TV Makers Planning New Sizes and Backlights for 2012

"we may not be willing to accept thicker TV designs at this point"

I bet to differ. Image quality is king when getting a TV for a LOT of people out there. I you don't care about image quality, you probably won't care about it's thickness anyway; only it's price.

Cheers!

Sorry, but I'll be sticking to my 1.5" thick 58" plasma. LCD just doesn't hold a candle to the quality plasma can deliver, especially motion (there is STILL blur even with the top LCD sets).
LED illuminated screens showed some promise till the makers got cheapass and switched to an addressable grid of individually dimable LEDs behind the LCD panel, to a couple of strips of LEDs at the sides. They look no better than CCFL LCD displays.

I'm curious to see LG's 55 OLED...Of course the price will be astronomical though.

meh, when i'm shopping around for a TV I usually goto Best Buy and stare at all the TV's for an a hour, all the while telling the salesmen to buzz off..... Then when I find the one that I like, I leave the store and order it off the internet for cheap =D

You had me at naked.

Not all LED-backlit TVs are equal. You stated this yourself. There are high-end LED-LCD sets out there that are superior to your plasma in many regards which can provide a better overall viewing experience.

Plasma? Stores can't get rid of them. No one wants plasma, people that defend plasma have a plasma tv. Once the gas in the plasma screen goes in 7 to 10 years or sooner so does your TV and because of that your tv screen fades over time. It's not like an LCD where you can replace the backlit bulb once every 5 to 7 years of avg use. And its def not like an LED where the picture never fades over time and is guaranteed to last 12 years of continues use 24 hours a day until the picture goes out completely which would equal prob about 25 years of avg use in a lifespan. Not to mention LED screens a more energy effient than Plasma or LCD.

I was expecting bigger sizes.

You watch too much porn

i barely watch tv any more. reality shows killed tv for me fear factor was the only one i deemed worth watching, wipe out also was ok sometimes, but i never made time to watch it, it just happened to be on.
if it wasn't for shows like NCIS, criminal minds and hbo's a game of thrones i wouldn't even be watching tv at all any more.
gaming and internet reading has taken over my normal tv viewing time. all the corporate sports teams are demanding for me to pay for their new stadiums out of my pocket courtesy of uncle sam so i am done watching sports unless it's international like a fifa game or olympic games.

Nice Mooching there buddy. Besides not having ANY moral standards whatsoever for people trying to make a living, you even brag about it on the interwebs....awesome.

He's not wasting anyone's time or effort, and he's saving money, how is this any different than shopping around store to store? If I go to store A and they have a TV in a box for a low price with no display, and then i go to store B with the same TV on display and an inflated price, you bet your ass I'm going to go back to store A and buy the TV, who wouldn't? I mean really. You know Best Buy is not going to price match an online store, and sometimes they won't even price match a low price that's unadvertised. Hell I just went to Best Buy 2 days ago to buy a Blu-Ray player for a family member and they had to get 5 people involved just to adjust the price to the Best Buy.com price that was 20 dollars less (once you added to cart AND went to checkout) so don't even go there.

As for morals, what are you going on about? the only way I could see this being a moral issue is if the Best Buy employee worked on commission (i have no idea) AND he milked them for information, but he specifically said he tells them to leave him alone, ergo not wasting the employee's time. You're not making any sense.

Now, on topic... I'll personally be waiting for OLED to be mainstream before I replace my current LED-LCD TV I got a couple years ago. Takes me quite a while to save up so I'd like to get something with really good black levels that isn't a plasma (won't touch them.)

Well some good news for you then...Fear Factor is back!

The only TV worth watching right now is sports and HBO in my opinion. Regular cable is plagued with reality shows, america has talent, etc etc.

