The following article originally appeared in HDTVetc magazine in their August 2004 issue. It contains product information that is likewise, dated to mid-2004. The products in this article were "New" when originally published and should obviously not be considered as such when reading today. Although this article has some historical value, the primary value is the analysis to reach a forecasted vision of future market conditions (which eventually came to pass). This assisted many consumers in making more informed purchasing decisions. Reading the Analysis and Conclusions section is almost like time-travel: The historic vision has now transformed itself into current events and conditions ... mostly (we are still waiting for some of them to happen). Enjoy the reading.
How do you know what HDTV products are aligned for future release to make an informed selection today? Similar to when you are about to spend $3000 on any other product for your house. How do you know if your selection would not to be replaced next month by a product introduced on trade shows? Last year shows. Would you expect to see near future products at your corner store when the retailer is actually trying to sell the current line and liquidating the line before that? Often, not even the store manager could be informed enough to help you with those questions, and the information is most probably limited to only the lines the store sells, and not looking ahead far enough so your purchase would not to be obsolete the minute it arrives to your door step. Some sales personnel would not even bother to read basic video subscriptions, or to consult free information of the Internet, to serve you better. Therefore, you are in your own to been able to anticipate, what to do? Consumer electronics is always very dynamic. I have seen some manufacturers release self-replacing HDTV lines three times within the year, sometimes with minor improvements, other times with radical redesigns to include features you might have interest to wait for, if you knew they were coming next quarter. The International Consumers Electronic Show (CES) held every January at Las Vegas is considered as one of the most important yearly consumer electronic events, if not the most. Manufacturers have the opportunity to show their new products, prototypes, mockups, and to provide technology statements. Many of those products would become available later on the year, or the following, some will later be released with different features or functionality than when shown, some will never make it to the retailing floors. Every year I prepare a comprehensive review of future H/DTV products a month after CES; approximately 100 pages of documentation containing hundreds of new products with detailed specifications and company/technology trends. If you need that kind of detail, the complete version could help you and is available in the Internet's HDTV Magazine, http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/store/ces-2005.php. The material also serves as backbone for the printable summary version that appears on the pages of this magazine (HDTVetc) as "The Current State of HD Technology" (Spring 2004 issue for CES 2004). CEDIA EXPO (Custom Electronic Design and Installation Association) is another show usually held in September that manufacturers also use as an opportunity to show new products that are coming down the line, those products might be found displayed again four months later at CES. CES International has grown from 200 exhibitors/17,500 attendees in 1967 to 2,500 exhibitors/129,000 attendees in 2004, and is now over six times the size of CEDIA EXPO (with over 20,000 attendees in 2003). In other words, people attending CES might expect to see "all" of the products that will be introduced in the near future. Some attendees come back from the show and start saving for their targeted product, or decide to buy another one that is already available because CES helped them confirm that it might not be worth the waiting. However, those that follow the industry closely might already know that many major companies introduce full lines of new products after the first quarter, products that were not even hinted at CEDIA or CES. By incorporating to the CES review those "during the year" announcements, one can be in a better position to compare the products introduced by company A at CES in January, against products introduced by company B a few months later after CES (due to company's marketing yearly cycles), and have then a more complete view of the 2004/5 lines. This article covers the new introductions/updates made between January and August (after CES, but before CEDIA) from several major DTV manufacturers such as Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Thomson, Toshiba, Samsung, and Sony. Prices are MSRP (I took the liberty to round the 999s to the next dollar to facilitate reading). Product availability is stated as "Time to Market" (TTM), reported in press releases by the manufacturer. I hope the information would be useful for your buying/upgrade/planning decisions. To help you put all this information in perspective I also include a brief analysis and conclusions section at the end.
I would like to remind you that although some of the following products are still current, the announcements are not.
Hitachi Mitsubishi Samsung SONY Thomson Toshiba