Rebecca Day

XpanD’s Universal X103 3D glasses, which began shipping two weeks ago with a $129 suggested retail price, will likely be $100 in a year, XpandD Chief Strategy Officer Ami Dror told Consumer Electronics Daily Thursday in New York. “Prices will come down, but slowly,” he said. Economies of scale won’t come into play with 3D glasses as with typical CE products, he said, because of the cost of the two LCDs needed in each set. “The main cost is “in the lenses,” he said, adding that “whether we make five million or 50 million,” manufacturing expenses don’t drop.

Predicting “Black Friday is going to be crazy,” BJ’s Wholesale Club CEO Laura Sen said in the company’s Q3 2010 earnings webcast Wednesday the company will respond to competitors’ pricing strategies by continuing to “do what we do and do it well.” Sen said “we've already seen noise” from Target and Wal-Mart on toys and electronics. CFO Frank Forward said the company is reserving guidance estimates for end-of-year results based on uncertainty about holiday sales, adding concern about “the highly promotional holiday season.” The company is “cautious in general” about general merchandise sales for Q4, he said.

For the first time, TiVo is offering a DVR at no extra charge to customers who agree to a two-year service contract. The company announced promotional pricing on TiVo Premiere and TiVo Premiere XL DVRs through Dec. 31. TiVo is positioning the promotions as bundles combining lower-priced or no-charge DVRs with increased monthly fees of $19.99. Standard TiVo monthly subscriptions were previously $12.95. TiVo Premiere is priced through the end of the year at “$0 down with a two-year commitment” of $19.99 monthly, or $99 with a one-year commitment. Buyers keep the box in either case. A sales agent told us this is the first time that the company has offered a TiVo DVR free, and he called the package the “best deal” of the three promo options. He said $19.99 is the new monthly fee for TiVo service. The price of the step-up TiVo Premiere XL also dropped to $299 with a $19.99-per-month one-year commitment. Consumers can choose the front-loaded option of $499 with a one-year contract at $12.95 monthly. The promotions are being offered at Best Buy stores and direct from TiVo. TiVo will penalize customers, cellular carrier-style, for early contract termination. Its website says the fee will be the lower of the amount of monthly subscription fees remaining on a one-year monthly subscription commitment or the retail value of the TiVo box minus the upfront price of the box, less the difference between the service bundle plan’s monthly fee and $12.95 for each month of the subscription that has been fulfilled.

Mitsubishi released Monday an upgrade for its 738 and 838 3D-ready TVs, enabling them to directly support all mandatory 3D signal formats prescribed by HDMI 1.4a, without an external adapter, the company said. The upgrades only apply to those set series, whose platform supports them, Frank DeMartin, vice president of marketing, told us. He said the update wasn’t available when the TVs were released this year, and older models can’t be upgraded. After consumers complete the upgrade, Mitsubishi 738 and 838 TVs will be able to connect directly to 3D sources, he said. The TVs will support frame packing 1080p/24Hz signals for use with Blu-ray players, frame packing 720p/60Hz signals used by 3D game consoles, and various side-by-side and top-bottom 1080p and 720p signals compatible with cable and satellite broadcasts and other sources, the company said. The TVs will also remain compatible with checkerboard signals used mostly by computer graphics card 3D drivers that aren’t part of HDMI signal specifications, he said. The free software upgrade will be downloaded automatically to 738 and 838 TVs connected to the Internet. Consumers can also download the update from the Mitsubishi website to a USB stick that can be inserted in the TV. The company will ship a USB drive by mail for $18 to consumers who request it, DeMartin said. The upgrade allows Mitsubishi 738 and 838 customers to “keep pace with an evolving 3D TV landscape,” he said.

Fashion eyewear suppliers Marchon and Oakley each will use CES exhibits to show 3D glasses paired with a new generation of 3D TVs that don’t require active-shutter eyewear.

There are four trends to watch at January’s CES, CEA executives said Tuesday at the group’s annual CES Press Preview in New York. Demand for portability has created a segmented mobility environment with a wide variety of offerings across form factors and use-cases, CEA said.

Recent election results don’t bode well for the CE industry’s goal of a national e-waste recycling law, CEA president Gary Shapiro told journalists at the annual CES Press Preview event in New York Tuesday. Shapiro said Republican support for states’ rights “and a lot of talk among newly elected people and some of the old ones who are listening to the tea party” movement indicate that “unless there’s a Constitutional justification,” there’s not going to be a national recycling effort in the near future.

Costco shoppers are getting an early look at holiday shopping deals. At the Brooklyn, N.Y., Costco this week, we saw a bundle promotion for Panasonic 3D products that runs through Nov. 15. Consumers who buy the displayed 46-inch TC-46PGT24 plasma TV ($1,699), $229 Essentials pack including two pairs of 3D glasses and two 3D movies, and the $189 DMP-BDT105 Blu-ray player qualify for a $420 instant rebate at checkout. Bundled movies are Coraline and Ice Age. The display included a demo facilitated by Panasonic’s 3D glasses kiosk. Calls to Panasonic to find out what type of promotion will follow the current one, and whether Avatar will be included in the next Essentials pack, weren’t returned by our deadline.

Hhgregg’s fiscal Q2 net income dropped $1 million year-over-year to $3.9 million, CEO Dennis May said on its earnings webcast Tuesday. CFO Jeremy Aguilar said the double-digit “peak to trough” change in the business from July through September, led by drops in appliance and video sales, was “as dramatic as I've seen in 35 years.” The company is “seeing stabilization” now, he said. May said he didn’t want to give the impression that “comps fell off the table. … It was just a dramatic swing from things going along pretty robust to not so robust at all.” Comparable store sales dipped 1.5 percent for the quarter, the company said. A decline in vendor support along with increased selling promotions to drive market share reduced margins in video, he said.

Larry Weber, inducted into the CEA Hall of Fame last month for contributions to plasma display panel technology and its commercialization, has set his sights on the next major breakthrough for the 50-year-old technology. Weber told Consumer Electronics Daily he’s working in his garage lab in upstate New York to reduce the power use for plasma displays by as much as 20 to 40 times.