What in the HD World?

Fans of plasma HDTVs - and I consider myself in that corner - absorbed a one-two punch this week.

First on February 11, the initial body blow was delivered by Laynie Newsome, VIZIO Co-Founder and VP of Sales & Marketing Communications, when she announced that VIZIO had stopped producing plasma TVs and are quickly selling through their remaining inventory.

Interestingly, one of the reasons Newsome gave the New York Times was that plasmas do not represent themselves well as LCDs do under the harsh lighting typical of the showrooms of big electronics stores.

VP505XVT, One of VIZIO's Last Plasmas

I guess that I should have read the tea leaves when I visited VIZIO's suite at CES in January. There was nary a new plasma model among all their 2009 HDTVs that they were previewing. Indeed, all of them were based on LCD technology.

But for me, the real uppercut to the jaw came a day later when Pioneer substantiated the rumors that had been floating around since before CES. Faced with mounting losses and a sour economic future, Pioneer formally announced that they are exiting the plasma display business.

They have ended in-house development of new plasma models and will close down its TV business altogether by March 2010. As for the near term, Pioneer stated in a press release that "Pioneer displays are currently available at retail partners and the company plans to continue supporting service needs, replacement parts and warranties."

Pioneer KURO PDP-6020

I recently have reviewed plasma HDTVs from both VIZIO, the VP505XVT, and Pioneer, the KURO PDP-6020FD, and gave them our Highly Recommended rating.

I think these two TVs represent what we will miss with the departures of VIZIO and Pioneer from the plasma display business.

Pioneer, with their ever-evolving, ever-improving generations of KURO HDTVs, set a standard of picture quality excellence by which all other plasmas - and LCDs - were measured. In their efforts to produce a true black, Pioneer constantly pushed the envelope of plasma technology.

VIZIO, with its Vision meets Value proposition, didn't make cutting edge plasmas but the quality was strong and the TVs were affordable. They basically made plasmas available to the rest of us.

Now plasmas may be down - and more than a few experts may be counting them out - but I think that this pugilist still has some fight in him.

Maybe I'm wrong. I was one of the few who thought HD DVD technology would last longer than it did. But unlike the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray battle, I don't see the HDTV marketplace as an only-one-can-survive arena.

Samsung PN50A760, Editor's Choice

And to put Pioneer's exit in perspective, they were number four in plasma sales behind Panasonic, Samsung and LG. In fact, last year, Pioneer had signed an agreement to purchase all their panels from Panasonic.

And in December, I bestowed our Editor's Choice Award to the Samsung PN50A760. Therefore, there's still a lot of technological and marketing prowess in the plasma camp.

Actually, if you have been following the year-end earnings reports for many of the corporations with television divisions - whether LCD oriented or plasma - their operating losses are staggering. Many of these companies have announced layoffs and restructuring of their business model.

Unless economic conditions improve quickly, I think we will see more shakeouts in the HDTV industry.

Stay tuned.