Official 70"+ LCD thread - Page 31

Your reason #1 is completely inaccurate so we can rule that out. We have chosen not to invest in building displays here because no U.S. companies are important makers of displays. There is no agreement signed anywhere prohibiting the manufacture of anything in the U.S.

The U.S. has foolishly allowed its manufacturing based to be hollowed out over the past decades using "cheap labor" as a catchall excuse for everything we don't make. Yet during that period, Japanese and European auto manufacturers have expanded production in the U.S. (as well as buying parts here), pulp/paper/timber products manufacturing has grown, semiconductor manufacturing has soared even while those manufacturers have also expanded production abroad, etc. etc.

Even things like textiles, which we demand be cheap at Wal-Mart, are often produced domestically for places like Forever 21.

The world's leading display manufacturers (TV sizes) are LG, Samsung, Sharp, Panasonic, Chi Mei, AU Optronics, someone I may have missed. Many of those companies have been leaders for years and all are based in Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Other leaders that have gone by the wayside (Sony, Toshiba) were based in those same countries.

The last time leading display manufacturers were U.S. based companies was probably the 1970s or so. The last great chances we had to become leaders were when Plasmaco made PDP viable (snapped up by Matsushita aka Panasonic), Motorola tried to beat TFT with a passive matrix tech called active addressing (failed and abandoned, TFT active matrix won), Silicon Valley tried a few display startups (where dreams and hundreds of millions go to die, this one was FEDs -- many dreams died there -- Candescent was one of the greatest Valley failures ever).

The reality is that since Farnsworth and Zworykin, there really have been a total of two technologies that have ever actually reached the market: PDP and TFT-LCD. AMOLED is poised to become the third. Scores of others have tried and failed. Scores. It costs billions of today's dollars in R&D and initial production to reach viability and generally no one company can invest that on its own for something unproven.

What's killed everything that isn't TFT and PDP is that it hasn't been able to be manufactured despite the hype. OLED has been slow to birth for the past 10 years largely because it hasn't been able to be manufactured at anything approaching the scale of LCD. That is beginning to change, at least for the 4" panels. Whether it changes for larger panels still remains to be seen.

For panels to be made in the U.S. at this point one of the following would need to happen:

1) A non-U.S. company would have to open an LCD or PDP or OLED fab here. Possibly but unlikely given all of the major one have been opened in the far east lately. And if a new country is likely to open a me-too fab, it's China. Environment regulations (or lack thereof) and lower building costs make China an interesting environment. Keeping fabs in one's home country has been the most popular choice and one unlikely to change soon.

2) A U.S. company could enter an existing business. Not happening. There is very very little money in the merchant display business. Other than Apple, I don't see anyone new building their own raw displays. And if Apple were to do it, it seems unlikely the fab would be U.S. based since device assembly is not U.S. based. Taiwan would be the most likely location for a fab. Or possibly Korea if partnered with LG.

3) A U.S. company could invent a new type of display or commercialize OLED in a new way. Possible, but there is no evidence this is happening. And, again, I remind you of history. This has happened twice ever and a third one might be happening. Given the way U.S. technology investing is going right now, I would label this almost entirely far-fetched unless, again, the company was Apple.

The problem is that most have the MSRP at $13K and if it may bring the problems of the D8000 screen uniformity issues doesn't make much sense and it's consumer target are definitely high end income folks in the top 1% of the country. I'm sure it may be a great panel but it appears it'll be double the cost of the new Sharp Elite for adding 5 inches. If the Elite turns out as good as it's prelim comments then Sony may be kicking themselves in the ass for not partnering in that piece of Sharp further as they held back on expanding their partnership with Sharp at Saiki.

The good news is we'll have a much brighter year for HT sizes soon if we consider 65" debuts in 2011 with Toshiba, LG, Samsung, Vizio, Sony and then Sharp providing a banquet of choices in 70". There's not truly alot to discuss about other manufacturers with LG withholding distribution of their 72" to N. America and Europe. You can bet LG will arrive at CES and boast a large panel again that we'll likely not see because of their in country rivalry with Samsung but likely we may never see it as they use CES as a huge boasting platform with many products that don't make it to market.

Since Sony owns about 30% of the 10G Fab and Sharp owns the rest why would Sony not be able to get 70" panels from it?

