both sell for $1500 – $1700 except on Black Friday, when you can get another $100 – $200 off. After considerable evaluation in less than ideal circumstances (see below), I concluded that both are excellent options, and it really comes down to personal preference. The Samsung had much better contrast and more saturated colors. Everything “pops” on the Samsung. The Panasonic did slightly better with really noisy content, and had noticeably better black levels, which lent subtlety throughout the color range. Both can be adjusted to look better than they did in the store, and either would make a fine choice. I preferred the Panasonic.

However, the stores don’t make it easy to come to this conclusions, and I really have no idea how people not specifically looking for differences in black level vs. contrast ratio can make a rational buying decision. Only one of the stores (6th Avenue, a regional A/V chain) had a truly knowledgeable salesperson. None of the stores had tweaked the picture on any of the sets in any way (they were all set to whatever the manufacturer hoped would stand out on the showroom floor – the brightest and most oversaturated settings), which I expected from the big box retailers, but not the specialty stores. At least the aspect ratio was correct in most cases, so that’s an improvement, and nearly every unit was displaying widescreen material. However, while it was widescreen and may have been high definition once, it certainly couldn’t be called high definition by the time it got to the display, because not a single store had a clean signal feeding the sets. None. Not one. Not even at the regional specialty store with the knowledgeable sales guy. In every store, the signal was split and distributed to multiple sets, and by the time it got there, it was missing a lot of the original information.

A Dramatization: What the set should have looked like (left, click to enlarge) vs. what it actually looked like (right, click to enlarge):

I seriously question how retailers can expect consumers to pony up thousands of dollars for televisions whose picture quality looks that bad (in the store). If an HDTV looked like that in my home, I’d return it.

At least it made evaluating each set’s processing a bit easier – every set was tuned in to a low resolution torture test. Different sets dealt with the lack of information differently: some made everything soft – so soft it looked like widescreen VHS – and some riddled the screen with digital artifacts so that everything appeared filtered through a 1980’s music video or was digitized to obscure nudity. There were a few sets with direct satellite feeds (or direct connections to an HD disc player); it seems cynical, but those tended to be more expensive 1080p models, and, possibly, higher margin sales for the stores. Conspiracy theory, or just plain retail incompetence?

Shopping for a New TV Read More

Vizio put out a press release a few months ago for two of its 42" LCD HDTVs, touting in the headline, that Vizio is, "ONE OF THE FASTEST GROWING FLAT PANEL BRANDS IN THE U.S."

On the surface of things, that’s not such a bold claim – after all, who the heck are these guys, anyway? They came from nowhere, so of course they’re growing quickly. When you sell nothing one year, and something the next, your growth rate looks fantastic. So, growth by itself is not necessarily a meaningful statistic. Perhaps all the newcomers, slapping a moniker onto an LCD panel sourced from a Chinese factory somewhere, are all growing and doing well at the expense of the established brands.

However, the AP had an article in same timeframe suggesting the opposite: that consumers are buying flat panel TVs, but only from major brands:

Makers of slim TVs are struggling with higher inventories, but the extent of the problem depends on each company’s position in the market: Smaller names are facing a glut of flat-panel screens while most of the top players say they’re playing catch-up to avoid shortages.

So Vizio is bucking a trend here. The new LCD TVs explain why. They’re reasonably feature-rich, and very well priced. But so is a lot of the competition. What’s important here is that the channel itself is a key part (perhaps the key part) of Vizio’s business model. Traditional big box retail (Best Buy, Circuit City) places a premium on brand: getting shelf space is extremely difficult, but once on the shelf you have to compete with Sony and Samsung. This is what the AP is talking about, and it helps explain why Sony, once it got its act together with some decent products, is now back on top of the game. Sony’s brand stands for high quality televisions at a moderate premium; that’s precisely what the Bravia line delivers, and consumers are buying them. (In September, the L.A. Times reported that Sony has regained its position as the U.S.’ top TV manufacturer after falling behind in the late 1990s due to its slow recognition of flat-panel TVs. Sony’s entrance into the LCD market has helped the company increase its share of the total market to 28%.)

So what’s going on with Vizio? The key is distribution: Vizio aimed beyond the big box stores, instead targeting a different, even bigger "big box": warehouse clubs. Costco in particular is a happy home for new discount brands because the warehouse chain mixes in high end brands with relative unknowns; launching your plasma at Costco does not automatically equate your brand with discount merchandise.

Of course, in terms of sheer volume, the biggest game-changer of all may be Wal~Mart, not the warehouse clubs or Best Buy. As prices drop on flat panel TVs — easily the most desired big ticket CE item — more of them end up in the land where there are Always Low Prices. Vendors who can make peace with Wal~Mart’s margin and distribution requirements (and sometimes hyper-competitive house brands) will be able to grow their sales volumes tremendously. They may even be able to build a brand where they have none – but it won’t be a premium brand.

-avi

It’s Not the Products, It’s the Distribution Read More