Mitsubishi Elec to stop producing TV LCDs, focus on smaller panels ...
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Mitsubishi Electric plans to stop producing LCD panels for television sets and personal computers and shift to smaller panels for cellular phones and industrial equipment
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(InfoWorld) - Even if you bought a TV in the last several months you may already feel like it's out of date. Your shiny new flat-screen arrives, you hook it up to the antenna and the first thing you see is a commercial for a bigger, better model. It might even have a cheaper price. It's the way things seem to work these days in the world of TVs. Things aren't likely to change any time soon. The latest buzz is around "100Hz" or "120Hz" technology, which relates to how often the image on the screen is refreshed or redrawn. The technology is already appearing in TVs, and if you haven't seen promotional stickers for it yet you probably will soon. Most TV sets today refresh the picture either 50 times per second (50Hz) or 60 times per second (60Hz) depending where in the world you live (different regions use different color formatting.) That rate is fine for most images, but when it comes to fast moving shows like sports events the images can appear blurry on an LCD (liquid crystal display) TV. Doubling the rate at which images are displayed, to 100 or 120 frames per second, makes for a better, more high-definition picture. The need to improve LCD TVs has been especially acute because their chief competitor, PDP (plasma display panel) TVs, don't have the same blurring problem. Compounding the issue is that screen sizes are getting bigger, so any imperfections are more noticeable, said Mina Naito, a spokeswoman for Sony. PDP makers have trumpeted their advantage for some time, but things may be about to change. Compared to previous LCD panels, the new 100Hz and 120Hz models are "a big improvement," said Hisakazu Torii, a TV industry analyst with DisplaySearch in Tokyo. Prototype panels with the faster refresh rate began appearing last year. At the FPD International 2006 show in Yokohama in October, Samsung ElectronicsÂ demonstrated images and text scrolling across just such a panel, and they appeared to move more smoothly than on existing LCD TVs. Then at theÂ Consumer Electronics ShowÂ in Las Vegas in January, Sony announced a 120Hz model with the Samsung screen for the U.S. market. The 70-inch LCD TV is launched this month and carries the hefty price of $33,000. Samsung plans a 70-inch set, also based on the Samsung panel, which will go on sale in the first half of this year. Competitors including Victor Co. of Japan (JVC) and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (Panasonic) are also promoting 120Hz sets in Japan. The latest company to join the party isÂ Sharp, which last week said it would put five sets in its Aquos range on sale in Japan from March. The price runs from Â¥500,000 for a 42-inch model to Â¥1 million for a 65-inch model.
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Sony Corp has denied plans to exit the plasma television business. The company plans to focus on the flat-panel TV market on liquid crystal display and rear-projection models, and analysts say that this would be a logical move.
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Japan's Mitsubishi Electric Corp. said on  Tuesday it would gradually stop making liquid crystal display  (LCD) panels for televisions and computers, instead focusing on  smaller LCD panels.
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Sony is dropping its money-losing rear-projection TV business to focus on two flat panel technologies -- liquid crystal display and organic light-emitting diode.
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Japanese hi-tech giants Hitachi, Matsushita and Toshiba said they have agreed to jointly produce large liquid crystal display (LCD) panels for flat-screen televisions with one billion dollars in fresh investment.
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LG.Philips LCD Co. Ltd. , the world's second-biggest maker of large liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, said on Sunday it would increase the capacity of its biggest TV panel production line by 22 percent to meet growing demand for large LCD televisions.
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Sharp Corp. (6753.T), the world&#39;s  third-largest LCD TV maker, said on Friday it would likely  build a new LCD panel plant in Sakai, Osaka prefecture, and the  final decision will be made by the end of July.
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A new generation of OLED displays, which are thinner and more energy efficient than LCDs, is working its way to market. But it could be years before they're cheap enough to displace LCD screens.
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Big consumer electronics manufacturers and retailers say deep price cuts on flat panels will eventually end. They hope.
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Troubled Japanese automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. has decided to reduce the scope of its business cooperation with DaimlerChrysler AG.
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Sony Corp. plans to retreat from the plasma television business and focus its efforts in the flat-screen TV market on liquid crystal display and rear-projection models, the Nihon Keizai newspaper reported on Monday.
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Panasonic is preparing to repeat its CES show-stopper of a couple of years ago with the unveiling of the largest flat-panel screen manufactured to date, according to a Japanese media report.The company will unveil a 150-inch PDP television at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that begins in Las Vegas on January 6, the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported earlier this week.Two years ago, Panasonic stole the lead on two South Korean rivals, Samsung and LG, by unveiling a&#160;103-inch PDP screen. The two Korean companies had previously shown 102-inch panels. With the new screen Panasonic captured by an inch the title of &quot;world&#39;s biggest flat-screen&quot; and held that title until CES 2007 when Sharp unveiled a prototype 108-inch LCD (liquid crystal display) panel. Panasonic&#39;s display remains the biggest PDP in the world but not the biggest flat panel.Panasonic declined to comment on its specific plans for CES 2008 but did say that say it is &quot;putting its efforts in developing larger screens&quot; because the 103-inch was well received.If the 150-inch screen does appear at CES it is likely to be an early prototype from the company&#39;s &#165;280 billion ($2.5 billion) state-of-the-art PDP production line in Amagasaki, in western Japan, that is due to start production sometime in the year from April 2008. The new production line is a step more advanced than Panasonic&#39;s current line and should be able to make more advanced PDPs at lower costs.The cost savings come from the line&#39;s use of larger sheets of mother glass -- the initial glass sheets on which several panels are produced. Panasonic&#39;s current line can handle mother glass from which eight 42-inch panels can be produced while the new production line will accept sheets from which twelve 42-inch panels can be made.Panasonic won&#39;t disclose the exact size of the sheets but simple arithmetic shows they need to be roughly 2 meters by 3.4 meters to produce twelve such screens. To make a 150-inch PDP panel would require a sheet of glass about the same size.
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Large DLP sets gain acceptance; prices for smaller LCD sets plummet.
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The world&#39;s largest chipmaker, which has had product delays, manufacturing snafus and canceled the 4-GHz version of Pentium 4, has now axed its plans to build chips for big-screen, high-definition TV sets.
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Reuters reported on Monday that Japanese electronics titan Sony (NYSE: SNE) may pull out of the market for plasma flat-panel television sets by as early as spring 2005.
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TOKYO - Three of Japan's largest electronics companies, Hitachi Ltd., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. and Toshiba Corp., will announce later Tuesday plans to jointly manufacture LCD (liquid crystal display) panels.