I think the Sharp Elite will probably cap the price of huge size TVs.

As we discussed and agree, LG and Sammy has zero incentive to go huge size past 12 months with near to full loading hence they will sell 72"/75" whatever huge size at huge price. But with lower utilization, it can be tempting to produce these sizes to increase utilization, especially when LG claim they may try to full load in September.

I'll be interested to see how forumers react to or explain ~$5000 LG or Sammy huge size. BTW I always think $4-5k is the reasonable price range at this point of time, for reasonable profits and longer term economic sense.

the frys on the north side of indy has a 75" samsung in stock (only 1, therefore they wont put it on the floor) and its $13,000. sorry, but that price for a 75" television is just stupid.

btw, the same frys only has 1 sony 55" 929 and wont put it on the floor and 1 sharp 734, which will never see the floor either. im not sure why they are only getting 1 of each of these models in, but not having them on the floor is to their detriment I think.

Pretty hard to sell something when people don't even know that the store has one. Not much point in keeping the tv back in the stockroom without a display model out front.

Having paid $13K for the Sony Qualia 70" SXRD, I feel really stupid and will never pay a price like that again. My "figure of merit" is about $5K.

The long and short of it is you cannot compete on price when Foxcon pays it employees $1 an hour and some Chinese companies use free prison labor.
All goods imported from countries with such practices should have a "slave tax" assessed, to subsidized the cost of similar goods made here in the US.

Perhaps the U.S. Display Consortium needs to regroup and try a little bit harder than they did in their last significant effort to retain a US manufacturing base as documented here -

http://www.atp.nist.gov/eao/sp950-2/chapt4-2.pdf

Doesn't look too complicated as detailed here - http://www.crystec.com/crylcde.htm

-nony

The Sharp/Sony 10g plant cost about 4 Billion $ the cost to build a fab of that caliber in the US might be double that, in any case it would be a lot more which is why no display company is building an equivalent plant here.

http://hd.engadget.com/2009/07/31/so...ally-official/

Again, you insult me, but fail to back it up. Where did I "make little sense"?

Where did I engage in "popular ramblings"?

I stated a series of historically accurate facts about how we got where we are. You correctly followed my lead by citing Intel (I mentioned semiconductors). You correctly noted that investment follows value creation (Google, Facebook, etc.) not thing creation for the sake of thing creation.

Please cut it out with the useless insults. When I point out logical reasoning errors in your posts (post hoc ergo propter hoc), I am making the valid point that you are assuming "after this, therefore because of this" which renders many an argument either invalid or -- at a bare minimum -- not proved. When you tell me I am rambling and make little sense for stating obvious facts and drawing defensible conclusions based on those facts, it is simply offensive.

I will also noted, you called for my death on these forum. "[If this happens], Rogo is killed in action." I have never threatened you in any way.

So enough of this.

It is accurate to state that U.S. manufacturing has been hollowed out over the decades (who but a fool would disagree?). It is also accurate to state that blaming cheap labor for everything that has happened, is a convenient excuse that flies in the face of tremendous contrary evidence. While it is of course true that cheaper foreign labor has cost U.S. manufacturing jobs, the notion that it inevitably makes all U.S. manufacturing non-competitive is almost equally silly. This is evidenced by the many kinds of production done here by foreign and domestic companies alike.

There are no U.S. display manufacturers to regroup and do anything. And Walford is correct. Whatever it cost to build the fab in Japan, it would cost more here. Maybe not twice as much, Japan has pretty tight safety, earthquake and environmental rules and regs, but more. And you'd have to train all the workers to do everything from scratch. You could get semiconductor workers, but no one who had ever built LCD panels really, unless they recently immigrated here.

All this to -- as irkuck notes -- make next to no margin. Why bother?

If the key determinants are scale (as you have been insisting) and capabilities, then why hasn't the market be full of their (Sharp) stuff since 10G been running 3 years?

I hear ya but i read that the samsung will be priced around the $8000 range in order to be competeive with sharp because sharp caught everryone with their pants down

Yes, they are not hungry anymore because they shoot the prisoners that refuse to work. Foxcon pays their average employees a generous $3/day and all the roofs they can jump off of.

