Industry News
By Shane C. Buettner March 12, 2006 — V, Inc. Plasmas On Sale In Time For NCAA Tourney
V, Inc. broke into the industry with a bang a few years ago by not only offering an upconverting DVD player (the Bravo D1), but by making it scary good and very cheap. V, Inc.'s HD plasmas have been well received as bang-for-the-buck champs too, and V, Inc. is dropping the prices on its plasmas even lower, just in time for the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. The VIZIO P42HDTV and P50HDM will now sell for just $1499 and $2299, respectively.

The VIZIO P42HDTV is a completely new 42" plasma design with a pixel count of 1024x768, off-air and cable HD tuners, component and HDMI inputs, and built-in speakers. 1024x768 is generously referred to as an HD resolution even though it doesn't meet the generally accepted minimum HD qualification of1280 horizontal pixels for displays. As tight as I can be I usually let this one go too since 768 vertical pixels exceeds the 720-pixel HD minimum. The P42HDTV comes with a one-year in-home service warranty and will be available at Costco starting March 20th.

The VIZIO P50HDM has been in the line for a while, and in fact you can read UAV's review here. As a teaser, it was $3299 when we reviewed it, calling it an "incredible value." Now that the price is a full thousand bucks less, I'm guessing we're even more enthusiastic. The pixel count is unequivocal HD at 1366x768, and its feature set is strong for a bargain-priced monitor, with Faroudja deinterlacing, twin HDMI inputs, and built-in speakers. It too has a one-year onsite warranty, and it's available now.

While dropping plasma prices would hardly seem to be news these days, this is still striking. I remember just a few years ago industry pundits believed that plasmas were too complex to manufacture and too fragile to ship and install to ever get any cheaper than $100 per diagonal inch of screen size. Well, here in 2006 we're well below $50 per diagonal inch and falling.

National Franchise Bill Would Enable Telcos To Offer Video Service Nationwide
Reports surfaced late last week that Congress has agreed in principle to a bill that will give phone companies a national franchise agreement for pay video services, allowing them to compete nationwide with cable companies. This agreement will allow the telcos to avoid seeking local municipal franchise agreements, as cable companies currently must. This news comes just days after AT&T's acquisition of BellSouth.

Cable companies currently offer packages of video and broadband Internet services, and recently have begun to offer voice over IP solutions. Now the phone companies can offer customers bundled packages of voice, data and video as well. According to numerous reports, under the new bill incumbent cable operators will remain dependent on striking local franchise agreements until new entrants in the market, like phone companies, have captured 15% of the local market. Only then would the cable companies be given equal footing with the phone companies.

Congress is apparently interesting in increasing broadband penetration and believes that price competition is necessary to do so. Some believe that the phone companies' entry into the video services market could spark a price war similar to that which occurred with long distance phone services.