Panasonic previews its 3D technology

I just got back from Panasonic's corporate headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey, where the company was giving previews of its upcoming 3D technology. Yes, I know 3D video has been around for decades, and over the last few years it's seen a resurgence in movies, but Panasonic's demo distinguished itself by presenting a preview of an upcoming standard in 3D HD video. If it catches on, 3D video might see its own legitimate and consistent technology, standardized across many different consumer electronics and motion picture companies.

Panasonic is calling the system Full 3D HD, and it set up a home theater dedicated to showing it off, equipped with the company's 103-inch, 1080p plasma HDTV and a prototype 3D-capable Blu-ray Disc player. The system uses active shutter glasses, 3D glasses with electronics that make the lenses shutter at extremely high speeds, to separate 120 frames of alternating video into 60 frames for each eye to produce the 3D effect. Each frame is full 1080p resolution, essentially pushing twice as much video through the screen as regular, 2D 1080p video.

Pinnacle's super-slim subwoofer soon shipping

At less than 5 inches thick, Pinnacle's new Slim Sub 66 might be the slimmest subwoofer available. The unpowered, dual 6.5-inch cone sub measures just 4.75 inches deep, making it simple to squeeze behind the sofa for maximum seat-thumping. Pinnacle claims it can reach down to 28 Hz, an impressive bass depth for such a small package.

To drive the Slim Sub 66, Pinnacle is also offering the Pin Amp 800, an 800-watt amplifier. If 800 watts seems like a lot for just one little subwoofer, that's because it is; the Pin Amp 800 can power up to 4 Slim Sub 66's at a time, in the same or different rooms. Both the Slim Sub 66 and the Pin Amp 800 are currently shipping, with the subwoofer retailing for $595 and the amp for $565.

— Will Greenwald

Panasonic Plasma - 103-inch Air Hockey Table?

If you can afford a 103-inch plasma display, I guess you can afford to turn it into a gaming table. Using an overlay designed by U-Touch, the display has multi-touch capability, so you can make it a virtual hockey table.

What other applications can you do with this? World's biggest Pong?  --Leslie Shapiro

UberGizmo

Panasonic Opens 3D Authoring Lab

While other companies are floundering around - to 3D, or not to 3D - Panasonic is making a commitment to bring 3D Full HD to home Blu-ray by the year 2010. The new 3D authoring facility is in the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory located in California. 

Panasonic is working with movie studios to push "3D FHD" as the new 3D standard. Hopefully, we won't have a standard war. If this up and coming technology stands a chance for mainstream acceptance, one standard is needed. --Leslie Shapiro

HDTV Org

Panasonic's Green LCDs with WirelessHD

Why does Japan get all the good stuff first? Panasonic Japan is showing off  the new Z series of Viera TVs that use half the power of the competition, but it gets even better. Instead of having those ugly cables running up to these gorgeous screens, the new Z series Vieras will have optional WirelessHD receivers. The WirelessHD uses the 60GHz band from a distance of up to 10 meters.

The screens themselves are also noteworthy. They'll be available in 46-inch, 50-inch, and 54-inch models, using the Neo-Plasma panel that has a 40,000:1 contrast ratio. The screens are only 24.7mm thick.

They'll be available in Japan by mid-April. Let's hope it doesn't take long for these to make it to the US market.  -- Leslie Shapiro

New Launches

CES 2009: It's Not Easy Being Green

It's not easy being green. For starters, you have to add water. Panasonic put a new twist on the traditional Press Kit URL piece of paper. Yes, the URL is still there, but a closer look at the slightly thick and textured paper reveals that it is, in fact, also a flower garden.

The instructions read: "Soak this handmade seedpaper in a glass of water for a few hours. Place the card in a pot of soil and cover lightly. Keep out of direct sunlight and water 2 times a day. In a week or so, you'll start to have sprouts. Move outdoors when the weather permits. Enjoy your flowers! Contains: Marigolds and Cosmos."

The only downside, as far as I can tell, is that the damn flowers will obliterate the URL you might actually need.

Well, this should be interesting.  I'll set up a flowercam with a 30-second refresh so all of you can constantly check on the progress of the flowers. Much livelier and cuter than the puppcam. -- Ken C. Pohlmann

CES 2009: Panasonic's VHS/BD Combo Player

As they say - strange bedfellows. I mean, how many times do you hear "VHS" and "Blu-ray" used in the same sentence? And how many times do you see them in the same player?

