Panasonic unveils "world's smallest" 1080p plasma
By Evan Blass 
posted October 4th 2005 6:05PM
posted October 4th 2005 6:05PM
Panasonic has just unveiled a new plasma television which they claim to be the world's smallest PDP capable of displaying 1080p content. The 50-inch model, which is being shown at Japan's CEATEC 2005, had to overcome a number of technical difficulties in its development. Most challenging was coaxing adequate brightness, stable discharge, and appropriate speed out of such tiny pixels. Panasonic was able to achieve this breakthrough using new, proprietary methods as well as transferring some technology from their 65-inch 1080p model. Better catch a flight to Tokyo if you want to pick one up, though; 50 inches of 1080p goodness will only be available in Japan, starting November 1st (Note: model pictured is a 50-inch Panasonic 1080i plasma).
Just watch, the Gamestop Ultra-Mega-Super-Omega bundle of the PS3 is gonna include 2 of these.
when was the last time you saw an article about a breakthrough in making the SMALLEST tv??? maybe it's just me, but i find it humorous.
This is more useful to me. No way my girlfriend will let me get a 65" plasma in the house, but 50" is more reasonable. Hopefully this means they can start to produce true 1280x720 42" ones as well, since they're currently limited to 1024x768 and ugly rectangular pixels.
"when was the last time you saw an article about a breakthrough in making the SMALLEST tv???"
Well, it's maybe a trick of the language... it's not that it's the smallest TV, it's specifically that it's the smallest 1080p plasma.
It's a big deal because it used to be that if you wanted a 42" set you were limited to 1024x768 and if you wanted a 50" set you were limited to 1366x768.
So what this really is, is just the world's first 50" 1920x1080p plasma set. It's actually an increase in resolution. They just worded things a little funny.
I think "World's highest resolution 50 inch TV" would've been more favourable to sales and less confusing..
Except that one company just came out with a 56" LCD display with 3840x2160 resolution. That's like putting four 28" 1080p TVs together.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000670060830/
Nick
The fact that it had the phrase 'Worlds smallest TV' made you read it. Lets thnk about that for a while...
Hummm, play on words maybe?
I would certainly be interested in what appears to be better display quality that until now has suffered in the resolution stakes.
"(Note: model pictured is a 50-inch Panasonic 1080i plasma)."
WTF is a 1080i plasma screen? That doesn't make sense, plasma is progressive scan?
"WTF is a 1080i plasma screen? That doesn't make sense, plasma is progressive scan?"
In this context, 1080i refers to the highest resolution digital signal that the display will accept, not its native screen resolution. 1080p on the other hand is being used in a difference context and refers to the resolution of the screen (which incidentally may or may not accept a 1080p signal, using "1080p" products on the market today as references).
Confusing? Yes. But this sort of "overloaded nomeclature" appears to be here to stay. It would make more sense to reserve 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p to describe the signals the the displays accept and always use 852x480, 1280x720, 1366x768, 1920x1080 to describe resolution of the screen. But the marketing people appear to have got ahold of these terms early on, and knew just enough to be dangerous. And so we are stuck with terms that do little to describe displays accurately, but are sure good at making something seem like more that it really is. And that'll sell lots of product, they'll tell ya.
Hitachi's 42" model is NOT progressive scan. They call it ALiS. The "AL" stands for alternate lighting (read: interlaced). The resolution of the panel is 1024x1024, so it matches up close to 1080i. Note the same resolution horizontally and vertically necessarily implies the pixel dimensions are 16:9 (very "rectangular" so difficult to scale).
When can I get one of these 50" 1080p Panasonic displays in the US? I want to get one before the holiday, and this is the one I want. What's taking so long? I'm curious as to what the price will be, I've read reports that the 65" will sell for far less that the estimated $9,000. Where can I get one? Who will be the first to supply them? If the 65" sells for something closer to $6-7K, I may opt for that.