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 Analysis, conclusions It was noticed an increased support for microchip-based RPTV displays, mainly using LCD and DLP technology. Some TV manufacturing companies are switching in and out of the LCoS technology due to difficulty/availability of chips, or due to company direction. Additionally, Intel has announced in August their delay in the delivery of LCoS chips for projection TVs, not to be by year-end as planned; while its competitor, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., is still on course manufacturing chips as planned. Some large LCD TV panels are now exceeding the 40" mark, a size long considered the domain of plasmas in the flat-panel market. Although with a handful of new large LCD panels, there is now an overlap in the 37 to mid-40-inches range covered by both technologies, however, new large LCD TV panels generally retail for at least twice the cost of similar size plasmas. It must be noted that LCD TV panels have reached 1080x1920 resolution on the 45+ size, a resolution that plasma will have in much larger panels, but does not have in the sizes of the overlapping range. One LCD TV panel is the Sharp's 1080p 45" LCD TV panel (AQUOS models 45GD4U and 45GD6U) expected to ship in the fall of 2004 at $10000 MSRP. The DTV industry is gradually moving from the manufacturing of CRT-based displays to support other technologies, however, most major companies are still introducing new lines of RPTV and Direct-view models based on CRT technology, which continue to offer the best value for a good quality display (and the rendition of black), if space and weight are not a constraint. As to be expected, there is a noticeable boost in the manufacturing volume of integrated sets to meet the FCC mandate and deadlines. However, if you look carefully across 2004/5 TV lines, you will find that there is still a substantial additional cost charged to consumers for integrated OTA ATSC and QAM CableCARD tuners, the latter with only unidirectional cable limited functionality. While the boost in the release of new integrated lines and models is seen in the manufacturing, the actual sales to the final customer on this initial period of large availability of integrated models is not showing a similar boost. In other words, some companies that still offer monitor-only versions experienced more sales of monitors than integrated models. That phenomenon is expected to change, not because people prefer (or prefer to pay extra for) integrated tuners, but because most monitors will gradually disappear, as mandated by the FCC. Customarily, manufacturers reduce the price of models that are about to be replaced, like Samsung, which in March 2004 had reduced by $500 its previous DLP RPTV HLN line, replaced by the 2004 HLP line. However, many companies are not actually reducing prices when replacing their HDTV current models with newer models, which could be a way to accelerate the HDTV adoption by passing to consumers the savings gained from higher volume and more efficient manufacturing. Instead, many companies are introducing new models at similar prices than the sets they replace, and in many cases even higher. Some justify it by the implementation of newer upscale features/technology (like HD2 improved by HD3 and later by HD2+ TI's DMD chips). Others justify it by the inclusion of the mandated built-in ATSC/QAM cable tuners, jacking up the TV price by $400-$1000 depending of the display technology and the manufacturer. Although is starting to look better for consumers, "some" manufacturers that added $700 for the HD tuner integration of their 2003 models now charge $500. Uninformed consumers looking for near future HDTV purchases would most probably not notice the actual dollar impact of integration to their pockets, because they eventually would not find monitor-only versions available to be able to compare their lower cost against their integrated versions, as they could now. In other words, imagine being forced to buy a new refrigerator when just need to replace the kitchen counter top, because "now it comes with it", everyone sells them together, and the refrigerator is made by the counter top manufacturer. It was noticeable the large adoption of DVI and HDMI connectors in HDTV displays (also on HD-STBs and DVD players with upconversion to HD) for the transmission of protected digital HD uncompressed video. If you have the choice go with HDMI. Additionally, in most cases, the number of inputs in HDTV displays is still not enough to accept multiple DVI/HDMI suited equipment, which might force you to pay for a DVI/HDMI switcher (not coming cheap). A/V receivers and pre/pro equipment with multiple DVI/HDMI input/outputs are still absent. On the plus side, the industry is moving consistently in that direction. It was also noticed an increased support to suit integrated HDTV sets and HD-STBs (except DirecTV) with two-way IEEE1394 inputs/outputs for HD compressed video connectivity, which allow for HD networking and external HD recording to DVRs and D-VHS. However, if you read the specifications on the announcements carefully, you might notice that a great number of integrated HDTVs do not mention the inclusion of IEEE-1394 connectors. It could be an omission on the early announcement of the specifications, but it could also be an omission of the connection itself. My best suggestion to you: before committing yourself to wait for a future model, confirm the features you need if they are not fully spelled out on the announcements, and, in the case of 1394, do not buy an integrated HDTV without 'activated' IEEE-1394 two-way connections. Even when the 1394 connection is present, it might only work with the manufacturer's proprietary implementation of it, incompatible to other brands and models, such as the case of the Toshiba's new stand-alone DVR (Symbio) that works only when paired to certain new Toshiba's integrated TVs. A handful of integrated HDTVs are now suited with internal DVR capabilities, but even when the unit can record internally a program for time-shifting, if you are also interested in archiving to D-VHS, make sure the HDTV has IEEE-1394 connections to permit for that. Some Broadcast Flag compliant products are starting to appear, earlier than mandated by the FCC. The rush for a purchase of a compliant product, rather than a legacy product that does not recognize the Broadcast Flag, might not necessarily be of your best interest (for more in the subject check my article regarding DTV content protection regulations, on issue # 4 of this magazine). Regarding the expectations for the arrival of some innovating products promised at CES: The oversized 1080x1920 plasmas (LG 71" Nov 04, LG 76" Jan 05, and Samsung 70" HPP7071 4Q04), The 57" LTP578W LCD 1080x1920 TV (Samsung, Jun 04, later updated to 4Q04), The Blu-ray Hi-def DVD player/recorders (Samsung mid 04, LG 3Q04), The 1080p xHD3 DLP RPTVs (Samsung mid/late 04), and Voom's network HD-STBs (Motorola 580 DVR server/clients, mid 04) Although they were originally expected by mid/late 2004, the products are still unreleased as of this writing (August). Perhaps, by the time you read this, some of those products might start to appear, but if not, it would give you more time for saving for their purchase; there is always a positive side on everything. On another positive side, the H/DTV industry is moving much faster than when the first sets appeared in 1998, this is very good to consumers and manufacturers alike, we have more technologies, better products, and a larger variety to choose from, the dream of HDTV is finally becoming a reality.