Panasonic has mated these old and new technologies in the DMP-BD70V player (pictured). It contains both a VHS tape drive and a Blu-ray disc drive. The latter is strictly contemporary, with BD-Live and BonusView support, VieraCast for streaming from YouTube and other sources. There is even a SD card slot for viewing AVCHD, MPEG2 and JPEG(HD) content. Not to mention, there's MP3 and JPEG playback via USB.

The former format (VHS) is strictly not contemporary. It is a playback only deck. Period.

You might be asking - why?

The answer is that right next to that skeleton, there are piles of VHS tapes in your closet, and at some point you might want to watch (or move to another media) that special tape recording of your high-school prom. Or maybe not. In any case, you'll certainly sleep better at night knowing that if required, you have legacy playback capability.

The DMP-BD-70V will retail for 449. -- Ken C. Pohlmann

CES 2009: Panasonic's Blu-ray in a Box

The term "Home Theater in a Box" formerly had about as much cache as "wine in a box." HTiB was, in fact, a very pejorative acronym used only with extreme prejudice. But, that is changing. Increasingly, HTiBs are going upscale, with Blu-ray drives installed in their head units.

Case in point, Panasonic is introducing two new Blu-ray equipped HTiB systems. Moreover, the are offered at lower prices than their current models. Both come with 7.1-speakers or supports them (reflecting the trend toward 7.1 on BD discs) and both support BD-Live. In addition, both support Panasonic's VieraCast service to deliver direct internet access to YouTube, Picasa Web Albums from Google, and other content.

The SC-BT300 (pictured) is a 7.1 system; it features an iPod dock, and wireless-ready surround speakers. The dock has been upgraded to display an iPod's video and audio menus, and the unit will upconvert audio on all channels to 96kHz sampling rates. Interestingly, a bamboo cone driver is used in the front and center speakers. Total output power is 1250 watts.

The SC-BT200 is similar to the 300, but uses smaller front speakers and total output power is 100 watts.  --Ken C. Pohlmann

CES 2009: Panasonic's Web-enabled TVs and Blu-ray

Panasonic unveiled their new ideas for their Viera TVs. VIERA CAST is a unique server that will be accessable by all Panasonic web-enabled TVs. Using one server, they'll be able to keep all past, current and future TVs up to date by funnelling them through the single server.

What will they be able to access through this server? New partnerships with Amazon will give Panasonic customers access to Amazon Video On Demand.

Also new from Panasonic:

CES 2009: Lots of new HD cameras on the way, no tape in sight.

It's a good time to be a home movie-loving home theater buff, since more and more high-def consumer camcorders are coming out every year. This CES has seen several new models from Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic, most of which are smaller, cheaper, or pack much more memory than the year before. MiniDV tapes might be a thing of the past for consumer HD camcorders; out of the dozen-or-so new models announced by the three companies, none of them use tape. Instead, these camcorders all use hard drive, removable flash memory, or built-in solid-state drives to hold their footage.

Samsung unveiled the HMX-H100, H104, H105, and H106 camcorders, svelte video cameras that rely solely on flash memory. The HMX-H100 records to SD and SDHC cards, and its bigger brothers feature SSD drives.The H104, H105, and H106 (pictured) pack 16-, 32-, and 64-gig flash memory drives respectively, letting users record up to 12 hours (with the H106) of HD footage at the camcorder's highest setting. They all have SDHC card slots, if you need just a little bit more recording time. All four models feature 2.2MP sensors and Schneider Kruznach lenses. The H100, H104, and H105 camcorders ship in March, and the H106 will be available in April. Samsung hasn't yet announced pricing for them.

Sony announced four new HD camcorders, all of which sport hefty hard drives for plenty of recording time. The Handycam HDR-XR100 features a 10x Carl Zeiss zoom lens with optical image stabilization and an 80GB hard drive that can record up to 30 hours of HD footage in LP mode. It also features face-detecting autofocus and Smile Shutter, a feature usually found on Sony's Cyber-shot digital cameras that lets the camcorder automatically take a still photo when a subject is smiling. Its step-up model, the HDR-XR200, features a 120GB hard drive, a 15x Carl Zeiss optical zoom, and a built-in GPS receiver for geotagging and navigation.