Wal-Mart and Costco will break the $1000 price barrier for 42″ plasma sets this Friday in the established yearly kickoff to the holiday shopping season.  Both retailers will be offering the Vizio P42HDTV 42″ Widescreen Plasma HDTV, for $988 and $999.99, respectively, according to leaked promotional circulars.  Features include a native resolution of 1024×768, 1,200 cd/m2 brightness, 10,000:1 contrast ratio, HDMI, VGA, component, S-Video, and RCA video inputs, and built-in NTSC, ATSC, and QAM tuners.  Speculation has it that other brands such as Maxent could follow suit.

The Vizio set is manufactured by V, Inc., a third-tier manufacturer based in Costa Mesa, California, that is building high-spec, low-cost TVs.  The company manufactures the product in Thailand.  While some reviews suggest that this is no high-performance set, breaking the psychological price barrier at these value-conscious outlets is bound to trigger brisk sales - especially with those consumers having lower technical requirements.  While we expect many of these prices to pop back up after the Thanksgiving weekend, we may nonetheless see some price softness as we approach year’s end.

Meanwhile, other deals - not part of this blitz - are also floating on the Internet.  B&H Photo, for one, is advertising the Sanyo PDP-42H2A 42-Inch “HDTV Ready” Plasma Monitor for $899.95.  Even though this 1024×1024 display has no tuners, that may be irrelevant to the consumer with an HD cable or satellite set top box.  Elsewhere, the Philips 42PF7220A/37B 42-inch Plasma TV can be had for just $933.61, and the Samsung HP-S4253 for $972.00.  And the Panasonic set mentioned earlier has been seen as low as $1,049, all of these before shipping.  With this kind of price war, we may start see other brands - such as the AOC A42HD84 plasma at $1,221.29 - just fade away.

Just missing the $1,000 mark are Wal-Mart’s ilo/Tatung 42″ plasma display for $1,088, and Circuit City’s Panasonic TH-42PX60U 42″ set at $1,169.99 (down from $1,599 just three weeks ago at Costco), with free delivery and a 10% coupon.  With floor haggling, it’s conceivable that units at the electronics-oriented dealers will break the $1,000 mark as well.  Compare this with the Panasonic 52 PT52LCX66 RPTV and the 40 Polaroid FLM4034B LCD, both currently at $999.99 at Circuit City.

As one would expect, the lowest prices will be found among the 3rd-tier brands.  However, there have been almost-linear price reductions in the past six to nine months from the better-known brands such as Sony, Panasonic and Samsung, and these makers will be under growing pressure to continue that trend.  Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see how many of the lesser-known labels will be here next year.  But with 42 LCD prices still topping $2,000 for many brands, we could see that technology taking a big hit this season, and beyond.

What continues to confuse the market for many consumers is the mix of EDTV and HDTV at this display size. Many ads are now touting 1024×768 (or 720) XGA as "HDTV," which is a bit of a stretch.  Even more bewildering is the wide range of performance in areas such as contrast and scan (and film) conversion.  The growing tech savvy of many buyers appears to be counteracting this issue, however, and together with more bargains, we may see the EDTV sets eventually fade out, as consumers increasingly demand, “I want my HDTV.”