A Man and his Penguin

Somebody from Time magazine reckons they went to somebody’s place and saw a $7,000 65-inch Mitsubishi laser TV, and that it was so much better a picture than the guy’s 37-inch LCD.

Now, I don’t doubt that laser TVs are better than your average Yank’s LCD or plasma. But did you ever wonder why the big TV brands weren’t interested in this laser technology?

1. It’s too thick. It’s over 25cm thick, and while Australian consumers don’t really ooo and aahhh over the thinness of a TV, they’re simply not going to like one that is virtually rear-projection in its bulk. Rear Pro is dead outside America; Sony and Samsung don’t see a market for a TV that can’t be wall mounted.

2. It’s too big. Americans love big TVs, that’s why they’re so into rear projection even though the picture quality is shithouse. In the real world, people simply don’t have enough space for a 65-inch TV and especially not for a 70-inch TV. They’d rather trade off size for picture quality and get something 52 inch or less. A screen that is only available in massive sizes and that might possibly be able to be made smaller, is not a sound investment for the big TV manufacturers.

3. The picture quality is likely to be nothing special at all. American LCDs and plasmas have such bad image quality, it’s surprising that anyone buys them at all. You still hear of American plasmas getting burn-in. You still hear of American LCDs getting motion trails. I know first-hand that American-market TVs are crap; Sony’s current V series LCD in Australia are almost the same TVs that sold in America, even down to the power socket. They have pinkish reds and blurry images for all content except 1080p full HD. That’s right: Everything you watch on this TV will be blurry except for Blu-ray, and even the Blu-ray movies will have naff colours.

If somebody says that Laser TVs are miles better than American LCDs, it gives absolutely no indication of their real quality. It’s like saying that Jessica Mauboy is miles better than the contestants on this series of Australian Idol - we all know that the AI people always sing a semitone below the note that they’re really supposed to sing, so how is this meant to cast Jessica Mauboy* in a good light?

Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer and even LG would be embarassed to take the laser TV to a market like Australia. It would sell well in the first week due to store owners believing the hype about picture quality, but before too long you’ll see them all ticketed below cost “1 only” because nobody can actually SELL any of them.

That’s why Mitsubishi is taking onboard the laser TV. They’re only concerned with the American market that will treasure the big screen sizes and comparatively high picture quality of the LaserVue. I’m happy just as long as they don’t bring this overpriced monstrocity to our shores, because if there’s one thing Australia doesn’t need, it’s another crap TV that will leave customers in the lurch like Hitachi, Fujitsu and Phillips did.

*Sorry if I’ve spelt her name wrong. I honestly don’t know the first thing about her. I don’t think many people do, actually.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 13th, 2008 at 4:43 am and is filed under Web/Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.