Kuro no more....

that clearly sucks

To "...concentrate on the car electronics business.." no less !

Well Pioneer has always been very present in the car market... But I don't remember them having to cut high end products and concentrate on mainstream products. The 2009 Global Crisis(tm) strikes hard.

Theres always Panasonic

Hmmmm....er, nah...thanks !

quote:

Originally posted by scottyhammer:
Theres always Panasonic

For now. They just cut 15'000 jobs worldwide.

quote:

Originally posted by scottyhammer:
Theres always Panasonic

And hopefully they will step up to fill the premium/quality gap left by Pioneer.

thought they were already

Matsushita purchased a big chunk of Pioneer several months ago. At that time, the migration of Pioneer's Kuros engineers to the Panasonic name brand began. Look for a premium Panasonic plasma in the not too distant future. How it will do in the marketplace is difficult to say. The defining often subtle differences between really fine plasma and LCD displays escape most buyers. Pioneer didn't help itself. It would bring out world class displays and then instead of marketing to those who could discern the subtleties they would, after a few months, start dumping screens onto the mass market screwing up their profit margins and bleeding their development funding.

Let's see if Panasonic can do better with it's larger size and economies of scale.

Clay

I don't know where you get that from. I've not known Pioneer to do that in the last 5 years. The only time they've had to drop prices heavily was in the last 2 months when the APAC market fell through the floor and they had a surplus of LCD screens.

Interesting about Matsushita, but they're in as much trouble as Pioneer, especially since they're far larger (they sell ten times as many screens as Pioneer).

Hi Frank

I'm talking U.S market here and plasmas. Source for buyin by Matsushita was Wall St. Journal. Source for engineer migration was, if memory serves, also the Journal plus distributor rep. In this country they have at one time or another distributed through Tweeter(now defunct) and Best Buy(still going),COSTCO(very very big membership discount store)among others. These outfits would/do discount. To some degree Pioneer had to follow just to stay in touch with the Vizios, Samsungs, and Panasonics in this market to say nothing of Sony. With their size they would have been better served IMO marketing through high end stores. In years past they would do this for awhile with each new high end model but then move to the wider distribution when quick profits beckoned. They didn't know what they wanted to be...Porsche or Toyota. They ended up being neither. By the way I have seen mention of Pioneer LCD's on this forum but they're not distributed in U.S. Checked their website and Googled Pioneer LCD and got a hit but it was actually a plasma. Wonder who made the LCD's panels for them. By the way, I have great regard for Pioneer technology having a 3 year old 50 inch Elite Pro. I'll miss them.

Regards
Clay

Sharp make the panels for Pioneer's LCD range, which are only available in Europe..

The current range, 9th generation, Kuro was long planned to be the last all 'in-house' Pioneer plasma, after which Panasonic were set to supply the panels, with Pioneer's engineers making tweaks and supplying the software.....This obviously goes out the window now, but whether the 'Kuro' technology will appear anywhere else remains to be seen - I somehow doubt it....

This is a sad reminder that having a top quality product is no guarantee for success as a business entity. The market begs for cheaper not better

why all the fuss over kuro....i saw it and thought it was ok but not anything stunning !

I agree. Although if you make a like-for-like comparison with a Panasonic plasma the Pioneer is a bit better but its superiority has been overstated IMO.

I like Panasonic - excellent TVs.

quote:

Originally posted by scottyhammer:
why all the fuss over kuro....i saw it and thought it was ok but not anything stunning !

Hmmm, not sure I agree with that...

Over-priced ? Yeah, probably...

Interesting views doubting the worth of the extra 5-10% performance difference, considering I'm typing this on a Naim forum...!

tonym - without doubt, Panasonic used to be, and will be again (if they survive themselves), the mainstream Plasma leaders. Has to be said though, their styling sucks !

When I had to buy a flat panel for the bedroom I didn't have the budget for a pioneer and went the panasonic route. I am very happy with it

Regards...

cant see anything wrong with pannys styling either......each to their own i suppose.

Clay,

Interesting - here in the UK, they used some similar tactics but they remained firmer on pricing than anybody else. Even at CostCo, you'd get the units for similar money as the specialist shops, or the latter offerred the units with a longer warranty or some such deal. As mentioned elsewhere, the LCD panels are Sharp items (which are arguably among the best anyway).

In my view Pioneer really shot themselves in the feet by offering the TVs at prices the market simply wouldn't accept. The 32" LCD was originally £1300 ($2000). Nobody is going to buy a 32" screen for that kind of money, no matter how good it is. The 37" and 46" units were similarly overpriced. After the crash in APAC, the LCDs came down to more reasonable but still expensive prices. They've since dropped further and become competitive considering the performance gain.

The plasmas have always been more in line with the market, in part because of size and in part performance. The LCDs are obviously a lot better than the competition, provided you like strong contrast (some people don't). The Panasonics are close but not quite as good and the Sonys are unwatchable as far as I can tell.

Certainly, your view of Pioneer's Porsche/Toyota schizophrenia must have hurt their sales. If they'd been firmer on price they may have had more success, but then there isn't the difference in performance and there isn't the perception of performance in the marketplace which thinks that all plasmas and LCDs are pretty much equal anyway! They're not, of course, and the Pioneers are quite obviously the best, but it's more difficult to quantify whereas twice as fast is easy to quantify.

Frank

I've always appreciated reading your comments, finding them both thoughtful and balanced. This last one is no different. By the way, there was another article in the Wall St. Journal this weekend byline Tokyo. It seems Pioneer's share price has dropped 20% since its plan to cease TV operations and concentrate on auto electronics was announced. The feeling seems to be that concentrating on the auto industry for profits is hardly an auspicious decision at this time! Pioneer will be cutting 10,000 jobs through the restructuring plan. Not a good sign.

Thanks
Clay

I believe that of the 10,000, 'only' 6000 are fulltime staff. The rest are contractors and the like. Panasonic, OTOH, are canning 15,000 fulltime staff...

It's going to get worse before it gets better.

Anyone have an idea as to whether, and how, 5 year guarantees will be honoured? Am debating the wisdom of a 5090 from this and many other perspectives.

Mike

Mike - Pioneer have stated they will continue after sales services, which I certainly hope, as I have about 4 years & 8 months left on mine..!

From WHF magazine:
Pioneer says it "will continue to provide after-sales services [for display products] even after the withdrawal", a statement from Pioneer GB adding that "the company will continue to honour warranties and after-sales services."

Don't think too long on the purchase, apparently they are selling fast and Pioneer running low on stock...! Ironic, hey

Steve.

Well, hopefully order this weekend all being well. So, feeding the audio into my 202 does anyone have any idea what the lag between picture and sound is and specific ways around? Can't afford and don't have space for an AV amp so...

Will also be feeding Sky+ audio to 202 along with DVD audio from 6 year old Toshiba.

I just recently got rid of my AV system and am just using my Naim amp for sound. PS3 and TiVo into TV and then into the amp. No lag whatsoever.