Scott Wilkinson

Panasonic just finished a bi-coastal press briefing about its 2010 lineup of TVs, Blu-ray players, HTIBs (home-theater-in-a-box systems), and soundbars, but 3D was conspicuously absent. In fact, we were told that the company would be back in the late Spring or early Summer with more specifics about its 3D offerings.

The big message at Panasonic's press conference was 3D with "full HD" resolution (i.e., 1080p)—many current 3D systems cut the effective resolution in half to accommodate two eyes separately. The company is spearheading a drive to develop a standard for 3D HD content production, mastering, and display this year, with products appearing in 2010. Director James Cameron is on board, and Panasonic Hollywood Labs, Panasonic's R&D arm, is working with studios and manufacturers to achieve these goals. I've never found 3D all that compelling, and it sometimes gives me a slight headache after a while, so I welcome any substantive progress toward a standardized improvement.

Of course, you're going to need a 3D Blu-ray player to go with that new 3D TV, and Panasonic is ready to oblige with the PP-BDT350, seen here with a pair of shutter glasses on top of the DMP-BD85, a 2D model with WiFi and a claimed boot time of 0.5 second. The PP-BDT350 implements HDMI 1.4, and both let you access online content. Not shown is the DMP-BD15, Panasonic's second-generation portable Blu-ray player, which also provides access to online content.