Panasonic to Halt Plasma TV Production 2014 - Good or Bad News for buyers?

According to Reuters (LINK), Panasonic will halt Plasma TV production by end of March 2014.

I know there are a few members here who have Panasonic TVs and some own plasmas. I am one of those. As a matter of fact, I'm looking to upgrade my living room Panny Plasma from the current 46" to a 55" or 60" next month on Black Friday. I was going to go with a Panasonic Smart TV with all the apps you can customize. Now, I'm wondering if it's a good thing that they are stopping production - i.e. blowout price drops. Or is it a bad thing, as in lack of future customer support and firmware updates and app updates, etc?

Any thoughts?

P.S. I went with a plasma originally for the deep blacks when watching movies and it is in a room that doesn't get a lot of natural light, but I'm not opposed to an LCD or LED if the picture is as crisp and true color (especially blacks) and in a similar price range ($1,000 - $1,500 USD).

It is sad since they win every year in the shoot-out for picture accuracy and black level.
I have enjoyed my 55ST50 for over a year now.
The next bump up for me will be OLED when it is affordable.

Sad to see this . . .

On three seperate occasions I have almost purchased a Panasonic Plasma TV. Each time I ended up going with an LCD or LED model at the last minute.

Bottomline is that regardless of specs and reviews, when I got down to the nitty gritty, I preferred the look of the picture on an LED panel. Hard to explain why . . . I just did.

FWIW I really like my LG 55in LED if you are interested in an alternative. The biggies to me (other than picture which I think is superb) are the slim unornamented bezel and the lack of any glowing power LEDs when the TV is operating.

I know its a pet peeve of mine but all LED TV's are LCD they either use a CFL or LED backlight but mfg.'s make it sound like new tech , the only new tech in LCD is local dimming and if you have a choice never buy edge lit.
Supposedly OLED will give us the best of both worlds and I will say the 20inch model I saw was impressive along with an impressive price.

1st Pioneer, now Panasonic. I missed out grabbing a Pioneer, glad I have both my Panny's.


Probably won't replace them with a newer model unless one dies.
Am hoping these last until 4k drops into reasonable territory and with enough content available.
Don't know, but it's possible plasma doesn't do as well or the costs are too high to make the leap to the coming 4k.

Not going to bother me too much as i have gone the LG route and i love it with no edge. Being the 47" 3D LED LCD HDTV Smart TV as well.
Just a word on the "smart" thing, as much as i love my TV i really havnt used the smart features. Well i suppose i have like Pause, rewind, and then using the Apps like ABC iView and SBS Rewind Apps, it doesnt get a great deal of play. I have bought the Glasses where if im playing 2 player Xbox, wearing the glasses, lets each of us both have a 47" screen in front of us, instead of the 1/2 1/2 screen each. Now this is a REALLY COOL feature i love with my LG.

Im rambling, but what im tring to say, is if you arent going to use the smart side (novelty to begin with) then use the extra $ on getting the best TV you can as in "viewing" experience. In hind site, i would of payed a little more for the top of the range at the time without the smart side, as i have a Apple TV and other boxes do other things, and Airplay, the Smart thing doesnt come into it anymore. . . ?!?!? I still rambled lol

I have a Panny GT55 smart Tv. Love this tv I think the picture is one of the best I have seen. Sorry to hear they are not going to make them anymore.

I have a 50" Pioneer Kuro plasma TV and even though it's "only" 720p, the picture is just fantastic. At my viewing distance (about 9 feet), there'd be little noticeable improvement in going to 1080p. My only real gripe with it is that the contrast ratio is quite a bit on the low side, but the colors are still so much better than how oversaturated they are on many LCDs today.

We've been wanting to go up to a 55" TV at some point (no space for anything bigger) and my father-in-law REALLY wants me to so we can put the Kuro upstairs, but I wanted to hold off for at least another year. This news forced my hand, so I ordered a new Panasonic 55" plasma this morning from the VT60 series. It's more money than I really wanted to spend, but my living room seating area is a bit on the wide side and not well lit, which makes plasma TVs a much better choice than LCD. So it was now or quite possibly never. The in-laws will be very happy, so it's an early Christmas for all of us.

Think you'll be happy with that - I have a 58" from that series - back when they were making the 42, 50, 58, 65 instead of the 50, 55, 60, 65 now - and without all the smart TV stuff since I have a AppleTV, Blu-Ray player and a Roku - don't believe anyone really needs a smart TV any longer if you have even an inexpensive B-R player.

Took me a long time to get use to it as I downgraded from a 65" when I got it, but there sure are no complaints about the pic quality.

I got such a good deal on it, that I went ahead for the first time and paid the $250 to have it professionally calibrated - it was one of the biggest wastes of money I've ever done - they did make some very minor tweaks, but it was just about spot on out of the box.

Reading reviews on their newest ZT series, almost wish it would die, because that's the only excuse that's gonna be good enough to let me get one.

I don't have an Apple TV or Roku or Blu-Ray. I bought a new DVD receiver when I got my current TV about 2 or 3 yrs ago. The DVD player is Panasonic too and my TV remote controls it and the TV and it turns on at the same time as the TV with the push of one button. I really like that convenience. My TV came with a few standard "apps" but you can't add more or delete what it came with. I like play Pandora on my TV through the surround sound system. I like browsing Netflix on my TV. And once in a while we'll buy a TV show on the Amazon streaming service if it's not available on Netflix yet. Those are the 3 we use the most. I want to keep that functionality and would appreciate a little more customization in the app department. I just didn't know how it would work with future app updates on a TV that Panasonic stopped making. Maybe that's something I'd have to contact Panasonic directly for an answer.