$8000 does not sound particularly competitive with Sharp, unless we are to believe that 5" is all that valuable and / or the Elite will really be $8000. If the Elite is $6000, even an $8000 Samsung sounds a bit out there. It will sell out, but only because I expect infinitesimal production.

i agree with you i will sell out as well lol... I would love to have the samsung but we will see what happens in the coming months

1) So scale is not everything then since they can produce much more 55" than any fabs, and by your theory (ie simply scale) it should be much cheaper than the rest. There are other factors like demand (too big a consideration that you cited) and optimal cut (like >55" like you cited)

2) Pricing of MSRP $3k only after they wrote down the 10G investment and hence it is not money making from an ROIC perspective. It is also not because it is 70% cheaper than what Sammy or LG can produce

3) Cost was too high and THEY KNOW it. Cost overrun yes; unpredictable? no. They know exactly what size this fab can only make to be profitable and competitive. What they don't know for sure is the demand.

Bottomline is that it doesn't mean that you've got it, the market will want it. Sammy and LG knows that. Sharp is stuck with 10G and will sing the tune of bigger is better even if it bleeds them. In any case hopefully with 75% utilisation we will see more 72" to prove or disprove our stance.

nope I'm saying you are contradicting yourself. You insisted that scale is everything that's why they can make 70" cheaper. So the natural question is why can't Sharp make 55" cheaper NOW since they written down the investment? Does it occur to you that it is incoherent? My focus has always been that the 10G BOM cost (exclude depreciation) including glass is actually higher than 8G once it is COMMODITISED, 10G only have advantage now because the cost down curve is only just starting for this size, so anyone with volume will have better pricing for BOM. It cannot be much cheaper, maybe about 20% for volume discount, much less the 70% cost down you claim. Usually annual BOM cost down is only about 10-20% depending on which components.


That's not what I said. I think there is a chance we will see the 72" because their utilisation is low at 75% now. In the past when it is fully loaded there is no incentive for them to make 72" except as trophies.

Neither did I say Koreans will undercut Sharp. As I've been saying I believe Sharp is losing money for the 732 but only because they hope to get higher utilisation in the longer term with market acceptance. If anything these TVs should be priced around $4k-5k, like I posted previously. So I would be keen to see your response and rationale if the 72" comes in at $5k. I can only hope the Koreans will do it for the Olympics market

You should take a step back and think why Sharp is doing 70" now at $3k when (supposedly) they can do it 3 years back. Then you will understand what dynamics are at play for them to change strategy. And why the Koreans MIGHT adjust their strategies too. And also consider NOW what constitutes a "market": is it 100k or 1mio or 10mio to be convinced that city dwellers' living rooms are not that small afterall. I would reiterate 1% toal market ie 2mio sets would be a sizable market and >PJ or DLP sold annually. I hate it when people have flexible "goal-posts" when the time comes.

many have been trying to use this thread to get info on 70"+ tvs which is what the thread is about (with an emphasis on lcd but safe to say any 70" and larger tvs as the max for awhile by most manufacturers was 65").

I keep trying to get this thread back on track only for it to be hijacked by the couple ppl arguing on whether there is a demand for 70"+ tvs. The fact that this thread is here means that there is and there is a Sharp 732 owners thread and een the 2011 Sharp thread is mostly about the current and coming 70" sets.

Speaking of the Sharp, I'm not sure if I already posted this here or just the Sharp thread but BB has a date in August when they can deliver the Sharp 735 3d led lcd 70" and a date in Septmeber for the Elite!

speaking of the elite, this blurb from someone quoting Kevin Miller (formerly of cnet) about the Sharp Elite model:

quote from kevin miller "TweakTV Co-Founder" from a different site

"HI All,

I can assure avjunkie and all of you that both the Sharp Elite and the Pioneer PRO-151FD were both calibrated to my best ability. Obviously the photograph did not capture the Pioneer accurately. I would say the flash washed out the picture. The Sharp's black level simply blows the Pioneer away, and I am not surprised by that as full array backlighting with Local Area Dimming technology has come a long way in the last year. As for off angle viewing it is still an issue, but it is not nearly as bad as on many other LED panels I have tested. I really can't say any more than that without violating my promise to Sharp. I will cover all of the performance parameters in my review, which will be posted on tweaktv if not Thurs Aug 4 then definitely Friday Aug 5 after the embargo. We will then link back to my section here for discussion, and a few days later I will publish it in its entirety here as well. "

Ppl were wondering how the new Sharp elite led lcd would compare to the old coveted Pioneer plasma elites and by that review it looks good.

