Panasonic Z1 Neo PDP Technology: The Best Plasma Around

Panasonic Z1 Neo PDP

New Plasma TV Alert: The Panasonic Z1

With my current Polaroid LCD TV problems, I have been a little bit more motivated to do some research on the new stuff coming out out there. I’m not really looking to buy a new flat screen TV yet but it’s usually best to learn more about the tech side of things way before the likelihood of a purchase becomes significant. I am still on a mission to repair my Polaroid LCD TV by myself but I still love to learn what’s going on out there.

And boy did I learn something. With news of TV companies mulling closing down their plasma TV production (Pioneer shut down its TV production for good!), it’s a bit of a surprise to learn that Panasonic is still leading the pack in this segment with the introduction of the Neo PDP powered Panasonic Z1.

This plasma TV is ridiculously tempting. It’s definitely top of the line as it has achieved stuff that has not been achieved much by other companies. What is Neo PDP? I will answer that by saying what benefits it gives to the final product. With this let me quote this report on the Neo PDP.

Panasonic’s Neo PDP screens are just one inch thick. They also use 50% less power than normal and have contrast ratios of 40,000:1 for deep blacks. By next year, Panasonic says its Neo PDP TVs will be just 8.8mm thick, and with a contrast ratio of infinity:1, rivalling OLED for deep blacks and rich colours.

The word “infinity” doesn’t get thrown around when we talk of color display technology. When people start to, well, let’s just say we may be on to something. An infinity:1 contrast ratio should be pretty close to what our eyes can perceive in terms of contrast. I may be wrong here but, hey, infinity to 1???

Behind it all is Panasonic’s new plasma screen technology, with larger cells to emit more light at lower power. That makes the screen much brighter than normal. In fact, they’re 50% brighter than usual, using the same amount of power.

To help with black levels, Panasonic says it has also reduced the residual light in each cell of the screen, and it shows. The models we saw were spectacular.

The Neo PDP screens also refresh at an astounding 600Hz, creating 12 subframes for every frame of video they take in. The effect is massively smoothed video that looks slicker than a buttered snake.

Nuff said.

Oh, btw. The Panasonic Z1 is also capable of playing online content with the new Vieracast technology.

Am I thinking of getting one of this Z1’s? Well, they’re planning on releasing it this summer with an intro price of £4,200 or around 5,900 USD so that should answer your question. That’s not the buy price for me. I usually wait till the technology has matured a little bit more before I get one for myself and that usually means waiting a couple of years or so.

Related reads: Are they going to stop making plasma TV?

 

151 hours of TV-watching every month!

How long does the average American watch TV per day?

Well, yes the answer came before the question. This is the latest TV watching statistics on how much television Americans are watching and I just read it from a Los Angeles Times report about the most recent survey that was conducted by Nielsen, Co.

One hundred and fifty one hours— that’s 5 hours a day of TV on the average for the last quarter of the year 2008, which was  up 3.8% from 145 hours average from 4th quarter of 2007 the survey said.

This finding was way higher than the figure of 3.8 hours per day or a measly 120 hours per month TV watching by Americans that reported by another research firm last year.

They (Nielsen and LA Times) explain the increase in average time by citing the rising interest of people in the US presidential elections and the winter season. They also cited the findings that there is an apparent increase in the number of television units people are putting into their homes which is giving every household member easier access to TV entertainment which Americans seem to be needing more of these days.

“The timing of a lot of things has converged, what with the winter coming on, the darker nights, less money to go around and people entertaining at home more,” said Susan Bandura, director of strategy at San Francisco advertising agency Hoffman/Lewis.

Also contributing to the increase are the steady growth in TV programming and the number of TVs in households, Nielsen spokesman Gary Holmes said. The average U.S. household now contains more televisions than people, which means that family members or roommates can watch their favorite shows alone.

“Everyone has their own niche show they want to watch,” he said.

Furthermore, the increase in people watching TV on internet and other media like Tivos, mobile phones, etc. Teenagers are contributing in a major way to the increase in TV because they spend about 6.2 hours watching video content on the go through their mobile phones. One surprising finding in the survey concludes that senior American citizens actually watch the most indicating a trend with respect to age.

…Teenagers (12 to 17) spend 103 hours watching TV a month, whereas senior citizens (65 and older) spend 207 hours. That’s about seven hours a day — enough for two baseball games.

Read more about the TV-watching survey report.

 

The Biggest TVs Ever

The biggest TVs ever: Size matters in this arena!

While other gadgets like cellphones, notebook computers and cars are getting more compact, the race in the world of the television is still in the other direction— bigger and better TVs are still coming out as we gain more mastery over the plasma and LCD TV technology. In this post is a list of the biggest of them all that has been created so far. Note that some of the following may already be obsolete or are no longer being sold.

1. LG.Philips 100-inch LCD Panel – this is circa 2006 but it’s still one of the biggest ever. Though it has already been beaten as you’ll see below, I still see it as a great achievement. It got listed on the 2007 Guiness Book of World Records for Biggest LCD TV, too! However, I can’t find if this is still being sold.
2. LG 102-inch Plasma – this is circa 2005 and one of the early monsters and was a true 1080p HD with a contrast ratio of 5000:1! This one was pretty amazing considering it was released 4 years ago. A pretty long time in the world of tech!
3. Samsung 102-inch Plasma TV – announced in 2005 and also one of the early monsters! However, it appears that this wasn’t even released in the market (according to cepro.com). Such a waste if true.
4. Panasonic 103-inch Plasma – was the original monster of its day (circa 2007) and was sold for about $70,000. Ouch.
5. Hitachi 103-inch Plasma – an inch over that of Samsung’s and LG’s 102-inchers and Hitachi claims the throne! This was announced in 2007 and was intended for professional use (probably went for a professional price tag as well). Full HD with 5000:1 contrast.
6. Runco 103-inch Plasma TV – Runco what? I only got wind of this TV when I was researching for this post through Google. Runco, apparently, is a home theater company and looks like its family-owned business. See more about the Runco 103-inch TV.
7. Sharp 108-inch Aquos LCD TV - simply a King of the  LCD but this one is stuck in TV limbo. This was announced in 2007 but I believe no one has seen it in the markets yet. Too bad I was gonna buy one… Kidding.
8. Panasonic 150-inch Plasma TV – Panasonic strikes again with this godzilla! Where the heck will you put that in your living room?! Announce early 2008 and was planned on being released this year (2009). Bad year to release a new TV when prices of TVs are to plunging.

There you have it. Do you need to buy any of these TVs? Absolutely not! If you wish to buy a TV get those $600 big screens I talked about in my previous post about when’s a good time to buy a TV. If you’re TV’s malfunctioning, it might be good idea to just have it repaired first. This repair tv yourself blog might help in finding some info about TV repair.