A a multiple ccf lcd owner i absolutely dread watching anything dark on them.. the black levels are horrible on both tvs and all of my monitors and wifes phone and misc. devices. I find my self always thinking about how nice it will be to have everything oled like my phone and car stereo. I could care less if my tv draws more power as long as it gives me that absolute black and vibrant color i personally enjoy. why do you think there is still a market for plasma? manufactures aren't dumb they know it is still the best picture quality available until oled displays. 7- 10 years is plenty of time to enjoy a tv until you want something new with better tech and features. My next tv will be plasma unless I manage to afford a oled tv. one of the damn bulbs in my LG burned out in less then 5 years nice dark bar in my screen now, I wont be replacing it. it would be costly and would rather buy a new tv.

"Plasma? Stores can't get rid of them. No one wants plasma, people that defend plasma have a plasma tv. Once the gas in the plasma screen goes in 7 to 10 years or sooner so does your TV and because of that your tv screen fades over time. It's not like an LCD where you can replace the backlit bulb once every 5 to 7 years of avg use. And its def not like an LED where the picture never fades over time and is guaranteed to last 12 years of continues use 24 hours a day until the picture goes out completely which would equal prob about 25 years of avg use in a lifespan. Not to mention LED screens a more energy effient than Plasma or LCD. "

Wow, where do I begin? Plasma TVs don't 'leak gas' any more than LCDs leak liquid crystals. That's a myth perpetuated by people painfully ignorant of how the technology works. Plasmas do get dimmer with age, but so do the backlights on LCDs. No TV on the market, LCD or otherwise is guaranteed to last 12 years of nonstop use. That is utterly ridiculous. LCDs also don't have user-replaceable backlights, unless you're talking about LCD projectors--and you're lucky to get a year's worth of regular use from a projector bulb before it dies. As for efficiency: the gap between LCD & plasma has closed dramatically in the last couple years, to the point where--at least for the really big screens--the money saved in energy consumption won't offset the price difference for damn near the life of the set.

Well considering i never said the gas leaks in plasma TV's i don't know where you got that from but the gas does fade and once it fades out it's done. You can't just replace it like you can a backlit LCD bulb without replacing the entire screen itself and you miles well just go buy another TV if that's the case not to mention they have the shortest lifespan out of any flat screen display because of that. Why do you think plasma TV's are cheaper then LCD's and LED's at the same size? I think you are confusing LCD and LED as if they are the same in which they are not. Diff between an LCD and an LED one uses crystal display and a backlit bulb other uses electrode display attached to a circuit the result of a bulbless display yeilds a lot longer lifespan with no fading because the electrodes within an LED don't dim like a traditional bulb does over time and yes electrodes are guranteed to last 12 years of non stop use because of that. My friend has a 1994 Chevy Suburban that he bought of his father brand new with over 230,000 miles on it with a LED 3rd brake light and it has never gone out once. Think about that for a minbute a suv going on 18 years old that's been braked thousands upon thousands of times and the LED 3rd brake light has never gone out, but yet all of his other tradional brake light bulbs have 3 ot 4 times over. So what does that tell you about LED's and their lifespan? A lot. Again you are confsuing LCD's with LED's. LEDs are even more energy effient than LCD displays, because LED displays don't require a high wattage bulb.

if i had a nickel for every "new" murder show i'd be a billionaire. sports, fear factor, and streaming movies from PS3, voodoo or netflix are where it's at. however AMC and FX have been pumping out shows i can't get enough of. can't wait for this season of it's always sunny to come out on dvd. walking dead is awesome, and breaking bad too. i don't have cable, good thing the ps3 store has all the shows i want commercial free. the best part is i don't even need to give sony a CC#(thanks to the prepaid PS network cards at 7-11).

You do realize that LED = LCD right? Manufacturers essentially just swapped the CCFL backlights for LED ones. Yes, they are cheaper to run than CCFL based screens and plasmas, but just like CCFLs they still fail in many areas compared to plasma panels.

