First look: Panasonic 3D Blu-ray player and 3D plasma TVs

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Posted on 16 Feb 2010 at 18:08

It's been two years in the making, but finally we were able to get our hands on a finished version of Panasonic's 3D Blu-ray player. It was launched with much fanfare at Panasonic's global press conference in Munich.

"I guarantee that 2010 is the year which will bring the revolution of 3D TV in the home", claimed Mamoru Yoshida, Senior Vice President of AVC Networks Company and Executive Officer of Panasonic.

He's in a fairly good position to make such claims, given that Panasonic also launched a pair of 3D TVs at the same time – 50in and 65in models. Both are plasma screens, as you'd expect from a technology that has a far faster refresh rate than LCD.

A fast refresh is necessary to display the 120 frames of Full HD video per second from a 3D Blu-ray disc. 60 frames are shown to each eye independently through infrared-synchronised shutter glasses. This system fools the brain into thinking it's seeing a true 3D image, as each eye sees a slightly different perspective of the scene in each frame.

The 65in model (Viera TX-P65VT20) will cost around £4,000 when it launches in the UK later this year, while the 50in model (TX-P50VT20) is expected to cost £2,000. Panasonic says this is roughly a £400 premium on an equivalent non-3D TV. Of course, there's nothing special about the TV itself - beyond supporting the new HDMI 1.4 standard which is required for 3D Blu-ray – as plasma intrinsically has the necessary refresh rate.

However, Panasonic hasn't rested on its laurels and the new TVs have various improvements to improve image quality and reduce power consumption – one of the problems with plasma technology. The new models use around 40 per cent less power than 2009 sets, while '3D high-speed drive technology' means that the conventional problem of slightly blurry 3D images is now much reduced. The blur is caused by the afterglow of the phosphors – the current frame is mixed with the previous one due to the phosphors remaining lit for too long.

The new short-persistence phosphors mean that this afterglow doesn’t affect concurrent frames. Plus, the bundled shutter glasses (two pairs are included with each TV – additional pairs cost £100) have been better synchronised with the frames to reduce eye strain. Instead of switching immediately between each eye, a tiny pause has been introduced to eliminate any light leakage from the screen.

Both TVs will have Viera Cast – Panasonic's web portal – which now includes video content from DailyMotion and allows you to make video calls to Skype users when you connect the optional USB webcam. They also have built-in Freesat HD and Freeview tuners, although not Freeview HD. One other improvement is the audio return channel that allows the TV’s audio to pass back to an AV receiver via a standard HDMI cable, as well as video and audio from the AV receiver passing to the TV.

No prices were announced for the 3D Blu-ray player – the DMP-BDT300. As well as 3D Blu-ray support, it will also play 2D Blu-ray discs, DVDs and audio CDs. As with Panasonic's other Blu-ray players and recorders, it has an SD card slot for viewing photos and videos and supports a wide range of standards including AVCHD and various DivX HD versions.

We were shown demonstrations of the improved start-up time of the new player as well as the DMP-BD85, which is almost identical to the BDT300 except for the lack of 3D support. Compared to previous players which could take 30 seconds to turn on and start playing a disc, the new versions have cut this down to around seven seconds, despite consuming just 0.2W in standby mode.

Viera Cast has also been built into these players, which are bundled with a USB WiFi adaptor to negate the need for a network cable or expensive powerline networking adaptors.

We'll bring you full reviews of these products as soon as we can.

Author: Jim Martin in Munich