I am still interested in the Samsung 75" just for those extra 5 inches and especially now that all of a sudden they announced an August release when everyone (including me) thought the 75" would be way delayed like the first 65" was. Meanwhile I haven't even seen the 65D8000 and how it differs aesthetically from the 65c8000 I have but I think BB said you can get the 65D from them. would maybe be interested in swapping or exchanging my 65c for hte 65D but mostly am interested in the 75" sam or the 70" sharp of which I think at this point I will skip the 735 though tempting as it is to get the first 3d version of the 70" Sharp, being my main tv in main room of house its probably worth spending a little more for the Sharp elite which so far preliminarily looks really well reviewed.

I just still wonder if its worth paying that much more for no large of a set then th e 732 or 735 Sharps but just a better version of it. It better have nice looks as well.

Still the projected price of the Sharp elite is less then the Samsung 75" which looks to be inferior in every way other then having 5" more screen. With 7 out of 10 or so Samsung 65C8000 having problems as their first 65" led lcd, I suspect the 75" will be similar as the first in that size. I usually like the aesthetics of samsung tvs and again will be interested in the extra 5" but will not want to pay significantly more for the Samsung 75" then the superior Sharp 70" elite just for 5 more inches.

Also I did see something about what I believe is the Panasonic 85" (plasma i assume) at Costco for 9k which was considered a great deal.

I never blamed foreigners so that claim is wrong. I, in fact, drew an opposite conclusion on the auto industry than blaming foreigners: I flat out stated you can produce cars inside the U.S. and that everyone does. It's well known that GM, Chrysler and Ford had noncompetitive labor costs mostly due to paying money to retirees and furloughed workers (not really due to current wages/benefits for people actually building cars), but they also made cars no one wanted a long time. My argument -- which I simplified -- is the exact opposite of what you claim it is.

This is what I wrote: "The U.S. has foolishly allowed its manufacturing based to be hollowed out over the past decades using "cheap labor" as a catchall excuse for everything we don't make. "

Using cheap labor as an excuse. In other words, that's not the real reason. I then go on to explain numerous cases where labor costs did not prevent the expansion of U.S. manufacturing. Perhaps I could have been more in-the-face crystal clear. But perhaps you could've read my post instead of having a knee-jerk response to thinking you had an opening to challenge my argument.

The point is -- and remains -- U.S. manufacturing base has shrunk for decades. And lazy companies and politicians like to blame Far East laborers making $1 an hour or even less for this. But the reality is far more nuanced. Which is what I said. And then what you said. The difference is I'm crediting you for making that argument. You impugned me for making it, without bothering to actually read what I wrote. This gets wearisome.

My sense of humor is fine. Joking about death not so much. Your apology is accepted.

Coincidentally this report was out:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...hinese-workers

"The electronics manufacturer Foxconn has been accused of treating its workers like machines as they toil on assembly lines, particularly after a spate of suicides among its Chinese employees in recent years. Now the company, best known for producing iPhones and other hi-tech gadgets, has found a solution: use robots instead.

The Taiwanese company has vowed to expand automation in its plants, with Chinese state media reporting plans to use a million robots in the next three years."

To digress a bit to sociology, does this news make any of you happier when massive layoffs occur?

Neither am I pro-business though; I believe in regulation so that these factories do not become sweat shop. Even as my job is a "product" of capitalism, I always believe in regulations because businesses on aggregate are UNSCRUPULOUS. The illusion / argument that they will be socially responsible without incentives/ disincentives is laughable. They will go and do what makes most sense to them, not their neighbours. I always remember this safety shoe company that I visited when China was booming in construction pre-Olympics. Most of their products were sold in EU and I jokingly said they must be laughing to the bank selling safety shoes to China. They said they can't sell safety shoes in China because it cost less to pay for amputated legs and compensation to families than to buy safety shoes for all the workers. Ditto for the CDO crisis.

Food for thought. Things are not always as simple as it seems. Just as the discussion in 10G fab. There are a lot of consideration when a decision is made, we can only hope for OPTIMAL outcome. There is no "best" or hindside bias.