Last weekend, I was in Miami Florida for an Event hosted by Panasonic. They were showing off all kinds of new electronics for home and travel, but the thing that caught my attention was the new 3D televisions. I feel like the big fish that bit the cut squid and now I am hooked. As I was standing there watching some beach volleyball in 3D, I was thinking to myself, How do I explain to my wife that we NEED a new TV.
I have to admit my boat is a little too small for a 50 inch flat screen, but I have had the opportunity to visit a few boats that had TVs that size. A 50 foot Viking Yacht may be out of my personal price range but a 50 inch 3D TV is attainable at $2400. It even comes with glasses. The Panasonic rep at the event asked me what I thought the cost was, and of course I was way off. I was thinking “as cool as this is, and as cutting edge as the technology is” it has to be 5K or more. Well, I was wrong and realized a new 50 inch flat screen is well within my reach and with some persuading with my wife, I hope to have one in the next few weeks.
The neat thing about the Panasonic home version of 3D, is that it is an active system, meaning the glasses are powered and they are opening and closing the lenses on each eye over 100 times a second. Therefore you are able to watch 1980X1080 full HD in 3D. So you are seeing 2 separate images multi times a second, the timing was perfect between the TV and Glasses. This is compared to a Movie theater where the system is passive. If you have been to see a 3D movie at a theater, then you received a pair of paper/plastic glasses with one side being green and the other being red. How the passive system works is, there are 2 constant images on the screen, one running horizontal and the other vertical. So the passive glasses just tricks your brain into seeing two images. The faster the image moves the easier to trick your brain. In the active system, the movie scene can be slow motion or stationary, because the glasses are refreshing hundreds of times a second.
This week I will work on convincing my wife we need a 50 inch flat screen 3D TV, then shortly thereafter I will work on her for a 50 foot sport fisherman! But for now, I will settle on watching my favorite fishing shows on ESPN in 3D. For more information on 3d TVs visit www.panasonic.com