Scott Wilkinson

As you might imagine, Panasonic is bullish on 3D, claiming that 32 percent of TV sales will be 3D by 2014. And as echoed by many TV manufacturers, demand for Internet-connected TVs will increase dramatically in the coming few years. Panasonic's Viera Cast has evolved into Viera Connect, complete with a Viera Connect Market for apps.

Like Samsung, Panasonic has increased the size of its plasma screens this year—54-inchers grow to 55, and 58 becomes 60. Improved performance includes greater 3D crosstalk reduction, deeper blacks thanks to new louvre filters, 30 percent more brightness with new phosphors, and 25 percent lower power consumption. (No mention was made about incorporating more Kuro technology in the new sets.) A total of 27 new models in five lines will be introduced in 2011, including the ST30 series (pictured here on the left), an entry-level 3D model with Viera Connect and Infinite Black 2 panel. ON the right is the step-up GT30 with a thinner bezel than last year and THX certification.

Samsung's new BD-D7500 makes a striking design statement as the world's slimmest 3D Blu-ray player at just 0.9 inches thick. Even better, it boasts a boot time of only 3 seconds.

Samsung began its press conference with an interesting statistic—in 2010, over one million 3D TVs were sold, more than the number of HDTVs, DVD players, and Blu-ray players in their respective first years. So much for those who say that 3D TV is a flash in the pan…

Like LG, Samsung is using the moniker "Smart TV" for its networkable models, which will comprise two-thirds of the 2011 lineup. (I guess such a term cannot be copyrighted.) And 3D capabilities will be found in 60 percent of this years offerings, with lots of overlap. Pictured here (L to R) are the D8000 and D7000 LED-edgelit LCD TVs, which feature ultra-narrow bezels only 0.2-inch thick; both are Smart TVs with 3D capabilities. There are now over 300 Samsung apps, which have seen over 1.5 million downloads, thanks in part to contributions from third-party developers.

LG Display, a subsidiary of LG that manufactures LCD panels for its parent company as well as Toshiba and Vizio, held its own press conference today to introduce its Film-Pattern Retarder (FPR) technology, which allows the use of passive-polarized glasses with 3D TVs. Among the benefits of this approach are much less-expensive glasses that are lighter in weight and require no electronics, higher brightness and refresh rate, and no crosstalk. Of course, the main disadvantage is that each eye sees only half the available vertical resolution—540 lines instead of 1080, though the company reps argued that the brain fuses each eye's image into a "full HD" image.

The demo included several side-by-side comparisons with active-shutter glasses. For example, as seen on the right in the photo above, you can lie on your side and still watch 3D with FPR glasses, which use circular polarization, whereas shutter glasses completely darken at 90 degrees as seen on the left.

Another demo tried to illustrate how shutter glasses produce flicker while FPR glasses are flicker-free; from what I saw, this was extremely subtle. More pronounced was the comparison of crosstalk in several still images, which was obvious with shutter glasses and absent with FPR. Finally, a comparison of brightness revealed that passive 3D is indeed brighter than shutter glasses, though surprisingly, Tom Norton thought the shutter glasses display was actually brighter. We both agreed that the passive display looked more washed out and less punchy, and I thought the passive image was a bit softer in all cases, which would be worse on a larger screen.