Panasonic Calls New Line of 3D TVs ‘Polarized’ to Avoid Negative Connotation of Passive 3D

LAS VEGAS -- In a seemingly reluctant concession to a competitive 3D TV market, Panasonic will ship three LED-based passive 3D TVs in late Q1, but the company will continue to push what it calls the superior performance of active 3D technology, Larry McGough, sales and support representative, told us at the Panasonic booth at CES. The 42-, 47- and 55-inch models, which were neither on display at the Panasonic booth nor highlighted at the company’s press conference Monday, will be packaged with four pairs of polarizing 3D glasses when they ship in late February or March, McGough said.

Panasonic is calling the passive TVs “polarized, not passive,” McGough said, because of the “negative connotation in the industry of passive” technology. The TVs will be in Panasonic’s ET series, a step up from the basic E series of LED-based LCD TVs that will be available in the same timeframe and screen sizes, McGough said. “We are going to let people know that when comparing polarized to active, that the polarized is not as high resolution as the active system,” he said. Pricing wasn’t available for the TVs, and McGough didn’t know how much of a premium the polarized 3D feature would command over the basic LED TV series.

The Panasonic passive 3D TVs use film-pattern retarder (FPR) technology, McGough said, and “everything else in our lineup that’s 3D is active other than that one series of product.” The rationale for a line of passive 3D TVs from a company that’s such a vocal proponent of active 3D technology is “to go after the competitive nature of price points,” McGough said. “It’s our answer to late last year when price dropped out of the competitive passive pieces,” he said. “We can compete there but do it better,” he said, referring to viewing angle, color clarity and features, than products at similar price points.

The primary drawback of FPR is that the 2D image “is typically not as sharp on those panels,” McGough said, saying it’s “not an issue” on Panasonic panels due to the company’s new backlight scanning technology found on all of Panasonic’s LED TVs this year. On the passive system, the backlight flashes at alternating speeds based on information being passed from the screen at a given time “so it perceives higher resolution, higher motion and higher refresh rates,” he said. In LED TVs above that series, “we move to a much faster backlight scanner so it’s a more pure 3D image going into active systems,” he said.

In its Blu-ray lineup, Panasonic showed a portable screen-less model for the home with built-in Wi-Fi that’s designed to let consumers take their player from TV to TV. Price and availability weren’t available. Its high-end BDT-320 Blu-ray player features an energy-saving mode, a spokeswoman told us. A built-in sensor puts the unit in standby mode when no one is in the room, and kicks into an intermediate standby mode when presence is sensed, she said. The $199 player will ship in late spring, she said.