By Chris Nicholls
MELBOURNE: Pioneer has tried to counter fears picture quality of its plasma televisions will drop when it moves to Panasonic panels next year, saying they will “definitely be better than Panasonic”.
In a face to face interview with Current.com.au, Pioneer Australia managing director Yasuo Sakuma said Pioneer’s engineers were working to ensure their proprietary technology keep their lead in picture quality, even with a third-party panel
“Our engineers are very passionate, and very confident that even though we will use a third-party panel, we will utilise our technology and always stay two or three steps ahead of the competition.”
“Otherwise, there is no reason for Pioneer [to be] in the market.”
However, he admitted limited control over the panels themselves could mean some aspects of the panels’ quality could change.
“It’s possible [that picture quality will drop], but we try to avoid the situation and we always try to include our own technology. And [it will] definitely be better than Panasonic.
“The uncertain area is how we are going to drive the panels. So far, I’m not sure how much our engineering people know about the detailed structure of Panasonic’s panels. So our engineers are still discussing with the Panasonic engineers what the mechanics of the panel structure are.
He said while 50 per cent of a television was the panel, the back end, or “the other 50 per cent”, would use Pioneer’s proprietary technology, such as their high contrast processing introduced in Kuro, image signal algorithms and greyscale ‘Smooth Clear Drive’ system.
“We will always try to create the best performance, so our engineers, they always devote themselves to making our technology a point of differentiation.”