when news first broke this week that panasonic is ending its in-house tv production my heart sank
i was like oh no i don't really want to write a similar article to the one i wrote back in 2013
when panasonic ended its plasma tv manufacturing nor do i want to make a similar video to when oppo
pulled out from the 4k blu-ray market so i quickly and frantically fired an email across to my
contacts at panasonic and asked them two questions one are they outsourcing their tv production to
tcl which is obviously one of the biggest tv manufacturing company in the world and secondly
whether we will see new panasonic oled tvs in 2022 and the reason why i specifically asked these two
questions is because back in may earlier this year a nikkei report from japan has linked panasonic to
tcl in the sense that panasonic is seriously considering ending its in-house tv production
and outsourcing its tv manufacturing to a third party and that third party happened to be tcl
now tcl is well known for being one of the biggest tv makers in the world but they do not make oled
tvs which is why i was worried for a moment there that you know if let's say tcl took over the
manufacturing of tvs from panasonic then we won't see a panasonic ole anymore because currently tcl
i don't think has oled on their books in terms of tv manufacturing they are doing some r d in
printed oled but you know that is going to be a few years away maybe in 2025 before it goes
online so from that point of view hopefully you can understand my two questions to panasonic and
the answer that i received from them is extremely reassuring so first of all they said that they
cannot disclose the partner they have actually outsourced the tv manufacturing to because of
reasons but reassuringly i note in their statement that the partner will still be producing oled tvs
as well so that is very reassuring and this leads on to the answer to the second question
panasonic will still carry on with the oled tv business and we will still see new panasonic
oleds you know in 2022 and in fact they are planning to make an appearance at ces 3022 already
so that is extremely reassuring to me and i'm very happy and i think the phrase of the day as far
as panasonic is concerned is that you know it is business as usual so it is only the manufacturing
of the tvs that have been outsourced to a third party and the in-house development in terms of
the r d it will still be performed by japan and also at their base in germany and together they
hope to be more competitive in the tv market and maybe even become profitable because you can
understand how cutthroat the tv market is especially with aggressive pricing from east
asia so i'm very happy that panasonic is still in the game you know we can still buy panasonic
tvs and i think you know for those of you who are not familiar with panasonic tvs especially in the
states because you know panasonic no longer sell televisions in the states and therefore panasonic
tvs do not actually get as much coverage from youtube channels you know across the pond and so
it falls to me your friendly neighborhood youtuber with a mancunian accent to try and tell you why i
really rate panasonic tvs especially they are oled tvs so i think you know compared with other oled
brands on the market they have the best out of the box accuracy not only in terms of color accuracy
but also in terms of the neo-black gamma tracking so in turtle one i've mentioned this before but
lg oleds tend to crush some shadow detail because they darken their near-black gamma to try and hide
some of the neo-black prominence overshoot issues that have been present on wrgb oleds since 2018
and also sony oleds tend to brighten the nearby gamma some of you prefer it you know because
maybe you claim that it is brighter you don't get as much artifacts and it is cleaner and less
are are the best out of the box really you know in terms of the gamma tracking and in terms of the
correct delineation of shadow detail both in terms of the clarity and also in terms of the luminance
so it is not too bright it is not too dark you get just the right amount of shadow detail
and some of you without having the benefit of looking at a reference monitor may prefer
shadow detail to be brighter but again i stress that not all shadow detail are meant to be seen
so we always need to refer to a reference monitor to see how much shadow detail exactly needs to be
visible and that is where i think you know out of the box especially panasonic has an advantage
over its rivals in the oled tv market and i'm always struck by just how cinematic the image
look even before calibration obviously calibration can improve it and bring it to the next level but
even before calibration i think the internal 3d lut that they have actually put into these tvs
you know it's just superb and the colors just look so natural with like truly realistic skin tones
and they've partnered with some of the leading colorists in the world including stefan sonnenfeld
and you know mike sowa and other prominent calories over the years to try and tune the
colors to a truly cinematic level and i think that even though many other tvs obviously you know you
can calibrate them to reach a similar level but out of the box i don't think you know you can beat
the naturalness of a panasonic oled and of course i think you know panasonic engineers when i look
at the picture menu i am always struck by just how much attention to detail they have actually
put into their tvs and you know the finesse and the engineering that they've actually put in there
it's just you know mind-blowing to me i've never seen so many settings before there
are more settings there than in microsoft flight simulator and that's saying something
and for a video enthusiast i think you know the fact that panasonic is still around producing high
quality televisions especially oled televisions you know it is always very heartwarming to me and
i need to obviously talk about their led lcds because i think some of you asked me whether
it is worth buying panasonic led lcds i think that drastically at this moment in time i don't
think many of the tv brands who are invested in oled will be willing to invest much effort into
led lcds because you know it is just not cost effective especially with the prices of oled
panels from lg display coming down after they ramp up their production in guangzhou factory
so i've said this before and i'll say this again when you try to make an led lcd that is you know
competitive in picture quality to all that and bear in mind that oled has superior viewing angles
superior contrast superior colors in terms of the vibrance because of the self-emissive properties
of its you know oled pixels then i think it is very hard for an led lcd to compete without
substantial number of local dimming zones and when you increase the number of local dimming zones
you know the costs just go up and if you try to put in a quantum dot enhancement film or some sort
of quantum dot technology to boost the wide color gamut again the cost would go up at the end of the
day you might as well just buy an oled panel of lg display and you know make more profit that way
and you know the more full aerial dimming zones that you put in you know the thickness will go up
the heat will go up and the power consumption will go up and at the end of the day i think
you know the oled solution is just very elegant in the sense that from the tv manufacturer point
of view they can just buy the panels either open sell or you know in a finished product
and then you know sell it you know at a profit and we have to bear in mind that all these companies
they are in this game to make money you know not many people not many manufacturers are like me
you know truly altruistic you know um giving free advice on youtube and stuff
and of course you know i will have to reserve judgement until i get next year's tvs in from
panasonic and see whether there is similar picture quality or there's a drop in picture quality or
even build quality but until then even now if you ask me will i still recommend panasonic tvs
yes definitely i would still recommend panasonic tvs for the reasons i've mentioned earlier and
if you ask me will i buy a panasonic tv yes in the heartbeat you know if they make a bigger size
oled and i think you know with this outsourcing to a third party maybe there's a slight chance even
that you know we may see 77-inch oled tvs from panasonic but you know i don't think you know
the chances are high but you know we can always hope we can always hope and this year panasonic
oled actually faced the stiffest competition it has ever faced you know in the form of the
new evo panels from lg g1 and also the sony a90j and i'm pleased to say that we will be holding a
shootout event but you know it won't be a public event because of the pandemic we couldn't really
secure a venue to hold it in a public manner but besides myself there may be a couple of
other calibrators who will vote on these tvs which will be masked so it will be a blinded shootout so
that we don't let any brand buyers creep into our judgment and provisionally currently there will be
the panasonic jz2000 that will be the sony a 90j that will be the lg g1 there will be the samsung
qn95aao and we generally hope that we can receive stock of the philips oled plus naturally six
in time to complete the shootout lineup but hopefully you know it will be an interesting event
and you will find it helpful we also hope to get our hands on a reference broadcast monitor to help
us judge color accuracy and also shadow detailing on these tvs participating in the shootout
the date has provisionally been set on sunday the 14th of november
and i'm really excited about this year's lineup and may the best tv win in the meantime if you
want to find out what happened in our shootout last year please click here for my coverage video