But to answer your ill-thought and incorrect comments, plasma STILL offers the best image quality in large size panels. LCD (I'm including the LED based ones here too) still are unable to produce a black black without special filters on the panel which screw about with the accuracy of the rest of the color gamut.
No matter what the advertised refresh rate is, you can still always see fast moving objects leaving a trail, especially sports. Its a LOT better than it once was, but its still there and you're an idiot if you claim its not. Speaking of refresh rates, plasmas operate differently but are equivalent to a minimum of 600Hz and usually much higher.
Because the CCFL or LED backlights are not uniformly distributed across the area of the screen (not any more anyway), you get hotspotting and light leaks, and because of the various polarizing filters you have a more limited viewing angle. Ever noticed how when you move away from a perpendicular view of an LCD the colors shift? NOT good.

Because a plasma's pixels are self illuminating rather than relying on a hard-to-uniformly-control strip of LEDs at the side of the screen passing though several filers to 'spread' the light out smoothly, the colors remain more consistent across the entire panel at much greater viewing angles.

Yes, you can get many plasmas cheaper than LCDs, but anyone who is serious about quality is NOT going to go to the budget end of the market. Starting at the 52" size and upwards, LCDs are one hell of a lot more expensive as they are more difficult to produce in those sizes than plasmas and any dead pixels render the entire panel unsuitable for anyone who is shopping for quality.
A representative site I just looked at has a 46" 3D LED at just under twice the price as a 50" 3D plasma from brand name manufacturers. However the 46" specs disguise a LOT of specs, using "Clear Motion Rate: 400" instead of just being upfront about the real Hz and "Dynamic Contrast Ratio: Mega contrast" instead of an actual number like the plasma specs list.
When they have to fudge the specs to trick people into believing the panel is as good as a cheaper model you can be sure that its NOT as good.

Even with TVs from the same maker that differ only in the panel they use, the plasma will look 'better'. When I bought mine I compared it (samsung 58") to the equivalent sized LED based LCD TV also from Samsung and there was no comparison (and the LCD was pricier).
I spent a good 3 hours trying to match them in the showroom with a calibration bluray and colorimiter (I know the owner of the store and so did it after closing time) with 'torch mode' turned off and none of the many other sets switched on. The plasma always looked more realistic having a better reproduction of all the test pasterns, no light leakage along the sides, and in winter I can use it as a space heater

Longevity? Seriously, who keeps a TV for more than 4-5 years any more? I certainly don't.

Now if you like to think LCD is better then I'm not going to be able to convince you otherwise, but if you get a 'proper' plasma panel, not just a $200 42" from walmart or wherever, you might be a little surprised. As with everything, you have to pay to get quality, and in the serious sized TVs you can pay a lot less to get a significantly better picture by choosing plasma over LCD.
For what its worth I have an LCD in the bedroom and its just fine, but in the lounge the set I bought just knocks it out of the field.

bigger resolutions maybe plz?

As a multiple LCD and Plasma Owner (Toshiba Regza, Sharp Aquos and Sony Bravia and Samsung D550 Plasma) I can honestly say that LCD TVs are all garbage. I have pumped as much into those three LCD TVs as I did into my first car, and have been anything but impressed.

The Regza panel began to fail after two years of moderate use. The panel itself, not the Backlights or the various power supplies / video boards (OMG on that one, so many boards in that TV). It started with poor distribution of brightness, and ended in psychadellic madness.

The Sharp began to fail after two months (in this case bad caps, repaired myself, but still annoying on a brand new TV) and the Sony works but has a horrid picture compared to either the Toshiba or the Sharp when they were new.

After all of this I went out an purchased a Samsung PN51D550 out of sheer desperation and frustration with LCDs. So far it is the least expensive of all of the units (the toshiba took the cake, at nearly three times the price of the Samsung Plasma). I have had this plasma since it hit the market, and I can honestly say that for performance (no motion blur), color accuracy, brightness, contrast, etc it blows the other units all completely out of the water. There is absolutely no comparison.

