Panasonic 3D Plasma TV By Scott Wilkinson September 29, 2009 — At the CEDIA Expo earlier this month, we saw a demo of Panasonic's 3D Blu-ray system on a 103-inch plasma. It was mighty impressive, but few consumers are going to buy that behemoth, even at it's recently reduced price of $50,000. Fortunately, they won't have to.

Japanese news service Nikkei reported on Monday that Panasonic has announced a 50-inch plasma with the ability to display 3D images at full 1080p resolution for each eye. The set is expected to become available to consumers in the US, Japan, and Europe some time next year, though no pricing or specific timetable was announced. According to Panasonic, 100 3D Blu-ray titles should be available by the end of 2010.

To see the 3D effect, the set must be used with a 3D-capable Blu-ray player, 3D-encoded content, and active-shutter glasses that alternately block light from reaching each eye. The screen displays the images for each eye in a similar alternating pattern, and an IR beam synchronizes the glasses with the images. The frame rate for each eye is 60Hz, which means the set's overall refresh rate is 120Hz. This is no problem for plasma technology because it's far faster than LCD.

All of this is contingent on a 3D specification for Blu-ray, which has not yet been finalized. Another potential roadblock is consumer acceptance of a much dimmer picture than conventional sets produce, since so much light is lost passing through the glasses. But Hollywood is pushing the concept very hard, releasing many 3D movies to commercial cinemas. Only time will tell if it'll catch on in home theaters.