In the current issue of TPV, Gary Merson reports on the forecasts from two TV manufacturers: Hitachi and an unnamed "major television manufacurer." For 2004, Hitachi is projecting a mix of 1M units, consisting of either LCD or DLP, where LCD makes up 60 percent of the 1M, and 1.6M units which are CRT-based RPTVs. So 38.5 percent of unit sales in this sector are non-CRT. For 2006, Hitachi predicts a slight advantage to go to DLP/LCD. Again, this applies to CRT RPTVs vs flat panel. Not all TV sets. The unnamed company predicts 1.16M flat panel units vs. 1.74M CRT-based RPTVs, or 40 percent non-CRT, for 2004. But this company predicts that in 2005, 2.17M units will be panel sets, and 0.93 will be CRT RPTVs. This is 70 percent flat panel displays, 30 percent CRT RPTVs, next year. Of course, this doesn't include the mix of smaller, cheaper sets. But the price of small LCDs is already today getting affordable, i.e. in the hundreds of dollars. My prediction would be that really really *cheap* low-end CRT TVs will come on the market, as their swan song. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.