Panasonic Shows 65-Inch Plasma Display

Matsushita Electric Industrial is thinking big. The company, better known by its Panasonic brand name, plans to introduce a high-definition PDP (Plasma Display Panel) television with a screen measuring 65 inches diagonally.

The display is the largest available through consumer sales channels and is capable of rendering 3.62 billion colors, 2048 shades of graduation, and the world's highest contrast ratio of up to 3000:1, Matsushita says in a statement. The display will be introduced to the Japanese market on October 1, and in the U.S. market in early 2005.

The TH-65DX300, which will be sold under Matsushita's Viera line, has a plasma panel with 1,049,088 pixels and a service life of about 8000 hours. The TH-65DX300 weighs 240 pounds including the stand, and has a width of 61.2 inches, a height of 39.8 inches and a depth of 15.5 inches. The suggested retail price is $18,845, the company says.

Matsushita plans to sell the TH-65DX300 in the U.S. within about seven months, but has yet to decide whether to sell the product in Europe, company spokesperson Mike Takeda says. Matsushita launched the Viera brand in August 2003 and sells 37-inch, 42-inch, and 50-inch models internationally, he says.

Really Big Screens

The display brings Matsushita into the lead in terms of bragging rights over which company makes the largest plasma panels for the consumer home entertainment market, Takeda says.

"What's new and what's the biggest news is that it's the biggest you can buy in the shops," Takeda says.

In January, LG Electronics said it would be selling a 76-inch PDP model with a resolution of 1920 pixels by 1080 pixels and measuring 3.3 inches deep to the U.S. market in the fourth quarter of this year.

Also this January, Samsung Electronics said it would be selling a 70-inch PDP model before the end of 2004, and an 80-inch PDP with a high-definition tuner before the beginning of 2005.

LG started selling a 71-inch model in July this year available on the international market, but the PDP is aimed primarily at businesses, according to Leon Sharp, an LG spokesperson. LG still plans to release a 76-inch version in 2005, but will not reveal when, the spokesperson says.

"Sometime in 2005 is accurate, it depends on the market and how we see demand," he says.

The 65-inch PDP TV will be produced at Matsushita's PDP plant in Ibaragi prefecture, east of Tokyo, the company said. Matsushita has three plants in Japan producing a total of 90,000 panels a month. The company said this May that plans a major boost in its PDP manufacturing.

Global PDP shipments in the fourth quarter of 2003 were 613,000 units, a rise of 176 percent on the same period a year earlier, according to Austin, Texas, analyst DisplaySearch. By value, the market was worth $846 million in the quarter, a 160 percent jump on the year earlier.

In addition to Matsushita, LG, and Samsung, other leading panel makers include Fujitsu Hitachi Display and NEC.