A hi-def “tragedy” in four short acts

Act 1: 2008

Pioneer introduces the Kuro line of plasma TVs, which offer the best picture quality of any flat-screen HDTV ever made (with the possible exception of the 12″ $2,500 Sony OLED TV, and that’s too small to count). The Kuro TVs use a number of special technologies, including panels that eliminate the air space between the plasma pixels and the glass front, which cost extra but make for a superb picture.

Act 2: 2009

Pioneer exits the TV business. End of the Kuro. It sells several patents to Panasonic, and it’s possible that some engineers moved there as well.

(By the way, the Wikipedia “article” on the Kuro is offensively wrong–saying that Panasonic is the only other significant TV manufacturer involved in plasmas omits those tiny little nobodies Samsung and LG.)

Act 3: 2013

Panasonic introduces the ZT60 series (TC-P65ZT60 and TC-P60ZT60, where the P number shows the diagonal size in inches). It involves several technological advances–including a panel with no air space between the plasma pixels and the glass front.

According to a review in the October 2013 Sound & Vision, done by a reviewer who still owns a top-of-the-line Kuro set and included a side-by-side comparison, the ZT60 is essentially the equal of the Kuro in all key areas of image quality. In other words, it’s the best HDTV (at least at 1080p) you can buy.

Act 4: Later in 2013

Panasonic announces that it’s getting out of the plasma TV business.

And, I guess, we wait for OLED to make it to big-screen and reasonable-price.

(About the only weakness of the ZT60 was that it’s not enormously bright in 3D mode. To which most of us might say, “who cares?” )

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