Monday August 27,
2012 – Stewart Wolpin
It's happening again.
A superior
qualitative technology is failing and will perhaps disappear while a competing
inferior technology thrives and becomes dominant.
There's been a long,
if dishonorable, tradition of consumers and the market making the wrong
qualitative format choice. AM dominating FM. Audio cassette usurping vinyl. VHS
vaulting over Beta. Windows whipping Mac. MP3 trumping CD.
Sure, there are solid
functional, convenience, marketing and pricing reasons why an inferior quality
technology beat out a higher-quality competitor. But the historical fact
remains – too often, a lower-quality product wins out.
In this case, the
qualitative loser is poor plasma HDTV. Even though plasmas were the first and,
for a long time, the dominant flat screen HDTV technology, LCD is prevailing in
the market place. Always inferior to plasma (even today, the best LCD models
are always noted as being "as good as plasma"), LCD models were not
available in large sizes, and when they were, they were vastly more expensive
than plasma.
Not anymore.
Plasma HDTV sales
have been slowing for some years and make up a small percentage of the overall
flat-panel TV market, despite the fact that plasma HD prices are moving down.
A lot of plasma’s
misfortunes began when certain LCD manufacturer started to spread
misinformation about plasma burn-in rates, lifetime brightness limitations and
other now non-existent plasma problems that I still hear from civilians
("Oh, I heard plasma has problems with…") and have to constantly
refute.
And, so, plasma HDTV
may be on its way to the dustbin of TV history.
Perhaps the one
consolation for folks who want an alternative to LCD is the hopeful emergence
of OLED sets, unveiled at CES by both Samsung and LG and promised for sale this
fall. Sure, initial OLED sets will run around $10k, but this is less than what
original plasma HTDVs cost 15 years ago.
For quality survival
sake, I hope plasma lasts long enough for OLED to become affordable.
