Pioneer Plasma the End of SED?

Wow, SED was supposed to be the future of television displays, and now before it can even sell one SED in 2008, it has supposedly been surpassed by Pioneer's upcoming plasma this summer...crazy.

Pioneer is already reputed to make one of the best plasmas on the market, and this new one coming out is supposed to kill it in image quality (just like SED was supposed to).

"The demo began with both screens in idle-black. That is, the new plasma display looked black; Pioneer's current plasma looked shockingly gray and over-lit. Over the course of a variety of sources including an in-house demo reel and clips of Haunted Mansion, the new Pioneer model put the previous version to absolute shame.

We haven't seen better black-level performance since we were treated to Toshiba's SED demo a year ago. Though a head-to-head comparison is impossible, Pioneer's new display tech appeared easily surpassed everything we've seen in the recent HDTV space."

See full IGN article

If this is true, and Pioneer is bringing their new (and even more expensive) plasma to market in months, Toshiba/Canon is going to have to pull a SED out of its hat really soon..And at a competitive price.