What's Panasonic's FULL HD 3D Home Theater System?

We're developing a system that'll let you easily enjoy high-quality 3D content at home. Consisting of a 3D-ready configuration of plasma TV, Blu-ray Disc™ player, Blu-ray Disc™, and glasses, the system will bring you 3D content produced for theater use in all its outstanding quality, with almost no image degradation. We are presently working to release and promote our 2010 products.

The Panasonic FULL HD 3D Home Theater System

This system will reproduce 3D content at home with nearly cinema-level quality.

Is the film industry moving toward 3D?

Yes, it is. Hollywood, in particular, is on track to release 3D movies starting in 2009. The number of theaters capable of showing them is also rapidly increasing.

Actually, this isn't the first time that 3D movies have caused a sensation. Many who are reading this will probably remember wearing a pair of glasses with red and blue lenses to watch a 3D movie. However, today's 3D has evolved to a level of quality that far exceeds 3D attempts of the past, thanks largely to the progress made in both filming techniques and display systems. There is also a much more advanced environment in place for supplying and viewing dynamic, high-quality images. As movie creators, Hollywood directors are becoming increasingly excited about this new breed of 3D movies.

In response to these trends in the film industry, Panasonic decided to add 3D capabilities to our Blu-ray™ technologies. This is a natural extension of our desire to meet the needs of filmmakers by creating new ways to bring cinema-level impact into the living room and making it easy for people to enjoy. Panasonic has always worked to bring its customers the highest level of quality in AV content and AV products, and now we're doing the same with the new expressive 3D format. We're actively engaged in the technical development that will give form to Panasonic's exciting ideas.

What kind of tecnology is used in 3D-ready Blu-ray™?

To begin with, we record original master images in 1080p Full-HD quality for both the left and right eyes onto the disc, ensuring that there is almost no image degradation. These images are then played by a 3D-ready Blu-ray Disc™ player.

Panasonic uses the Frame Sequential technology for 3D playback. This technology, which has actually existed since the 1980s, alternately reproduces images for the left and right eyes. The main difference between the previous technology and today's, though, is that the alternating left and right images are each played at the super-high speed of 60 frames per second (fps). High-quality images at 60 fps for each eye mean that high-quality images are being viewed by both eyes at 120 fps. Viewing them with high-precision 3D Eyewear produces 3D images in Full-HD quality.

By watching the screen with 3D Eyewear, in which the left and right lenses alternately open and close at the same speed as the images, the brain recognizes the images as 3D. Also, the large amount of image data per second produces an extremely lifelike 3D sensation.

Compared with the conventional methods, you can see how the density of image information that reaches the eyes each second is much higher with Panasonic's Frame Sequential technology.

What part does the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory (PHL) play in this?

Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory (PHL)

The production of 3D content requires a great deal of special expertise, both in the movie content itself and in aspects such as settings for the menu and subtitles. In order to quickly conduct the necessary research for this, Panasonic established the PHL Advanced Authoring Center (PHL-AC) inside the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory in February 2009.

In addition to equipping the new facility with a variety of 3D systems, such as a 3D-ready Digital Cinema Projector (a Dolby 3D system for theater use) and a FULL HD 3D 103-inch plasma system, PHL-AC is now developing a number of 3D enhancement functions for its authoring system, including 3D-ready image compression technology (an MPEG-4 MVC (Multiview Video Coding)). At the same time, PHL-AC is actively producing prototypes of numerous Blu-ray 3D™ titles.

With the idea of achieving greater efficiency in 3D content production, up to and including disc media, Panasonic has also beefed up its support for the 3D movie production stage. This has included a wide range of technical support, such as the development of a test camera for Director James Cameron to use in the filming of his 3D movie AVATAR from 2008 to 2009.

James Cameron has said that 3D will eventually become a new standard moviemaking technique in much the same way as the "talkies" did years ago. With this in mind, he put tremendous effort into completing this production to create a 3D masterpiece with a level of quality that reflects a full understanding of the technology.

PHL-AC displays and evaluates the image quality of 3D content in a digital cinema evaluation room equipped with a 380-inch screen.

A 3D-ready 65-inch Full-HD plasma TV is used for verification tests on 3D titles.

In January 2010, the Integrated Twin-lens FULL HD 3D Camera Recorder was unveiled at the 2010 International CES. Whereas movie creators previously had to physically combine two ordinary 2-dimensional cameras in order to shoot 3-dimensional scenes, this camera produces high-quality 3D images all by itself. The images can also be immediately checked on the 3D LCD Video Monitor, and the confirmation process will eventually be further enhanced by a special plasma display for 3D image evaluation.

In response to the needs of film creators like James Cameron who are enthusiastically working on new 3D titles, Panasonic was pleased to announce the development of the industry's first professional Integrated Twin-lens FULL HD 3D Camera Recorder at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, U.S.A., on April 20, 2009. In January 2010, we announced that we would begin taking orders for our "Integrated Twin-lens FULL HD 3D Camera Recorder" in April. The camera, which records onto memory cards and features a compact, mechanism-free design, has dramatically increased the efficiency of recording 3D images compared to conventional 3D systems that require considerable time and effort to set up and start recording. We will now continue to focus on promoting our FULL HD 3D Production Systems, which combine this camera with a Digital AV Mixer and a 3D LCD Video Monitor for evaluating the resulting 3D images.

The day will soon come when the stunning images that are captured on movie sets and edited in studios will be available not only in movie theaters, but also on living room TVs. Naturally, in addition to its efforts in creating 3D images, Panasonic envisions the development of 3D theater systems based on plasma displays that will allow the highest-quality images to be comfortably enjoyed at home.

Is there a lot of interest from people who want to actually experience 3D images?

Panasonic released its latest FULL HD 3D Plasma Theater at various exhibitions around the world, starting at CEATEC JAPAN 2008 in August 2008 (Makuhari, Chiba), the 2009 International CES (Las Vegas), 2009 NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) Show (Las Vegas), and CEATEC JAPAN 2009. Through these activities, we have continued to convey an up-to-the-minute look at 3D technology development. From Fall 2009 onward, we have also conducted truck tours and mall tours all over North America and Europe. These have allowed many people to experience the real-life sensation of FULL HD 3D images.

We then led the world in introducing these products at the 2010 International CES in January 2010. Marketing will begin in countries all over the globe from Spring 2010 onward. We are anxious to start delivering FULL HD 3D Home Theater System to living rooms worldwide.

The FULL HD 3D Plasma Theater at the Panasonic booth was a huge success at the 2010 International CES.

In order to have as many people as possible experience the enjoyment of watching high-quality, high-definition images, we are actively involved in developing advanced equipment for use in image production, producing 3D media that faithfully reproduces images according to the intention of their creators, and promoting widespread use of FULL HD 3D Home Theater Systems in homes everywhere.