Rebecca Day

Panasonic ushered in what it called “the next wave of 3D production” Wednesday with the availability of the AG-3DA1 Full HD 3D pro camcorder, one of the 3D cameras being used by CBS Sports at the U.S. Open, which opened Monday in Flushing, N.Y., and concludes next week. CBS is using the $21,000 dual-lens camcorder for the first-ever telecast of 3D tennis, which will be beamed this weekend and next to DirecTV subscribers over the Panasonic-sponsored n3D channel. At a press conference at the National Tennis Center touting the company’s “end-to-end 3D strategy,” Panasonic made several 3D announcements covering business partnerships, product news and industry initiatives as part of its goal to establish a leadership position in 3D.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Sharp announced a voluntary recall of some 32-inch Sharp LCD-TVs because of a risk of injury. The cause of the recall is the neck on the TVs’ stands, which can break and cause the TV to tip over, posing a risk to consumers, according to Sharp and CPSC. No injuries resulting from the hazard have been reported, CPSC said. The recall involves roughly 9,000 Sharp 32-inch LCD-TVs, model number LC-32SB28UT and serial numbers 0028 32837-0028 35190, 0048 57501-0048 59020, 0048 61401-0048 64020 and 0048 72001-0048 78800. Their manufacture dates are March and April. According to CPSC, consumers should contact Sharp to arrange for a free replacement neck support. Sharp spokesman Chris Loncto said the company notified the CPSC of the problem and provided an action plan to repair the units in the market. Loncto told us that if a customer’s TV is within the range of serial numbers involved, the company will arrange for a Sharp authorized service center to inspect the set and replace the stand neck support without charge at the customer’s convenience and in most case at the customer’s location. If the TV is wall-mounted and the stand neck support isn’t being used, Sharp will send the customer a replacement stand neck to swap with the old one for possible future use. Sharp has mailed letters to end-user customers, notified dealers and distributed a technical bulletin to authorized servicers with information on the recall. The company also has set up a 24/7 customer safety notification line, 800-291-4249, Loncto said. Recall information is also available on the Sharp website. The TVs were made in China.

Despite a 26 percent increase in Q2 global TV shipments year-over-year, to 56.2 million units, the North American market suffered a 3 percent decline, DisplaySearch said. The North American drop followed a weak 1 percent increase in unit sales Q1, the research company said. After triple-digit growth in 2009, the China market cooled to 31 percent growth year-over-year, the report said, because of holiday season sales weaker than forecast.

Netgear is announcing Tuesday video streaming and networking products designed to improve HD video streaming throughout homes. Vivek Pathela, the vice president and general manager for home/consumer products, told Consumer Electronics Daily that buffering times of 20-30 seconds, video jitter, screen freezes and audio/video sync issues are limiting consumers’ enjoyment of streaming in the connected TV world. The new Powerline AV 500 products, due out this fall, are designed to deal with the problems, he said.

In one of the most convincing signs yet that high-end audio and video is on an inevitable course toward Internet sales, seminal high-end New York City retailer Sound by Singer shut the doors of its 31-year-old Manhattan store and plans to re-launch as Sound by Singer Direct in the coming months. Like other high-end brick-and-mortar retailers, the company once “moaned and complained and jumped up and down” when audiophile manufacturers Balanced Audio Technology, Luxman, Thiel Audio and DPI went online, said Sound by Singer President Andy Singer. Now, facing a significant rent increase after a “horrible” two years of AV retailing, a resigned Singer is going to the other side.

Sharp last week began shipping its first 3D TVs in a limited-distribution rollout, industry sources said. The LED LCD TVs are part of the Quattron series of quad-pixel TVs, which add yellow to the traditional red, green and blue filter used in LCD TVs. The company plans to differentiate its 3D flat-panel TVs -- which follow models from Panasonic, Samsung and Sony to market -- with two features, sources said, including increased brightness from the Quattron technology and a proprietary switch on the active-shutter glasses. The switch is said to enable consumers to flip between a 2D and a 3D picture, in cases in which some viewers might find 3D uncomfortable. By activating 2D through the glasses, some viewers in a room will see a 2D picture on the TV while others see 3D, Sharp said. The first wave of Sharp 3D TVs are 52- and 60-inch screen sizes, sources said, and come with two pairs of active-shutter glasses. David Young, president of The Sound Room in St. Louis, received 60-inch LC60LE925UN models ($4,799) in his AV specialty store last week. Asked whether the 2D switching capability would be a compelling feature, Young said, “Possibly. No one else has it.” He thinks the increased brightness will be a strong selling point, given the darker picture other 3D models have exhibited, and he said he'll showcase the TV in the 3D section if the brightness claims prove true. Sharp’s 3D Blu-ray players haven’t hit stores, but Young said the Sharp 3D TV is compatible with players from Panasonic and Samsung, allowing retailers to do movie demos on the sales floor. Young said Sharp was pushing the brightness and 3D/2D switch on the glasses, but no mention was made of TVs including 2D-3D chips to convert existing content to 3D, he said. Earlier this summer (CED June 4 p1), Sharp said it would sell 3D TVs with 2D-3D conversion chips in Japan, but the feature has been controversial in the U.S. since ESPN warned CE makers not to build them into their sets (CED March 3 p1) citing a resulting “pseudo-3D image.” Calls to Sharp for additional details weren’t returned by our deadline.

Panasonic, CBS Sports and the United States Tennis Association said Wednesday they will produce 3D versions of all CBS broadcasts of U.S. Open matches on Labor Day weekend and the next, finals weekend. The matches will be shown on n3D, DirecTV channel 103, and in 3D viewing galleries at the National Tennis Center in Flushing, Queens. Panasonic and DirecTV also will provide the U.S. Open semifinal and final matches live in 3D to hundreds of TV retail locations across the country as part of National 3D Demo Days (CED Aug 18 p6), Sept. 10-12, organized by the Consumer Electronics Association.

To expand its reach to more mainstream consumers, Velocity Micro is entering the e-book and tablet markets with devices scheduled to ship next month. According to Josh Covington, marketing manager, there’s a limited market for the $3,000 desktop computers that the company is known for. “We're still selling a lot of them, but realistically, there aren’t a ton of people out there willing to spend that kind of money,” he said. “As we continue to expand our brand, we're trying to look at more products that will appeal to a mainstream audience."

ST. CHARLES, Mo. -- The Basel Action Network’s e-Stewards certification program for e-waste recyclers is imposing huge fees on participating recycling companies and is penalizing larger companies unfairly, Dan Fuller, president of EPC USA, one such e-Steward, told us in an interview at his shop Thursday. BAN officials responded by saying if Fuller doesn’t like the voluntary e-Stewards program, he’s free to drop out. They also said the fees BAN charges are fair and for the average e-Steward will more than pay for themselves in new business generated from the certification program.

Mozaex’s new multiroom Blu-ray 3D server (CED Aug 10 p1) underscores the fine line between what server manufacturers consider legal when it comes to products that store movies for distribution throughout a house and what copyright-protection groups want to shut down as violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Michael Ayers, spokesman for the Advanced Access Content System, told Consumer Electronics Daily that Mozaex, like any PC manufacturer, needs no license from AACS to add a Blu-ray drive to its server. The manufacturer of the drive and the publisher of the software player application do have to be licensees, he said, and they must obey copyright laws prohibiting illegal copying of software. Mozaex’s position is that it simply makes a server and it doesn’t provide a way to rip movies to a hard disk or control what a consumer does after buying the system.