The End is Nigh?
Eat, Drink and be Merry, for tomorrow........... 
I certainly won't be shedding any tears were Panasonic to stop TV production. 
I'm absolutely disgusted with the support I had from them. 
What with new emerging TV technologies such as OLED and 4K on the horizon. UK customers can look forward to better products and better support elsewhere in the market place. 
Maybe Pioneer can be tempted back by more lucrative technologies? 
Aren't Pioneer back in bed with Sharp on the flat panel front?
I'm absolutely disgusted with the support I had from them.
Really? You never mentioned it...
OLED's not looking that clever right now, I believe a couple of manufacturers are closing to giving up on it as it's just too difficult to scale up to TV sizes reliably (and there's the fading blue issue, etc etc).
The Pioneer Elite range was available in the US in late 2011/early 2012, don't know if it still is but it was simply Sharp licensing the name from Pioneer, Pioneer don't appear to have had very much input into the sets.
I personally will be very sad to see Panasonic stop making Plasma tvs. It seems just as they are getting it right, and by all accounts, making the best plasmas ever made, they want to pack it in.
Andrew, is there any truth in what my wife tells me about lots of Japanese engineers working for Samsung and LG?
And, if this is true, could we then see more leaving Panasonic and going to Korea too?
I think it may once have been the case that Japanese engineers were in demand in Korea as that country's companies strove to build up their businesses, but of late the Korean firms have been more picky about the engineering talent they buy in.
They've also been experiencing their own 'brain drain' from the big Korean names to smaller companies, and indeed to countries building up their own industries, such as China and Taiwan. Such countries have in the past employed Japanese expertise: I remember my first visit to IAG in China many years ago, before it moved into its current plant – even back then the head of production was Japanese, and ran what could safely be called 'a very tight ship'.
Thanks Andrew.
Knowing is enough. I'm not sure I'm brave enough to correct my wife, plus, she'd say you were wrong, as she never is. 
You may say that – I couldn't possibly comment...
I was toying with the idea of replacing my current 2009 panny V10 with one of their newer models, does anyone think I would see a vast leap forward in picture quality ? I'd ideally be looking for a screen size of about 46"
Yes, yes, yes!
Look at the the GT50 you can't go wrong. A couple of years back a TV this good you would pay around £2500 for it! This year has been a brilliant year!
Panasonic 50GT50, Pioneer Bdp-lx71, Pioneer Vsx-lx70, B&W FPM Series & B&W PV1.