What do you expect from the next Samsung and Panasonics in 2 months at CES?

pioneer level blacks better color reproduction.

Well Samsung doesn't need better color reproduction since it's already practically reference quality, and Panasonic is more capable of reaching 9G Kuro black levels next year, so i presume he's talking about Panasonic.

I believe whatever comes out will be better than any tv out today.

Hopefully, plasmas that are anomaly-free (e.g. no floating blacks, rising blacks or FBr) - hopefully from Panasonic since they seem to at least have the gall to acknowledge these problems in their products and strive to improve them. Deeper blacks, more accurate color. Cheaper 3D glasses (Panasonic is seriously lagging behind Samsung in regards to glasses pricing - Samsung's battery-powered specs are priced as low a $30/ea. now). Problem-free 96Hz mode.

Samsung: Better blacks, better Cinema Smooth mode, no fluctuating brightness, better build quality (which I highly doubt). I think their 2011 sets look great but their build quality this year especially seems pretty poor overall. generally that has always been my problem with Samsung - they make great products but they've never been great in regards to quality or support.

LG - Who cares?

I'm really hoping Panasonic pulls through in 2012. I don't think we'll get 9G Kuro blacks but hopefully they'll be better than the '11s. If their sets are good enough, and my budget permits, I think 2012 will be my year to upgrade. I only got my 50" G20 in early 2010 and I love it, but depending on the content the floating blacks get on my nerves, and at a distance of seven feet I feel like I could comfortably fit a 60", and I'd love to get into 3D. I even bought a Panny 310 BD player in anticipation of a future 3D upgrade. I just hope the picture quality is there in 2012 - while I think Panny's 2011 sets look great, I didn't feel there was a great deal of improvement between them and my 2010 model, at least as much as I'd have hoped.

Hoping 85" Panasonic Consumer Plasma to compete with the 80" Sharp LCD in the
same price range

ditto to what fatuglyguy said and bigger panels 70 to 80 inchs for you guys that have the room

I predict someone will come out with a tv model that actually works. Unlike all 2011 models from what I've been reading, ie no brightness fluctuation, buzzing, extreme glare, heat emission greater then your fireplace ect.

Hi All,

I think Samsung are going to be extremely aggressive next year against Panasonic on Plasma on pricing - Japanese CE Companies are hurting real bad compared to the Korean brands. Although it is most likely that Panasonic sets will offer the better overall PQ, Samsung will probably offer a far better price/performance ratio & value proposition in 2012 than even this year.

Bazzy!

Samsung - Lower and stable black level. (I don't ask for Kuro blacks, a stable 0.03 cd/m^2 will make me upgrade from D-series - but keep it stable, don't go any further than this, not even with CinemaSmooth and keep it with the ANSI checkerboards too.)

Panasonic - Better color accuracy through better video processing and better dithering algorithms for the G(T) series. The VT30 level will do for a G40 but even better if they catch up with Samsung at this area. I believe this should be easier these days than improving panel characteristics (like black level or phosphor lag...), so why waste the great panel technology with stupid software things (like the malfunctioning CMS in the VT30 or the low-tier processing in the middle-range models...)?

Both of them: Try not to intentionally place any "undefeatable behind-your-back features" on your products.
It would be better to start with clean pages than with a mess and only end up with half-solutions and semi-fixes for the intentionally developed problems. -> I talk about the "dynamic TRC scaling" aka "brightness pops" / "floating brightness" or the "rogue AI" (like the Noise Reduction feature which automatically turns ON itself even if you disable it, or a Dynamic Contrast feature which simply can't be turned off... You seem to build these things in on low levels -like driver panel driver circuits- and try to "fix" it later with main-board softwares which causes other side-effects... It's only the waste of time, money, precision, accuracy ... for all of us -> it's bad for both the company and the customers...)
You can develop any features and turn them on by default, but make all of them an optional thing, do not force any of these (and build them in on a level where it can be easily turned off by simply omitting a software algorithm from the processing chain).

+ Full resolution 4:4:4 chroma map support for every picture modes!
Why waste the potential of the progressive 1080p panel? The RGB sub-pixels are already there. Do not drop half of the chroma pixels during the processing!
1: I would play games on these displays (and yes, with full precision and color accuracy, because I care about this, there are some pretty nice PC games out there - Battlefield 3 is nicer than some animation movies...)
2: I can't output real YCC 4:2:2 from my PC (not even with video player softwares from 4:2:0 sources...), and if I have to do the chroma up-sampling before the RGB conversion anyway, then do not destroy the results for me (I use a nice and expensive algorithm for chroma resmapling and you simply drop half of the chroma pixels...?)

I think "Hope" panasonic steps it up after taking the second place in the new York shoot out. I read panasonic wanted that tv back to check it out. So after what it seems being shamed they want to be back at #1. Then again they tend to sit on their laurels.

Not looking for kuro blacks but stable and very close to kuro and better color accuracy.

According to a Panasonic insider at another site, the 2012 models have new internals so it should be interesting.

With the new internals, I hope they have redesigned their CMS and grayscale. I also hope their CMS wil be as accurate as Samsung. That and a70" screen would be great.