[mm360 Posted Feb 26th 2008 5:30PM]

Whew, good thing I bought my Sony back when Samsung made the screens, I won't have the banding issues (or the hella annoying bad viewing angles). The W3000 is a very nice screen, thank you.

Still, I think the real time to buy is in 2010-2011, when OLED TV becomes standard. What I cannot understand is why Sony is investing this money with Sharp to build LCD's when OLED will be the business of the next decade. If average profit per screen at 72,000 HDTVs a month is $200, then in 3 years the plant will have generated only $518,400,000 in profit. Its true that the plant could actually be upgraded later, but LCD TV is limited in life with OLED to become mainstream by at most 2013.

60,000 hour lifespan? Blue OLEDs now last that long, so check.
Thinner and lighter than LCD? Check
Use less power, have better contrast, and better pixel response? Check.
Ease of production? They are made by what amounts to a giant inkjet printer. Check.

To invest this much in LCD TV now is foolish. The plant will pay for itself, I have no doubt, but this is not about paying for itself its about making money. Sure, I'm undercutting the total profit a little at $200 a unit, but make it $400 a unit and in 3 years the venture would only make a little over a billion dollars in 3 years.

And with shipping, parts, and R&D built in, thats a crazy amount of loss on the factory eventually. I do not like this deal. They need to up the ante into OLED TV for the next decade. LCD is getting to be standard right now, and keeping us waiting isn't going to help returns for investors.

[tekdroid (Unverified) Posted Feb 27th 2008 7:11AM]

you must have some insight Sony and Sharp have overlooked before investing 3.5 billion in a new plant.