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From the pages of November's
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Below are excerpts from our November issues of Display Watch and MD-TV Retailer. You can get the full stories by subscribing! FPD International ReportManufacturers Prove They Can Innovate The 69K visitors to FPD International 2005 - held October 19-21 at the Pacifico Yokohama exhibition center in Yokohama, Japan - saw a flat-panel display industry in creative ferment. Not only is innovation coming from Japanese and Korean companies, but Taiwanese, US and European vendors are showing increasingly strength at this show. Our take away from the show was that manufacturers have concluded that continuing success in LCDs depends on sharply reducing the motion blur and expanding their color gamut, while success in PDPs will come from increasing the resolution and reducing costs. Full story in Display Watch Standards WatchLCOS: The New Reference Standard for Picture Quality Editor's note: We asked Dr. Ray Soneira to write this article because he is an expert on display measurement metrics. When an expert changes his opinion in some aspect of his area of expertise, this is an important event - and a key reason why we thought you should know about it.
Mobile Video WatchMoviTV Leading the Way in Mobile Video Editor's note: Back in 2003 when MicroDisplay Corporation founder Phillip Alveda told us he was leaving to start a company to bring digital TV to cell phones. We didn't get it then, but we get it now! This is going to be big and Alveda was ahead of the crowd on this one (as he was with microdisplays). That's why we thought it would be a good idea to interview with him and the other co-founders of MobiTV - an emerging leader in the Mobile TV segment. Brainstorming about how to take their company to the next level back in 2003, three guys in Berkeley, California came up with a crazy notion that a cell phone was powerful enough to display television images. Potential partners laughed at first. But in November 2003, Sprint became the first wireless carrier to offer Paul Scanlan, Dr. Phillip Alvelda and Jeff Annison's MobiTV (Emeryville, CA) (www.mobitv.com) to consumers. Last month, Sprint and MobiTV received a special Emmy award for their efforts. The $10-a-month service, now also offered by Cingular, has attracted 500K subscribers. Full story in Display Watch
LCD WatchLCD Analysts Diverge on Near-Term Oversupply The latest forecasts from the LCD industry analysts at DisplaySearch, iSuppli and IDC disagree about the likely oversupply situation in the current quarter. iSuppli (El Segundo, CA) (www.isuppli.com) predicts the oversupply situation to worsen this quarter, while DisplaySearch (Austin, TX) (www.displaysearch.com) Taiwan President David Hsieh has argued that panel oversupply may not occur even in 1Q-06 if this quarter's sales are strong. The manufacturers themselves, such as AUO and Samsung, are bullish. Meanwhile, DisplayBank see a significant oversupply problem in 4Q-05, but IDC (Framingham, MA) (www.idc.com) indicates that the current supply situation is in balance, but will tip into oversupply next year. WitsView sees an oversupply situation for at least another year. So who is right? Full story in Display Watch PDP WatchPlasma's Next Act - Curved and/or Flexible? Recent advances in PDP technology and pricing have focused on improving one PDP architecture. But now, we are seeing ideas for novel plasma designs (both tubes and spheres) that could open up new opportunities for the technology. If perfected, these approaches could lead to bright, large-scale wall displays for simulators, video signage or advertising. These displays could be much brighter than conventional PDPs, and could even be curved in one or two directions to conform to walls and building exteriors. This next generation of plasma display could be a threat to large LED walls currently used for many applications. This is a growing market segment that is vulnerable to penetration by a new technology, as pricing for the LED walls is very high. The technology might also offer an interesting alternative for multi-projector simulation systems, as a curved wall of PDP technology could offer a viable alternative. Full story in Display Watch Microdisplay WatchEpson LCD Sales Impact Profit / Forecast As pressure from flat panel technologies continues to squeeze the projection industry we've been carefully monitoring large suppliers of core technology in this space. Insight Media recently spoke with 3LCD supplier Epson, to gain first hand the reasons for their large downward revision in the recently released half-year financial report. Our goal was to determine what impact, if any, can be expected on LCD projection markets. Full story in MD-TV Retailer
Channel WatchBlack Friday to Offer Incredible Bargains Black Friday is perhaps the biggest retailing day in the US. It follows the Thanksgiving Holiday and falls on Friday November 25. It is the tradition start of the Holiday selling season and kicks off with big sales to draw shoppers into stores. Based on some advance hints of pricing, it now looks like front projectors under $500 will be one of those big draws. In addition, check out the pricing for 42-inch ED PDP TVs - $999 from Maxent. Proton has the lowest pricing on a 32-inch LCD-TV at $799 with Syntax not far off this mark at $999. Full story in MD-TV Retailer Behind the ScenesChristmas 2005 - The Factories Will Be Happy All signs point to a strong Christmas selling season for consumer electronics. Without exception, every retailer surveyed during late October expected huge volume increases in the quantity of product that they plan to sell by the end of 2005. Some were more pessimistic than others, but the bottom line looks good, with fairly stable supply and inventory levels. Full story in MD-TV Retailer In-Store Survey - Sears RoebuckInto the Depths
US MD-TV Retail Pricing DataSurvey Methodology The pricing data contained in this section comes from a Web survey of retailers selling TV products. These retailers were chosen to provide a cross-section of retailer types, retailer channels and geographic regions within the US, as shown in the table. Full story in MD-TV Retailer
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About Insight Media Insight Media (www.insightmedia.info) provides a full array of market research, news, analysis and consulting services for the microdisplay industry, with special attention to projection and near-to-eye products. Tracking the complete supply chain from finished products and distribution to components, microdisplay-based products, technologies, trends and analysis is delivered through newsletters, technology reports, forecasts, conferences and custom consulting activities. Insight Media has developed a world-class team of industry analysts and associates to provide the most comprehensive coverage and analysis of the microdisplay industry has to offer. To be removed from the Insight Media News list, please click here. Insight Media ©2005 All Rights Reserved. 3 Morgan Avenue, Norwalk CT 06851, 203-831-8464 |
This month, we took the opportunity to visit the Sears Roebuck store in Danbury, Connecticut. What we found was a text-book example of just about everything a retailer can do wrong in selling HDTV. Only dedicated Sears shoppers are likely to buy from Sears, assuming our one-store survey is representative of the entire chain. TVs are clearly not a main theme of retailing here, even though they are among the hottest CE items. 