QUOTE(g88 @ Aug 11 2009, 12:28 PM)
lol that time Pioneer & Sharp merging sure have something even newer !!

Pioneer's merging with Sharp has nothing to do with display technology...It is more for the optical products. Pioneer still owns its patents on the PDP technology and has no intention of collecting royalty on them or selling it as of now. There is some talk that some of the R&D personnel at Pioneer have joined Matsushita Plasma Division. If this is true, then we might see a new player in the plasma market. The one thing that is for sure is that Pioneer has exit the plasma business for now, there is some talk of them returning when the market situation is right.
Another thing to note is that Panasonics Z series does have some of the improvements that they obtained from the short lived Pioneer/Panasonic cooperation mid of last year.
Trust me, I have calibrated Pioneer displays and own them and calibrated a lot of Panasonics, Samsungs and Hitachis, I know what a loss Pioneer's exit is the display technology.
The amount of money that Samsung is putting into this market is tremendous. Panasonic really needs to buck up to match Samsung's spending. R&D is what got Panasonic at the top before Pioneer's Kuro came along. Now it really looks like Samsung is putting out some new stuff that is impressive.