Sony Profits Low, Halts CRT Production

mtndue1 writes "Forbes is reporting that with lower than expected profits, Sony is halting the production of CRT's for televisions at many of its plants. The restructuring move is meant to catch the company up with other manufacturers who moved to LCD displays more quickly." From the article: " In the second quarter to September, net profit dropped 46.5 pct to 28.5 bln yen, pressured by 32.3 bln yen in restructuring expenses to write down the impaired value of its cathode-ray tube (CRT) plants. Under the plant closure program, Sony will shut down some of its CRT television assembly factories by March 2008 in order to shift its focus to the flat-screen TV business ... In a bid to revive its game division, Sony plans to release its next-generation stand-alone PlayStation 3 game console in the spring. To speed up development of PlayStation 3, Sony plans to devote 410 bln yen to capital investment in the year to March, up from 356.8 bln yen a year earlier."

Re:It's about time...

[Karma_fucker_sucker]

Although sony isn't the best, I'd hate to see them go the way of the dodo.

That's interesting. SONY used to be considered the top of the line. (Shows you how much time I spend shopping for electronics.)
I wonder what happened. Did they get tired of being the innovators and decide to become the followers: at least in consumer electronics?

Mostly a good thing

[Snamh Da Ean]

If this means there is a much greater supply of LCDs then the price should drop. Does anyone buy who isn't budget constrained buy CRTs anymore?

Anyone know...?

[Otter]

Have Japanese largely stopped buying CRT televisions and monitors in favor of flat-screens? Given their space constraints, especially at home, I'd imagine it wouldn't take much for them to give up on tubes entirely.

(Note: I'm looking for replies based on experience with Japanese reality, not on anime. TIA...)

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Don't forget oem market

[Anonymous Coward]

I havent seen any at sony retailers in 3 years at least! heh.

Sony oem's a large number of Trinitron crt's for other manufacturers.

Re:Mostly a good thing

[Mprx]

If you play fast action games then CRTs are still the best, and until LCDs can display at refresh rates of at least 100Hz without blurring they always will be. People saying you can't notice the difference with frame rates higher than 60Hz obviously haven't tested it. CRTs are also best for playing older or emulated games that require a low resolution.

If the CRT dies

[erroneus]

it can only mean that other display types will become more affordable. Right now, the really nice TVs are way out of reach for Wal-Mart shoppers such as myself. I look forward to the changes coming soon.

Re:Welcome to 1990, Sony.

[Datamonstar]

You and me both. I'm going to go right out and get a Sony Trintron in theu nfortunate event that I won't be able to find them in stores come another couple of years. But yeah, Trinitron CRT is the best picture quality you can get hands-down. Heck, CRT's period are surprisingly superior to LCD's in many ways. I hate how the industry is practically forcing the change upon me, but I guess I'll have to conform sometime.

Re:It's about time...

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

That's interesting. SONY used to be considered the top of the line. (Shows you how much time I spend shopping for electronics.) I wonder what happened. Did they get tired of being the innovators and decide to become the followers: at least in consumer electronics?

China, Korea and Malaysia happened. They just couldn't compete with electonics dumping from Samsung, Goldstar, LG, APEX ... etc.

LCDs are overrated.

[Anonymous Coward]

For computer monitors CRTs are still superior for a number of reasons.

Some examples:
Much higher contrast between black and white.
better color definition.
gamma/color/brightness doesn't change based on fewing angles.
much faster response/no ghosting.

People who complain about flickering with CRTs are usually just running the monitor at a to high of resolution. There problems are more related to not spending enough on their monitors rather then serious flaws in CRT monitors.

even on very nice LCD monitors I get headaches. This is because I habitually read scrolling text. This works on CRTs, but ghosting and inferior response rates blur everything. I bought a LCD monitor a while ago and I learned this. I bought a CRT to replace it and gave the LCD to a friend.

Of course now bunches of people will jump on me to justify buying a LCD monitor instead spending a 3rd of the price on a CRT monitor with similar capabilities. (You probably spend a lot more on your jeans then me, too. Oh and ipods with harddrives and unreplacable batteries that have failures with batteries and harddrives, rather then going out and buying a flash-based device for a 4th of the cost and 400% of the reliability.)

LCD is a dead-end technology. It's great for places with low amounts of space... like if you want a 50 inch TV in your living room, or 30 inch displays on your desktop, and in laptops, but it's not ever going to go anywere beyond that.

Once we get stuff like OLEDs or whatever replaces LCD, then it will be superior to LCD AND CRTs in terms of price, performance, energy usage, and mass.

Re:Profit is immoral

[Sockatume]

Yes, poor people are in trouble because they keep buying overpriced luxury goods. That's the real root of the problem.

Re:It's about time...

[m4dm4n]

Sony are very good at refusing to drop their prices to be competitive. As others have said here already, many other manufacturers have caught up in picture quality, the new Samsungs look & sound beautiful, as do many other brands.

Yet Sony still price their sets like they have no competition.

Re:It's about time...

[ergo98]

LCD may not be superior in all ways, but for the average consumer the small size is ideal.

