If you're interested in voting for me, my photo is identified as being from John in Portland, OR.  It's at       http://www.wheredoyouenvo.com/

The folks at Panasonic Envo (Point of Sale Workstations) are running a contest, where I'm a finalist.  They're deciding the winner by online votes.   I would appreciate any votes at        http://www.wheredoyouenvo.com/

they will ask for an email address, and send a note with a link to confirm that you're a real person.

I saw a news article earlier this week, saying that Panasonic has just announced 21 new products with 3D capability.  I believe 12 of them were new TVs, others were blu-ray players (including some that open automatically when you wave your hand over the top), and audio options that allow compatability with more systems.  

I've always known Panasonic was a big company, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around just how big they must be to be able to manufacture as many existing items as they provide, and still having the resources to be designing and rolling out 21 new products at the same time.

The April 2011 issue of Home Theater magazine has an article about PHL - the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory, which works with studios on entertainment technologies, and they also mention the 3DIC - the Panasonic 3D Innovation Center, which has one of its five worldwide locations in Los Angeles.  Members of the media were given a tour through the Labs, and I think a video tour of these facilities would make a wonderful posting on the LIHD site (or a live tour would make a spectacular prize for some lucky LIHD member).

Now, if only we knew where to contact someone affiliated with Panasonic.....

Has anyone seen the November 2010 issue of Home Theater Magazine?  The main article on the cover is "The Best HDTVs".   In the article, they highlight 13 of their top picks, in three different price ranges.  Of the 13, 6 of them are made by Panasonic, with items appearing in each category.  Immediately preceeding this article is a list of the magazine's top picks for the year for a variety of types of equipment.  Their choice for the best HDTV is a Panasonic, and this same TV is singled out as their Product of the Year as well.   We never hear about individual designers and engineers at the company, but it's apparent that they're keeping busy.

I'm enjoying an interesting new toy - a USB powered, external sound card.  It's just barely bigger than a deck of cards, but has a nice headphone amplifier, analog and fiber optic audio out, and a place to connect a turntable, with a built in preamplifier.  The nicest feature is that it handles audio data up to high resolution 24/96 music.   So, I can connect it quickly to any computer, and send better-than-CD audio to my best quality home theater speakers.  Next step - hooking up the old Technics by Panasonic turntable and digitizing some vinyl.

My understanding of how 3D TV works is that the TV alternates very quickly between what the left and right eyes should see, and the glasses flip quickly between the left eye being open and the right, many times per second. 

I think a different possible use for the same technology would be for one pair of glasses to have BOTH eyes seeing the 'left' image, and another pair of glasses with both eyes seeing the 'right' image, and have the left and right items being completely separate movies.  That way, a couple can sit next to each other on a sofa and be watching their own choice of films.

A blu-ray disc can have a chick flick and an action movie together.  Or perhaps a player could have 2 disc trays.  It shouldn't take much to use separate soundtracks on the left and right channels of a single disc, routing them to different pairs of headphones, or if using separate discs, to have left and right headphone jacks.

Panasonic could redefine a date night at home.