Do you recall what I said about Panasonic and Moore's Law?

A couple of months ago, the 'intelligentsia' of the HDTV world were weaping and wailing and gnashing their teeth over Pioneer's declaration that they were quitting the HDTV business. The most decorated HDTV in the world (The Pioneer Kuro 151) was going to die. The reason? Massive losses due to a catastrophic fall-off in sales. It is not good to be the manufacturer of luxurious merchandise in a recession like this, or so they said. The cultic devotees of Pioneer chastised the public for being unwilling to pay for quality.

I went against the trend when I told you that Pioneer had been run out of the business by Panasonic. Panasonic punched them in the nose, took their lunch money, and made them cry uncle. I gave some cold comfort to the cult of Pioneer by telling them to wait 18 months, and everybody would be making HDTVs better than the Kuro 151. This prediction is based on Moore's law, and the certain knowledge that many vendors are making use of ATI & NVIDIA chips to do their video. ATI and NVIDIA are progressing much faster than Moore's law would predict.

Well, well, well, it didn't take very long for a great replacement to emerge after all did it? Right now the internet is abuzz with news of the new Panasonic TC-P50G10. It has specs which blow Kuro off the deck. HDGuru.com is freaking out completely over this screen. I am certain that Pioneer's industrial spies were aware of this development months ago. The development of this HDTV probably factored into Pioneer's decision to quit the business.

The whole package is predicated on a 12th generation plasma panel. This panel makes use of a new phosphors. It implements a 600Hz cycle for subfields. We were at 240Hz just yesterday. The power consumption, always a serious draw back of the Plasma format, has been cut down considerably, although they do not say how much. The brightness of the image, always a serious drawback of plasma, has also been increased. This one is measured at 92 ft-Lamberts which is 315 Candela or 315 Lumins. This is not nearly as bright as the experts would have you believe. It is par for the course for an average LCD computer monitor. That is generally good enough, and comfortable for most, and more than Plasma has ever had before.

The whole package is THX certified. The color is supposed to be spot-on. It even gets the pulldowns and rescales correct. Wow... I guess that leaves nothing to be desired, if you like Plasma in the first place.

How about the price? Pretty fucking good. Contrary to some unfortunate false reports, this unit is scheduled to sell for just $1800 bucks. The price has not been jacked into the stratosphere. That is a very, very nice price point for the greatest plasma TV of all-time.

My verdict: 50 is just too small to be interesting. It is good for a small apartment or a bedroom. It does not fit my living room. I am going with the new Mitsubishi DLPs. My probable target is the new WD-82737. That is the one I want.

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