There's this one kind of TV that I see sometimes at the store and it makes the actors' movements look so weird. Like they're in the room acting in front of you and it's nothing like normal movies or TV. Know what I mean? My mother-in-law has one and we watched a movie at her house. It made me motion sick and ruined the whole movie for me. My wife hates them too.

There probably will be no app updates once they quit production.

What you have should continue working until that point in time where Netflix/Amazon/etc make changes to the point that the old apps are no longer able to connect home or transfer the login info.

That would be 3D TV.

I have a single remote that controls my TV, Denon receiver, HD DVD player, Blu-Ray player, Satellite receiver, and pretty sure I could set it up to work with the Roku and Apple TV but just haven't. If I had to teach my wife how to use multiple remotes, omg, not even going there.

bobtomay said:

There probably will be no app updates once they quit production.

What you have should continue working until that point in time where Netflix/Amazon/etc make changes to the point that the old apps are no longer able to connect home or transfer the login info.

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Hmm... so eventually Netflix on my current TV would stop functioning? Great. We wanted to move that TV to the bedroom and watch Netflix in there on occasion. I'm guessing that is still a ways away. By that point, maybe I can convince the wife that we need an Apple TV.

As far as my new purchase goes, perhaps I should steer away from Panasonic, then? What are some quality brands that will not crap out on me after a couple of years? It will be for the living room. Well-lit room, but we tend to turn all lights off and close blinds/curtains for watching movies. We occasionally play Wii games and hook up the MBP to watch past episodes of TV shows online. We're looking for a screen size between 55" and 60". My budget is $1,500 or less, but I'm looking to get a good Black Friday deal this year so I might be able to swing a higher-end TV, depending on how much prices drop next month.

Isn't it odd that so many Apple lovers also have a affair with Panasonic Plasma TV's? Or am I reading too much into this?

V6Pony said:

Isn't it odd that so many Apple lovers also have a affair with Panasonic Plasma TV's? Or am I reading too much into this?

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Since my hobby has always been AV and also my living it just so happens since the Kuro is no longer made Panasonic has the best plasma in the business with Sony not to far behind with its XBR (LCD tech).
Most Apple owners do look for quality products as we have been spoiled somewhat.

bobtomay said:

Think you'll be happy with that - I have a 58" from that series - back when they were making the 42, 50, 58, 65 instead of the 50, 55, 60, 65 now - and without all the smart TV stuff since I have a AppleTV, Blu-Ray player and a Roku - don't believe anyone really needs a smart TV any longer if you have even an inexpensive B-R player.

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Yeah, I care nothing for 3D or any of the Smart TV garbage. I really wish it was little more than a dumb monitor. The S60 series is perfect in that respect, but the screen is more of a step down than I think I'd care to settle for. And apparently not available at 55" anyway.

lifeisabeach said:

Yeah, I care nothing for 3D or any of the Smart TV garbage. I really wish it was little more than a dumb monitor. The S60 series is perfect in that respect, but the screen is more of a step down than I think I'd care to settle for. And apparently not available at 55" anyway.

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So true and that is why I went with the 55ST50 for picture quality only could care less for all the add-ons but if I stepped down It would require losing the inky blacks that I am spoiled too.
It is not just the panels mfg's do this to if you want an AVR with the better DAC's and higher current amps you have to step up to their 9 channel offerings even though you only wanted 5.1 or 7.1.

MYmacROX said:

Hmm... so eventually Netflix on my current TV would stop functioning? Great. We wanted to move that TV to the bedroom and watch Netflix in there on occasion. I'm guessing that is still a ways away. By that point, maybe I can convince the wife that we need an Apple TV.

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That could be a year, could be 10 years.
imho - If you're buying a TV based on it's smart/network options you're looking at the wrong feature set. A TV should be bought expected durability and for the picture you're going to be looking at every time you switch it on. Anything else is just an extra - none of which weigh into my buying decision for a TV.

As far as my new purchase goes, perhaps I should steer away from Panasonic, then? What are some quality brands that will not crap out on me after a couple of years?...

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Anyone not waiting on a 4k screen, my thinking would be more along the lines of lifeisabeach - it's time to buy one before they're all gone.

The best picture you can get, Panasonic is at the top of the heap currently and has been since Pioneer kicked Kuro to the curb. After that, agree with osxx, next up on my list would be Sony and I always give Toshiba a look see. They've actually won out a time or 2 over the past 20 years or so. Sharp follows them and I've never owned one.

If I had to look at a Korean brand, it'd be LG.
Or just go with a "real" throw away brand - Vizio. While I wouldn't buy one, I don't have a whole lot bad to say about them at their price point.

We picked up the new TV last night (the 55" VT60 model) and put it up this morning. I've spent the rest of the day setting everything back up and calibrated it using some settings I found posted in a forum. Right now, we're watching The Avengers and MAN OH MAN does this look great! I was always really happy with my Kuro at 720p, but this thing has already has me spoiled.

Next up is watching all your favorite Blu-rays again.

Hmmm. My 1080p streams off iTunes look great, but Dish Network looks awful. I had reset everything from the DVR to the AVR to 1080p, but Dish Network is very fuzzy Even the channel guide is clearly too fuzzy, like how text is on an LCD monitor that isn't set at its native resolution. But what's really bizarre? Resetting Dish's Hopper to 720p cleans it up. That makes no sense at all.