A few weeks ago, several LiHD Families were asked to participate in an interview which was going to be recorded, and used by Panasonic in their promo clips at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in early January. We were fortunate enough to be one of these families, so one fine afternoon, an entire production crew showed up at our house, as well as the always awesome Greg the Answerman. Setting up the cameras, lighting, and sound was quite an undertaking, but the result was worth it (sorry about the crappy quality, obviously not a Lumix, it's my cell phone).

The crew was fantastic, and we had tons of fun giving our opinion on the 3D technology we'd been testing, as well as our feedback on IP TV (VieraCast) and the Eco Ideas which shows Panasonic's commitment to the

3D content is now available on Verizon FIOS, through regular On Demand but now also on HBO On Demand! So if you're subscribed to HBO on Fios, you can now watch 3D movies for free! Currently, 3 movies are available (in my area anyway), Clash of the Titans (not that great), Coraline, and Monsters vs. Aliens.

Glad to see Fios catching up on 3D content! The only caveat is that it is delivered in Side by Side format, so not Full HD. You'll have to change your TV's 3D settings to Side by Side manually.

On the traditional Dutch St. Nicholas Day (Dec 6), Ada surprised me with an XBox 360 Kinect system! So, that meant that I could finally bring my PS3 up to the Panasonic Viera VT25 and I was able to download a 3D demo from the PSN Store. It looks, quite simply, amazing on that TV. The surround sound blew me away as well. While my receiver isn't 3D capable, which meant I have to connect the PS3 to the TV via HDMI, and to the receiver with an optical cable, this setup works quite well, and offers me all the audio capablities I'll need with the PS3. The 3D effects were really excellent, I may have to download some full games, am definitely reading up on them.

Now, the XBox Kinect is a blast and a half, I'll have to try and take some 3D footage of some willing (or unsuspecting) volunteers/victims.

Panasonic Australia has started their new promotion which includes the Avatar 3D BluRay as well as an entire 3D home theater package with the purchase of a Viera 3D TV.

http://blogs.panasonic.com.au/consumer/2010/11/01/viera-full-hd-3d-neo-plasma-tv-avatar-giveaway/

Let's hope consumers in the US who have purchased a 3D capable Viera TV in the past year will be eligible to get this BluRay as well.

Lucasfilms has confirmed that they have been working on converting the Star Wars movies to 3D and have now tentatively announced a release schedule for all 3 movies (I refuse to admit the existence of the newer 3).

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3i677c428c4dc16c2c06193598dd7497b9

I really hope Han shoots first again.

HBO announced that it will launch a 3D On-Demand channel early next year which will show some recent 3D content such as Clash of the Titans and Alice in Wonderland. What's more, they have been talking about converting Inception to 3D, which will premiere on this new HBO Channel.

http://hollywoodinhidef.com/2010/09/hbo-going-3d-inception-next/

While we got DirecTV for the 3D content when we were told we were a LiHD/Li3D family, we decided to keep Fios, since we're thrilled with the quality and the internet speed. So we pretty much do all our TV watching on Fios, and will occasionally switch to DirecTV to watch 3D content.

I was browsing through the On-Demand stuff on Fios and noticed they had a 3D episode of the Mercedes Benz Classic show, and today I tried to see if this would actually display in 3D on my Viera TV. I wasn't entirely sure since the Fios signal passes through the AVR, which is not 3D compatible. Amazingly enough, it worked like a charm, all I had to do was change the 3D setting on the Viera TV to Side-by-Side and the signal turned into a crystal-clear 3D picture!

Thanks once again, Panasonic, for being cutting

This lens will be available for the Lumix four-thirds series of digital cameras:

http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/popup/pressrelease/14_100300_3D.html

Very excited about this!

Sony will release their next PlayStation 3 firmware update on September 25, 2010, which will add support for 3D BluRay movies to the PS3. The PS3 is already capable of displaying Full 3D games, and this new upgrade will allow playing 3D movies on the system as well.

http://boardsus.playstation.com/t5/PlayStation-3-Updates/FW-3-50-Sept-21st/td-p/46179711