Panasonic TH-103PF12 3D Prototype

Today I got the chance to view a prototype Panasonic 103” 3D TV, I was impressed! Apologies for the photo, it was taken using my iPhone and I tried to get a pic that captured the size of this monster, the man to the left of the screen was about 6′ tall. Yes it’s huge, this would swamp most living rooms, with a price tag to match (price was not disclosed, but I’ve been informed by another reseller that £40k would be close). As I mentioned this is a prototype but never the less the results were impressive.

To put this screen in perspective about an hour earlier I had the opportunity of viewing some Sky 3D and 3D Blu-ray content in a small cinema, with a high end £10k+ projector, the effect was good. Blu-ray content was on a par with the 3D I’ve viewed at my local Odeon cinema with a RealD 3D system (Avatar), Sky 3D not as great, detail is sacrificed for the 3D effect; the Sky 3D system splits the available 1080i image vertically in half giving half to one eye and half to the other eye, the projector then ‘stretches’ each half to fill the screen delivering one stretched screen to the left eye and the other stretched screen to the right using active shutter glasses. Although it’s not Blu-ray the effect is still good especially when we viewed a nature clip, giving us a virtual zoo.

Anyway, back to the Panasonic, this again used active shutter glasses, the glasses synced via IR to an emitter on the TV, the content was supplied via a Panasonic 3D Blu-ray player. We were shown a clip of the Beijing and Winter Olympics, stunning picture, smooth transition a lot less visible refresh that I’ve come to expect from my previous 3D experiences. Then onto a clip of the grand canyon, this took me back to the time I visited this amazing wonder of the world, more so that my own pictures, as a virtual tour it was stunning. Then onto the trailer for Avatar, I found this so much more comfortable to watch than when I watched the whole film at the cinema, the 3D effect was very ‘smooth’. What I mean by this is that instead of feeling like I was watching a toy theatre production using cardboard characters pushed across the screen (you know the one’s I mean) where each level of depth can be counted and the objects are flat 2D and used to build up a 3D world, I felt that I was actually looking into another world, no sudden depth changes.

This TV, although out of most of our price range shows us the future and yes there is a lot of hype about 3D but if this is what’s coming soon then very soon we’ll all be having a similar viewing experience in our own living rooms.

Posted By: Dan in Blog
Tags:

0