In all honesty I think that the LCD people are nuts. I have compared this (again, relatively cheap) plasma side by side to some ungodly overpriced LCD units and after using the plasma I will never go back.

WTF!???? How many people have had the same TV for more than 5 years? Every 5 years so far there has been a new reason upgrade. I dont defened plasma or led I say get whatever looks best to you, but I do agree plasmas have better color and contrast which is why I buy plasma and in 5 years I'll probably buy OLED screen.

2K and 4K are coming. It's just a matter of time

As to everyone else, ya, there are pluses and minuses to all TV techs. I love the look of plasma, but as I do not watch TV (it's all games and web browsing for me) I avoid plasma because I would burn it in a ruin it. But I agree, if anyone thinks LED/CCFL is better for quality then they are out of their minds and dont know what they are talking about. Also, I find that the contrast on plasma screens hurts my eyes when in a dark room, but that may be because the people whose houses I watch at dont know how to adjust their TV properly.

CCFL bulbs fade just as fast as modern plasma screens, and they are not 'white' and cannot display a true black. They just suck all around (granted it is what I have in my monitor, but when I bought it 4-5 years ago there were no other options).

LED is awesome for people like me who have a lot of static image time, and if you get up to the 240Hz range then they have excellent motion (though not as good as the plasma), and while it is true that the LEDs will last some 12+ years, it is highly unlikely that anything else in the TV will last that long. Also, the white on an LED is really white, and the dimmability of LEDs is much better so you can get a much better black (on a screen that supports localized dimming) than CCFL could ever dream of (though again, plasma is still better). Plus the LCD portion of the screen will break down over time (though slower than plasma), and I imagine that after 12 years you will have lost most of your contrast anyways. But for people like me who make a life pact with their monitors (had my mitsubishi CRT for over 10 years before it went blurry, and hoping my current screen lasts at least as long), then LED is the way to go.

But if you are stuck in the stone age and still watch television, or if you have a nice home theater and do not want to go with a projector (LED projectors are finally coming out! woot!), then plasma is the choice for you. Personally I still rock an old "HD" (meaning 480p) CRT, and it work find for the whole 3-4 hours of use it gets per month when there is something worth watching on TV.

Quad-HDTV for me! (3840x2160 or 4K)
I watch Full HD videos and use the net (not much gaming)
I'm hoping that Blue Ray can fit 4K videos/movies
When o they come to end users?

This isn't entirely true. The color reproduction still goes to crap on an LCD, they aren't lifetime devices. Besides, I had to solder new capacitors into my LCD because they blew after about 5 years of normal use. Plasma may have additional problems, but LCD definitely isn't perfect.

as long as it is not crt-thick, i do not give shit about how thick a tv is. you do not spend all your time looking at the side of the screen, you look at the front, from where you cant tell the thickness.

As long as its not more then 4" thick i dont care about thickness.

Ill take a 4" thick TV over a 1" thick one any day if it has better picture quality for a cheaper price.

Too bad, I was looking for higher resolution.

Where do they get these strange, seemingly arbitrary sizes? Is there a stock sheet of glass and they figure out different ways to cut one up without waste?

no kidding sherlock.

No kidding but one uses eletrodes and the other uses a backlit bulb. You have to me out of your mind are you seriously saying that plasma has a better pciture then an led? LOL led have a sharper and cleaer picture than plasma. Who cares about the refresh rate if the qualit of the picture isn't that good. Plasma's use more electrcity and are old technology with a dimmer picture than LED Who keeps a TV more than 4 or 5 years? Are you that out of touch with the avg tv user? You think people buy bran new tv's every 4 or 5 years? got news for you they don't. Herll many people still have tube tv's still let alone plasma or led screens; Again if plasma was really that good eletronic stores wouldn't have sladhed their prices trying to get rid of them.

no one said they didn't lcd uses a back light bulb led don't so no it's not untrue. Well you must have gotten a crappy lcd tv then, Cause my sony lcd still works fine after 8 years never once had an issue with it.