Gloves come off in the tussle of Tokyo

Plasma screens on show at the Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies in Tokyo. Picture / Peter Nowak

TOKYO - If anyone can make a vicious battle appear like a circus, it's the Japanese.

That was certainly the scene at this week's Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies (CEATEC) in Tokyo, where amid a chaotic cacophony of colourful lights, costumed dancers and blasting music, Japan's top firms squared off over the future of home entertainment.

The annual event has become a showcase for these tech firms to show off their best and latest gadgetry. This year, the anticipated showdown was even hotter, with not one, but two next-generation technologies going head to head.

First up: flat-screen televisions. With demand skyrocketing the global market is expected to double by 2008 to an estimated US$70 billion it's no surprise that all of Japan's big players are investing heavily. It's also no surprise the televisions absolutely dominated this year's show.

But two camps have formed, and there's certain vitriol between them. In one corner is the plasma display panel (PDP) crowd: Panasonic, Hitachi and Pioneer. In the other are the liquid crystal display (LCD) crew: Sony, Sharp and Sanyo.

The plasma supporters are taking aggressive aim at LCD, pushing several supposed advantages. Chief among these is screen size and price proportion. LCD televisions start to get very expensive once they get above 36 inches, while plasma tends to get more economical.

For example, a 26-inch Samsung LCD screen retails in New Zealand for around $2800, while a 37-inch Toshiba goes for about $5400. A 42-inch Panasonic plasma screen, meanwhile, costs about $4400. The bigger the screen gets, the more sense it makes to go with plasma, proponents say. To that extent, Panasonic used the show to unveil its mammoth 65-inch high-definition plasma screen, which goes on sale in Japan next month for 1.68 million yen (or about NZ$21,000).

The lighting in plasma screens also works differently than in LCD. While the LCD is backlit, each individual pixel in a plasma screen is self-illuminating, which proponents say results in a good deal of energy efficiency. While the LCD's power usage is static, a plasma screen's changes depending on the image being displayed. When a particular scene is dark, many of the pixels remain unlit, thus saving power. Of course conversely, when a scene is bright, a plasma screen actually uses more power.

Ultimately, the power consumption is likely to depend on whether the viewer prefers watching dark brooding television, or light and airy programming.

But power consumption aside, the demonstrations at the show seemed to determine rather conclusively that plasma screens do offer better contrast and brightness, and thus better overall picture quality. For consumers though, it's a question of how big a screen is needed, and whether they're willing to pay the price for it.

To further complicate matters, Canon and Toshiba have teamed up to push a third flat-screen format: the surface conduction electron emitter display (SED). CEATEC attendees stood in long lines to get a glimpse of the new technology, which boasts even better picture quality and power efficiency than plasma. The new format is expected to hit retailers in Japan next year.

One exhibitor pointed out that the consumer will be the ultimate winner in this heated flat-screen battle, as intense competition is likely to drive prices down quickly.

Unfortunately, consumers aren't likely to win out in the other contested technology that drew the CEATEC crowds: next-generation DVDs. Again, the lines are divided into two camps: on the one hand, supporting Blu-ray technology, is a veritable who's who of electronics: Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Pioneer and Samsung. On the other hand, Toshiba looks rather lonely as the only major Japanese electronics company supporting its format high-definition, or HD-DVD. But Toshiba has some rather major US support, in the form of Microsoft and Intel.

Both Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs are also created using blue lasers, which have shorter wavelengths than the red lasers used to make current DVDs. The blue lasers allow for greater disc density, which means greater storage capacity and picture quality.

Analysts are likening the battle between the two formats to the Betamax-VHS fight in the eighties, and predict history will repeat itself in that only one will survive. Blu-ray has an advantage in that it offers greater storage, but HD-DVD won't force manufacturers to add costly production modifications.

Blu-ray picked up major momentum this week as Paramount, which had been leaning toward backing HD-DVD, announced it would also release movies in Blu-ray. Paramount said the key factor behind the decision was next year's release of Sony's next-generation Playstation 3 video game console, and other Hollywood studios could soon follow suit. (Curiously, Sony a key Blu-ray backer didn't bring a PS3 prototype to CEATEC.)

Both camps had their next-generation DVD player/recorders on display, and the demonstrations heralded by hordes of dancing Japanese girls dressed in loud, gaudy costumes drew large crowds of gawkers.

Toshiba even added a touch of New Zealand to its HD-DVD demonstration, showing off the latest King Kong trailer to the delight of onlookers.

Still, if the analysts are right and there will be only one winner in the next-generation DVD war, it's a risky proposition for consumers to buy before that determination is made.