Panasonic confident about 3DTV prospects

Panasonic is confident that 3DTV will be a big success and is predicting that 2012 will be the year of 3D content, with more movies and much more user-generated content produced in the format. During a press conference at CES 2012, Shiro Kitajima, President of Consumer Electronics Marketing for the company in North America, said it will be jointly commissioning many hours of 3D programming to boost the market.

Vic Carlson, VP of Consumer Marketing at Panasonic likened the roll-out of 3DTV to the start of HDTV. “It has faced the same chicken-and-egg scenario where content and hardware need to come together, but since we introduced full 3D two years ago, adoption has been extremely fast,” he said. Carlson quoted CEA (Consumer Electronics Association) estimates that 3DTV televisions and Blu-rays will represent about 20% of all units likely to be sold in 2012. “That expansion rate is five times faster than what we saw with HDTV,” he declared.

In the Panasonic product line-up for 2012, 93% of the company’s Plasma televisions and 40% of its LCD televisions will be 3DTV capable, while four out of six Panasonic Blu-ray players will offer 3D, the company announced. The CE vendor continues its partnership with DIRECTV for the satellite operator’s 3D channel.

Elsewhere, Samsung was demonstrating 3D YouTube content on its stand, also suggesting that user-generated content could become a more important part of the push for 3D uptake in 2012.