HiFi Writer Blog

Gee I love overnight flights, followed by a local flight that finally gets me home just a bit before lunch. Plane out of Tokyo was chockablock, so not much room for stretching there.

Our first day in Tokyo was largely spent at CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies). A massive display it was, but perhaps only a quarter of it was devoted to home entertainment technology. The rest: communications and components.

There were big stands by Panasonic, Sony, Sharp, Sanyo, Hitachi, JVC and Pioneer. The only non-Japanese home entertainment company stand was a smallish one for Bose. There were also three stands devoted to DVD recording technology: one for DVD-RAM, one for DVD+RW/R and one for DVD-RW/R. There were also stands for SD (Secure Digital flash memory cards) and Japan’s numerous high definition broadcasters. Noticably absent were other strong Japanese brands like Yamaha, Marantz, Denon and Onkyo. NEC was there, but more in an info-tech than home entertainment capacity.

Most of the major brands were focusing on panel displays: plasma and LCD. Most had a Blu-ray player with high definition stuff playing. Most had a 3-D display of some kind. Panasonic’s version used a fairly large screen, rear projection, right-angled polarisation of the light from the two projectors showing the slightly different angles, and polarised eyewear for viewing. It actually looked very good. Rather than really flashy stuff, Panasonic used a recent baseball game for the demonstration. The others used small LCD panels that required no eyewear to work. These appeared to work by using an overlay that allowed only the appropriate portion of the image to seen by each eye. These tended to produce a rippling effect if you moved sideways while watching, which was absent in Panasonic’s effort. Both, though, had a reasonably restricted viewing angle.

My product pick of the show? Read the entry above.

Right now I’m sitting on the Bullet Train shooting from Osaka to Tokyo. This morning was spent doing Panasonic stuff. This afternoon was spent doing Panasonic stuff. Oh, and so will tomorrow morning. But tomorrow arvo we get released for a few hours to wander around CEATEC (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies).

The first event this morning was at the ‘Konosuke Matsushita Memorial Hall’, which traces the life history (inextricably linked with his product line) of the aforementioned gentleman. Very inspirational. Think the technical and business acumen of a Bill Gates and transplant it to Japan, 1918, when the 24 year old Matsushita began his own business fabricating extension plugs and double adaptors for the then source of electricity in most houses: the electric light socket. By dint of efficient production methods and low costs (he halved the width of the stairs in his small two story house to make more room, rather than move to more expensive premises), he was able to undercut the competition by 30%.

Next thing you know it’s 2003 and the company is doing sales of more than $US61.5 billion.

This was followed by the company’s museum of Science and Technology in the middle of its huge multi-acre corporate complex in Osaka. Lots of gadgets, of interest: a fuel cell electrical generator intended for release next year. Don’t think many will be sold. Target price around $AUS7,000, power output around 1.3kW. Can’t even run a heater with that.

Panasonic’s right behind SD (Secure Digital flash RAM cards). Apparently 1GB cards are coming out next year, and they expect them to be up to 16GB by 2007.

After lunch, we got to ask a few questions of Mr Yuiko Shohtoku, the Executive Vice President of Matsushita Electrical Company with responsibility for all aspects of the business’ operations outside Japan.

The company is going to be aggressively fighting back against the inroads made in recent years by Korean companies LG and Samsung. He seemed unimpressed about what he considered to be their poaching of former Japanese executives and other unseemly activities.

The company is in the process of killing the ‘National’ brandname wherever it still exists (appliances in Japan and Asia mostly) and moving those product lines to the ‘Panasonic’ brand name, with a smattering of new premium products to make the point. ‘Technics’ shall remain as an ‘audiophile’ brand (although I haven’t seen any Technics products in Australia that I would regard as even approaching audiophile quality).

I asked whether the company had plans to introduce support into its DVD recorders for DVD-RW or DVD+RW, and into its players for SACD. On both he pulled down the shutters. DVD-RAM is technically better than the re-writable alternatives, has a huge share of the Japanese market (2/3rds) and close to 30% even in Europe (the home of DVD+RW). No way.

SACD: he says DVD-Audio is better (I agree, and agreed with him aloud when he asked my view). Futher, he says, DVD-A started after SACD but now has as many titles. I pointed out that consumers want a single player to handle all their discs, and that several of Panasonic’s competitors offered such players. But he wasn’t interested. Could it be that Panasonic, seeing the end of CD licensing fees coming, just doesn’t want to have to pay any more licensing fees to Sony?

UPDATE (Saturday, 11 October 2003, 5:05 pm): On Thursday Panasonic advised that it will, in fact, be retaining the ‘National’ brand name for its appliances (ie. washing machines, vacuum cleaners, toasters etc) in Japan, while abolishing it everywhere else.

Well, here in Osaka, Japan, the Royal Pines Hotel has free high speed Internet if you have a network connection. At least, it’s reasonably high speed if it works at all, as it did last night and does now, but as it didn’t this morning.

This morning was occupied by a visit to Panasonic’s consumer equipment recycling plant. In April 2001 the ‘Law for Recycling Specified Home Appliances’ was passed, which requires consumers to pay for the recycling of defunct TVs, refrigerators, washing machines and airconditioners. Under the law, the recyclers have to rip apart for reuse 50% of the first three (by weight,per received unit) and 60% of the latter. So Panasonic has established this five billion yen plant to do just this, with a capacity for recycling one million items per year (projected actual throughput for 2003 is 680,000 items).

In addition to the four de-production lines in the plant, there’s a research lab which analyses production methods for new products to improve their future recyclability, thus the 13 different kinds of plastics used in a 1983 Panasonic TV have been reduced to two different kinds in the 2003 model.

Panasonic hasn’t run a profit on this yet, thanks to the need to amortise the enormous capital cost. Their financial receipts consist of the sale of recycled materials and the cost to consumers: TVs at 2,700 yen, airconditioners at 3,500, washing machines 2,400 and refrigerators 4,500.

Afternoon, we were set loose for a couple of hours in the Yodobashi Ukemba store in downtown Osaka. This has floor after floor of gadgetary, from computers and digital cameras through to high end stereo equipment, plus pro-audio gear. The range was mind-numbing.

The odd thing was that almost everything cost just about the same as, or perhaps as much as ten percent less than, it does in Australia. An exception was a pair of B&W 801 Nautilus speakers, slightly shop soiled, which sell for 800,000 yen (~$AUS12,000) compared to the the $AUS25,000 at home.

These speakers were just packed in a row with a whole bunch of lesser speakers, close to a wall, no room to breath. There were no proper listening facilities in sight. Auditioning? Impossible. Sure, they could get them to play, but everything about the setup was wrong.

There were DVD Audio discs and SACDs on the shelf. Very restricted range of both. I fear these formats are doomed.

By the way, if you’re shopping in Japan, don’t get caught out. The price you pay is displayed ticket price plus 5% tax.

Or, rather, in the air. I’ll be off to Japan for a few days from tomorrow, thanks to Panasonic, where I’ll have an opportunity to go to the CEATEC show (Combined Exhibition of Advanced Technologies) in Tokyo. Back Friday.

I shall also be off the air. Telstra tells me that Japan uses a unique mobile phone system that is kind of a CDMA system with SIM cards. I’m not buying a phone while I’m there.

Still, if using the hotels’ comms systems isn’t too expensive, I ought to be able to receive email and I hope to update this Blog over there.