Panasonic Won’t Rule Out Conversion Chips in Future 3D TVs

After first vowing that its first-generation VT series of 3D plasma TVs won’t sport 2D-to-3D conversion chips, Panasonic now says it will play wait-and-see before deciding whether to build those chips into future models. Panasonic wants to keep an open mind on the issue because it doesn’t want to be caught at a “competitive disadvantage” with other CE makers that opt to include the chips in their 3D TVs, Henry Hauser, Panasonic vice president of merchandising for display products, told Consumer Electronics Daily.

Panasonic executives, including Senior Vice President Bob Perry, announced with much fanfare two months ago that the company’s first generation of 3D TVs won’t have conversion chips built in. Perry even vowed at the DisplaySearch Flat-Panel Display Conference that his company wouldn’t put them in its sets, just as a sushi bar should promise never to serve fake “sushi-like food material” (CED March 3 p1). Minutes earlier at the conference, ESPN executives warned that if CE makers flood the market with TVs containing 2D-to-3D conversion chips, their network would rethink its commitment to ESPN 3D.

Hauser thinks Panasonic at first “wanted to be parochial and to get our displays out there showing a really good version of 3D to make the initial period of time an educational period with the absolutely best 3D picture,” he said. “But there are a lot of 3D chips out there and we are in consultation with some of our channel partners as to whether it’s a necessary competitive feature ongoing.” No decision has been made whether to include them in future sets, he said. As the market evolves, Panasonic could add the chips “if it’s a feature that everybody else has and we don’t have, so we're getting insight as to whether that would be a benefit or not,” he said.

Dealer feedback on 2D-to-3D conversion thus far has been mixed, Hauser said. “Some significant brands have incorporated it in their products,” he said. But Panasonic hasn’t experienced “any competitive disadvantage at this point because of what we believe is a perceived recognized picture quality benefit that we have currently. But as it goes forward for 2011 we're discussing whether it should or should not be a feature."

Hauser said he thinks there will be sufficient 3D content “not to drive it that way, so that would not be the determining factor.” Although the company was adamant early on that 2D-to-3D conversion was not the way to go, he also said “you can’t operate as an island either, if half the industry goes one way and you go the other."

Asked whether Panasonic will have additional lines of 3D TVs this year, Hauser said the company is studying the issue but the VT series “is officially the line we'll have at this time. When it’s demonstrated correctly it shows the benefit of not having the 2D-3D conversation,” he said. As for whether Panasonic worries about 3D’s reputation if many sets have conversion chips, Hauser answered in the affirmative. “We're definitely concerned about it,” he said, but he again stressed the need for Panasonic gear “to be competitive in nature and then there’s the application of the conversion. With the short-stroke phosphors that we're using, it may allow a better picture quality than other technologies out there, but I haven’t seen it so I can’t make that statement absolutely. We feel the response speed from the way we're formulating the phosphors is a competitive advantage right now.”