Pioneer pulling out ??

[twich54]

Did I hear correctly...Pioneer to pull out of plasma flat panel displays ??

 

[Gordon Gray]

Hi Dave,

Who, if you can tell us, told you that?

Reason I'm asking is that I've decided on my next TV and, its you know what.

Gordon

 

[twich54]

Hi Dave,

Who, if you can tell us, told you that?

Reason I'm asking is that I've decided on my next TV and, its you know what.

Gordon

Hi Gordon, I caught the tale end of the announcement on CNBC "Squak Box" today.

 

[Diamonds]

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssConsumerGoodsAndRetailNews/idUST22772520080304

Here you go. They are stopping making their own panels but now buying panels from another maker. Hope this helps.

I have a Kuro and a 3 year old Pioneer and they are both awesome. I hope their quality does not suffer.

 

[Hauger92]

This sucks!! Pioneer is really the only flat panel television I have respect for. I wanted to purchase one soon, hopefully this year's Elite stays around a while or maybe the new models/panels that will come out this year will still be built by Pioneer.

 

[slowGEEZR]

My next screen is going to be a Pioneer plasma. To my eyes, the best picture out there.

 

[Audiophiliac]

Its true....between the Pioneer Elite and Runco (they use Pioneer panels in their plasmas), the best flat panel displays out there. I was hoping to get a 60" to replace my munged Mits Diamond DLP....better get on it quick it sounds like.

 

[Hauger92]

For those of you that still want to get your hands on a Pioneer panel before they switch over to Panasonic panels there are still some PDP5080/5010 models still available. The Elites shouldn't get moved out until summertime with all the other "premium" models.

I also spoke to my Pioneer rep today and he told me that going to an outside supplier shouldn't be a huge deal considering during Pioneer's CRT days they didn't build their own CRTs. Pioneer will still make the glass and the electronics for the newer televisions.

BTW - The PDP5080 has been as low as 1999.99, which is an great deal if you can jump on it!!

 

[JonFo]

...

BTW - The PDP5080 has been as low as 1999.99, which is an great deal if you can jump on it!!

Yep, three of my friends and I picked up 5080's at $2K in the past two weeks. It's an excellent display, highly recommended.

But not to despair, as Pioneer will supposedly produce the 9G Kuros at their own plants this year.

Then they will license the panel tech to Panasonic for inclusion in the panels Pio will be using in the future. They might even license some of the tech for inclusion in all Panasonic panels.

So the 2008 10th gen high luma output Pioneers will be using glass made at a Panasonic factory, but leveraging the Kuro designs and tech.
Best part is, they should be more cost competitive due to lower manufacturing costs.

 

[Pcar928fan]

So the 2008 10th gen high luma output Pioneers will be using glass made at a Panasonic factory, but leveraging the Kuro designs and tech.
Best part is, they should be more cost competitive due to lower manufacturing costs.

That last bit has always been the problem for Pioneer. NO ONE disputes the quality of the image you get from a Pioneer TV (RPTV, Plasma, you name it) but they have ALWAYS been on the high side of the price per inch equation. Again, to you love the quality of the image more than the size of the image. I look forward to seeing what Pioneer/Panasonic can do together. They are both producing some GREAT panels right now, so if they can pool their resources and gain an economy of scale we should see some VERY BIG, VERY BEAUTIFUL, plasmas in the year to come!

 

[coolcobramatt]

This sucks!! Pioneer is really the only flat panel television I have respect for. I wanted to purchase one soon, hopefully this year's Elite stays around a while or maybe the new models/panels that will come out this year will still be built by Pioneer.

then you havent actually owned the others ...I love my Hitachi Ultravision plasma...

 

[jfm]

Pioneer Stands By Its Plasma

Panic not! Forget the headlines! Pioneer will still make top-notch plasmas. Company executive VP Russ Johnston tells S&V how Pio will share some secrets, hoard others, and expand its product line.

By Brent Butterworth • April 2008

Pioneer Stands By Its Plasma
Brent Butterworth
Russ Johnston, Pioneer executive vice president, promises the days of Kuro are anything but over.


Rumors that Pioneer would end production of plasma TV panels and begin buying them from other companies raised eyebrows in the electronics industry this week. But according to Russ Johnston, Pioneer's executive vice president of product planning and marketing, those who see Pioneer's move as a bellwether of plasma's demise will have to save their schadenfreude for another day. (No, he didn't actually use the word "schadenfreude" — journalists have an exclusive on that one for another two years.)

Here's what Johnston tells Sound & Vision about the future of the company's acclaimed Kuro TVs, and of plasma TV in general:

Pioneer has announced that it will cease production of plasma TV panels and will start sourcing them from other manufacturers. Why?
Last year, we repositioned our brand into the premium space. We didn't want to make our plasma TVs less expensive; we wanted to make them better. We made this decision because we didn't want to break from that product strategy. We can dramatically lower our fixed expense by sourcing our panels from a third-party supplier.

Can you tell me if that third-party supplier is Panasonic, as the rumors have it?
There's been a lot of speculation over the last couple of weeks. I think mainly that comes from us investigating all the potential suppliers. It's easy to find out that someone's looking [for a new supplier]. Yesterday, when Mr. [Tamihiko] Sudo [president of the Pioneer Corporation] was asked by the press, "Is it multiple suppliers?" he answered, "Matsushita" [parent company of Panasonic].

We hear that you'll be sharing your technology with Matsushita. Does that mean Matsushita will be making the equivalent of a Pioneer Kuro panel?
The number-one goal is to make sure we can maintain our differentiation, and specifically our Kuro difference in the marketplace. We understand that the module [plasma panel], the processor, and the filter are the key components. Our performance isn't solely built around the glass or the module. We're still making the entire video circuit and processing, and also the color filter strategy and technology is coming from Pioneer. Those are the key elements that we can maintain exclusive to Pioneer.

We will have some specification requirements for our module, and I'm sure that they will learn a few of our trade secrets, but none of those decisions have been made. We're far enough into the discussion with Matsushita that we're confident we will have them as a third-party supplier for modules in 2009.

A lot of people regard the Kuro as the best TV ever made. Can we expect to see the Kuro in Pioneer's line a year or two from now?
Oh, yeah, that's our main focus, it's our primary passion. We wouldn't be in this business if we couldn't maintain that. After two years of going through this, our consensus was, we can maintain that difference even if we do source the module from a third party.

You're going to hear from everybody on the Matsushita side, "We can make a Kuro panel." They may learn some things on one of the core elements of the panel, but they're not going to have the others.

Plasma has gone down in market share relative to LCD, and that trend is continuing — and it's had something to do with this decision. Can you speculate on the reason why plasma is declining relative to LCD?
We're not in the TV business; we're in the home theater market space. That's from 50 inches to as big as 70 inches. Plasma dominates that size range. Obviously, LCD is suited for 42 inches and below. We can show you how it performs in our size space, and what our extreme difference is. When you get above 70 inches, it's probably projectors that are better for that [viewing] environment.

Since you're saying projectors are better than plasma for sizes above 70 inches, might we see a Pioneer projector sometime soon?
We are going to maintain focus on PDP because of the size range for home theater. We have aligned with Sharp to bring LCD to the marketplace; retailers are asking for that premium-brand second-room television. We are filling out our display lineup. At some [size] point, plasma technology is not suitable. So to answer your question, we will be in that space, and we'll probably have more to talk about in May.

So you don't see plasma going away then?
Absolutely not. We would have a much different announcement today if that were the case.