Indeed, and this story really has very little to do with CRTs versus LCDs - It's a simple tale of a very large corporation that lost its way (I stopped buy Sony stuff because what once was an extremely high quality brand turned into an overpriced garbage brand) that's now spastically shifting around to try to regain its footing.

Even more ridiculous is the "SONY IS STOPPING PRODUCTION OF CRTS!" followed by the rather important disclaimer "at most of its plants". That entirely counters the headline, and it more accurately should be "Sony is scaling back CRT production", which seems obvious given how many computers, for instance, come with LCDs now, eliminating the need for such a glut of CRT supply.

Re:I don't know about anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

You should take a look at how many electronic entertainment companys are awash in financial problems right now.

The only one that seems to have any real profit and good returns is nintendo.

Re:Welcome to 1990, Sony.

[b1t r0t]

Heck, CRT's period are surprisingly superior to LCD's in many ways.

But not when it comes to weight. Be sure to get someone to help you lift it. Their 32" flat-CRT HD-ready models weigh around 175 pounds. I've had one for about 2 1/2 years and I had it delivered. If I need to get behind it, I can slide it around on the stand. I'm glad I spent the money for the official Sony stand, it's fits perfectly, and it can hold half a dozen video game consoles.

Re:Welcome to 1990, Sony.

[digidave]

I think people who hype LCD and plasma quality are in one of two camps:

1. They have sensitive vision and the brightness of the CRT hurts their eyes (this is why my work computer has an LCD monitor).

2. LCDs are newer and these people keep reading about how great they are.

Side by side in a store it's easy to see that a good CRT provides much better color, brightness and contrast than any LCD or plasma TV. Considering that they are a third the price, I often wonder why there is such a big market for skinny TVs. Can the depth of the TV really make someone spend so much more money?

I also have an issue with plasma vs projection large screen TVs. A good projection TV is indistinguishable from a plasma TV and costs half the price. Why aren't people buying projection instead of plasma?

Sad

[courtarro]

This is a big loss. A few years ago my Sony display bit the dust after only 1.5 years of use. I was ready to move away from Sony because of that quick failure, so I looked at all sorts of alternatives. I couldn't afford an LCD that could match a CRT for color, so a CRT it was. I came close to buying a ViewSonic display for just over $100, but when I checked it out at the store it was amazing how poor the video clarity was compared to the Sony I had. I finally checked some reviews and went with a 19" Sony CRT from Newegg, and it's been great since. I've seen monitors from all over, and Sony CRT displays are clearly above all other consumer CRTs. Dell displays that use Sony tubes are equally excellent.

It's hard for me to say that CRTs are still superior to LCDs because I haven't actively researched the best LCDs, but of the many LCD displays that friends and labs use, I can't imagine what I'll do when my current CRT comes up for replacement. There's simply no comparison. The LCD blacks are fake on many of the Dells (they seem to cheat to get a good contrast ratio - perfect black is dark, but the dark grey levels are much lighter). There's also the abrasiveness of the tri-color split of LCD pixels.

I guess I'm an old-fashioned dinosaur, and maybe the CRT v. LCD battle is comparable to the tube v. solid state amplifier battle, but this day marks the end of the era of beautiful CRT displays. I'll mourn.

Re:Mostly a good thing

[zakath]

So this is what gets modded as +5 Insightful on /. these days? Guess the trick is to say it like you know what you're talking about and the mods will follow. LCD 'refresh' rates are measured in 'ms' not 'Hz'. Poster also seems to be stuck in 2002...todays LCDs with sub-10ms refresh rates (I believe I read about a 3-4ms LCD coming soon as well) have eliminated the 'blurring' problem evident on older units. I've played many BF2, Doom3 and several others on my 19" 8ms LCD and it's been excellent...no ghosting. Todays units are greatly improved over the old 20ms+ ones. The only area CRTs still maintain an advantage are in displaying high resolution...LCDs outside their native resolution just aren't as nice.

Re:Mostly a good thing

[ipoverscsi]

So this is what gets modded as 4 Insightful on /. these days? Hz and ms are easily converted from one to the other (e.g. 60Hz approx. = 16 ms, 85Hz approx. = 12ms). And while there are some puny 19" LCDs that can do 10-12ms refresh, those of us who run at 1600x1200 resoltion or larger would be "stuck" buying LCDs at 20"+ that are incapable of such speeds.

That is why I buy CRTs.

Re:Hard choice

[poot_rootbeer]

The mention of Sony's allocation of a big pile of money "to speed up development" of the PS3 falls into a similar category of inaccuracy, I think. At this point in the product lifecycle, Sony should be ramping up MANUFACTURE of PS3 units. If they're still in the DEVELOPMENT phase for the hardware, they're lagging behind and may have already lost the next-gen console battle to the Xbox 360.

Re:It's about time...

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Yet Sony still price their sets like they have no competition.

That makes an interesting corrolation between American automakers in the 70's and 80's getting beat out by the Japanese (and slowly adapting), and now the Japanese electronics vendors vs the Korean and Chinese electronics vendors seem to be going through the same thing..