Jason Unger

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It's a sad day for true HDTV fans.

Pioneer to stop making plasma panels

Pioneer Corp. will stop making plasma display panels in an effort to turn around its money-losing business, the Japanese electronics maker said Friday.

Pioneer plans to procure the panels, used in flat-panel TVs, from another company. It said it was in talks with Japanese rival Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic products, to purchase plasma display panels.

Pioneer used to be one of the leading developers of the technology but has fallen behind bigger companies like Matsushita and South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc.

"We have judged that maintaining the cost competitiveness of plasma display panels, or PDPs, at projected sales volumes will be difficult going forward," Pioneer said in a statement.

Pioneer's KURO plasmas are the best TVs on the market. Hands down. There really is no competition.

But they do (did) have a problem — cheaper sets are outpricing them, and they can't keep up. At CES, they told me that they were going to try and establish themselves as a higher-end product (similar to the custom-friendly manufacturers), but that obviously didn't help the bottom line.

I've got a Pioneer at home, and I've never regretted the decision to buy it. If the KUROs drop in price as they try to empty out stock, I will definitely be considering one (once I convince Debbie we need another plasma).

Well, so long. It's a sad day, but who knows what the future might bring.

Let's just hope their extreme concept product is part of it.

I've got a Pioneer plasma at home, and I've never been shy about professing my love for it and how much better it is than nearly every LCD I've seen.

But, damn, Pioneer is blowing my mind again.

Here in Las Vegas at CES, Pioneer is demoing their "Extreme Contract Concept," which has the blackest blacks I've ever seen.

The picture above doesn't do it justice, but basically they're comparing this concept technology with their current line of Kuro plasmas. The Kuros are probably the best plasma I've seen, and this technology blows it away.

On the concept model, the blacks are just as black as the TV's bezel. The Kuro looks like it has a gray background.

On the concept, the picture floats. When the content on the concept doesn't fill up the whole TV, it literally looks 3-D.

It's just floating in the air. And my mouth is hanging wide open.

Since it's a concept, there's no launch date or pricing, but this is definitely going on my technology wish list — whenever it's available.