The future of large RPT's (1 Viewer)

[jlefevre]

While several manufactures have announced that they will cease RPT production I feel that a RPT has a definite future in certain sizes. While the costs of flat panel in the smaller sizes has made the more attractive that RPT, There still appears to be a segment in the 60 to 73 inch sizes where RPT's have a huge cost advantage over flat panel technology. I currently have a 60 inch Hitachi RPT that has worked flawlessly for 2 years. I even have a spare bulb. It is a LED technology with 720P capability. I have one stuck blue pixel and you have to know where to look to find it. The space where it sits would easily support a 73 inch RPT or even a little large. Mitshbishi makes two 73 inch DLP RPT that would fit and cost as much as I paid 2 years ago for the Hitachi. My quandry is to keep watching the Hitachi (really a great picture) and hope that a 73 inch RPT will be available when it dies (or a real stretch is that an LCD or plasma in 73 inch shows up at 1080P for 3,000.00) or to panic now and buy a 73 inch RPT before the possibility vanish. I do not wanat to get in a position where only 15,000.00 will buy a flat panel in a large size (which I will not be able to afford) or going to front projection (which I do not want to do for a vareity of physical constraints on the room). Any feeling out there on the future of price drops on large flat panels of the continued availibity of large RPT's

 

[Steve Schaffer]

As large RPTVs become more and more a niche product I don't see price competition making them significantly less expensive than they currently are.
When/if they disappear completely of course the fire sales will start but by then availablility may be a problem.

 

[SethH]

They aren't going to disappear so quickly that you need to run out and purchase immediately. Two manufacturers were showing off laser tvs at CES. These are just DLP tvs that use a laser light source and no color wheel. Prices have not been released yet, but lasers are supposed to be significantly less expensive to produce than the LED light source currently used by Samsung. Those sets are due out later this year.

 

[ChrisCAB]

One word - Landfills

 

[Carl Gaff]

Second word: Recycling

 

[gene c]

I picked up a Toshiba 65HM167 1080P rptv a couple of months ago at Fry's for $1399. Not the best one out there but the picture is very good and it's simple to setup and use. Flat panels are nice but 65 inches is nicer. Only thing better is a projector but my room is too brite. I also think rptv's are slowly fading away but no need to rush out and buy one just yet.

 

[DaveF]

What's your timeline? If this is 5 years from now, it would make no sense to buy a large TV now and put it in the closet until then. And given the progression of flat panel TVs, it seems likely 70" flat panels will be available at mass market prices in a few years.

But if you're talking about 6 months from now, it could be reasonable to get what you want now instead of waiting half year.

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I don't suppose there should be any problems waiting another year or so, would there? I was planning on getting a new DLP set in another year (or maybe two at the most).

_Man_

 

[gene c]

From walking thru a couple of stores today it really looks like the smaller rptv's, say less than 50 inches, are pretty much gone or have red tags on them to be sold as open boxes. Frys in Fremont CA only has a few and they're all 56" or better. Best Buy only has a couple of Mitsubishis (65 and 73) and a 60" Sony on display. Didn't peek into the Magnolia area. Pre Christmas, most stores had at least a dozen or more on display. I still think the larger ones will be around for a while because it's a cost effective way to get a really big picture. But it looks like the smaller ones are being fazed out pretty quickly. Flat panels were everywhere of course.

 

[bpickell]

My problem with the flat panels are the ones that are affordable aren't of the 1080p variety, they are only the 720p sets. The 1080p sets tend to be well over 2K. I have seen a couple generic brands in the smaller screen sizes that claim 1080p for about 1500, but that is about it.

 

[Treker-1701]

I don't know if any of you all heard this yet or not, but Sony announced recently (I believe at the recent CES) that they are discontinuing their SXRD based RPT's in favor of focusing on LCD flat panel technology.

They are also working on ramping up OLED flat panel technology to large sizes which they feel will become the dominate technology in the next 10 years or so, eventually displacing both LCDs and Plasmas. Right now the largest OLED panel that Sony makes is 11", but the technology looks promising to ramp up in size, with picture quality better than anything currently available.

As far as large RPT's go, my guess is that within 2 or 3 years, you will not be able to find any on the showroom floor of your local Best Buy or Circuit City. You may be able to buy one online or from a specialty retailer, but it looks as if this format is dieing a pretty quick death.

Later,

 

[elijah_true]

Very interesting

 

[Allan Jayne]

(copied from another forum)
On smaller size RPTV's the screen rib pitch, analogous to dot pitch on a direct view CRT, becomes a limiting factor for horizontal resolution.

I would say that the total number of ribs averages 1000 across for a 50 inch screen, while 720p is 1280 pixels wide and 1080i is 1920 pixels wide.

Video hints: Video Technicalia Made Easy

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

So Allan, are you saying my 53" (CRT) RPTV probably only yields something like 1000-1100 lines of horizontal resolution in practice? Combine that w/ some loss of vertical resolution due to some degree of overlap between scan lines, I guess I'm far from getting the full picture from my BDs.

Hmmm... Maybe I need to rethink about my next TV upgrade.

_Man_

 

[Allan Jayne]

You can actually count the ribs yourself. Use a sharp pencil, making tick marks on an ordinary piece of paper. Put your face close to the screen, like four inches. Count perhaps two inches worth of ribs, and extrapolate (multiply) to get the number of ribs all the way across. If you cannot feel the ribs, turn the TV on and you will see them.

Some RPTV's have finer ribs than others. Mine (an LCD RP standard def TV) is 50 inches and had about 1000 ribs which was not the coarsest for its time (1999).