A thin digital TV, without the fat price

Even in a big-screen era, most people don't spend $6,000 or $8,000 on a television. Overall, more than two-thirds of the TVs sold in the United States this year will cost under $400, and around 90 percent will cost less than $1,500, according to electronics analysts and executives.

And fortunately for the budget conscious, slim digital televisions are getting a lot cheaper. Non-HDTV plasma displays have proved particularly popular, and compact rear-projection sets are increasingly available, as are liquid-crystal-display models at small and moderate screen sizes.

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Electronics executives, in fact, say consumers appear to care a lot more about getting a thin television than they do about high definition. "What the industry has found out this year is that people are willing to give up a bit on picture quality in order to have the coolness of the flat-panel look," said Ed Wolff, a vice president at Panasonic's display group.

That is why perhaps the hottest new segment in the TV business has been what is known as the enhanced-definition plasma set. While such models do not offer full high-definition quality, they have enough pixels to display DVDs in all their glory and, even on normal broadcasts, are usually a step up from conventional analog sets. Furthermore, they cost around $2,000 less than a high-definition set of the same size.

For instance, it is now possible to buy a 42-inch enhanced-definition plasma set from a lesser-known manufacturer for around $2,000, or from a big name like Panasonic or Samsung for around $3,000. A high-definition plasma set at the same size costs around $5,500 from Panasonic or as much as $8,000 from a top-line maker like Sony, and a high-definition LCD set can be still more.

Wolff said that while the industry had been predicting nationwide sales of 500,000 or 600,000 plasma sets this year, the figure now seems sure to exceed 700,000.

In fact, Sean M. Wargo, director for industry analysis at the Consumer Electronics Association, said that around 60 percent of the plasma sets sold in the nation this year would be enhanced definition, at an average wholesale price of around $2,900, while high definition makes up only around 40 percent, at an average price of about $4,800. (Industry experts say the standard markup in consumer electronics is about 20 percent.)

Two years ago, Wargo said, about 70 percent of plasma sets were high-definition. (For technical reasons, LCD units do not have a similarly large cost difference in upgrading from enhanced definition to high definition, which is why few enhanced-definition LCD units are available.)

As head of the television team at Circuit City, Tom Crowell has come to know the psychology of the television buyer. "What's been fascinating are the sacrifices that customers are willing to make to get the flat panel," Crowell said. "They are willing to give up high definition, because very good is good enough for most people. It's a lot better than what

they have in their house now, and DVDs are in ED quality. The desire to get the thin form factor is a primary motivator for a lot of people."

But it is not the primary motivator for every consumer. And for a real high-definition television in a big flat panel from a name-brand maker, you are still almost certainly going to spend more than $4,000.

Some experts say that if mass is no object (say, 200 pounds) and if you do not need a screen much bigger than 40 inches, the best high-definition image quality still comes from the latest flat-screen direct-view cathode-ray televisions. "I think CRT is still the best, if you can handle the bulk," said Michael R. Fidler, a Sony senior vice president for marketing. And for the cheapest HDTV, a digital CRT is the best bet.

But if a CRT is too fat and a flat panel is too expensive, HDTV is also available in new digital rear-projection models that are often only around 18 inches deep, even at a screen size of 42 inches or more. In fact, the boxy analog rear-projection set is clearly on the way out; Wolff of Panasonic, for instance, said that his company wanted get out of the analog rear-projection business next year.

The new digital rear-projection technologies are known collectively as microdisplay units, although their screens are anything but micro. They are not as thin as plasma and LCD flat panels, but they are a lot cheaper. Samsung has been perhaps the most aggressive in marketing its microdisplay sets, but even a top-line maker like Sony offers a 42-inch high-definition microdisplay model for around $2,500. That mix of size and function is why makers are projected to sell around 1.3 million microdisplay sets this year, almost twice the sales of plasma sets.

And then there are those whose screen-size ambitions may extend only to 27, 23 or even (horrors!) 21 inches.

Because it is inefficient to make small plasma monitors, LCD dominates the market for flat panels at smaller sizes, which is why they have become so popular in kitchens, dens and dorm rooms. But LCD flat-panel sets often cost twice as much as their standard CRT counterparts. For instance, Sony's 23-inch LCD model (which requires a separate tuner to display high-definition images) costs $1,800. A similarly equipped 27-inch CRT model costs only $750.

If you end up just buying another analog television this year, do not feel inadequate. It is possible to buy a 27-inch flat-screen CRT for under $300 that surpasses the picture quality of televisions that cost $800 five years ago. Of the roughly 26 million stand-alone televisions that Americans will buy this year--that is, those not including a VCR or DVD player--more than 75 percent will have old-fashioned analog tubes.

And next year those snazzy digital models will be even cheaper.

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