Gotta wear shades: As 3-D entertainment conjures up images of goofy glasses from the 1950s, Panasonic hopes to remedy the style with its 3-D TV sets. It is touting its upcoming Viera VT2 series as the world's first full high-definition sets with 3-D ability. The series is expected to consist of a set of four plasma models. The first two in the series, the 50-inch TH-P50VT2 and the 54-inch TH-P54VT2, should hit the market April 23. The key innovation for the VT2 sets is the "frame sequential" technology. In this system, the viewer wears special glasses (of course) that alternately display images to the left eye only and then to the right eye only. The images switch back and forth every 1/120th of a second, twice as fast as the speed of a 2-D display. The alternating images create the 3-D effect. Historically, 3-D technology has also suffered from an afterglow that results in blurry pictures and tires the eyes. The VT2 aims to combat those effects by reducing the typical afterglow by more than 60 percent.

Beyond the 3-D effect, Panasonic claims the VT2 models use 13 percent less energy than their equivalent 2-D models. Other features include a TV programming guide, the ability to watch two channels at once, a 1080p resolution and a contrast ratio of 5,000,000:1 with both digital and analog tuners included, as well as a 20-watt 2.1-channel speaker system. Each set has four HDMI ports, a VGA output, a D4 (component) output, an Ethernet port and a SD card slot.

However, each set only comes with just one pair of the special glasses. Granted these can't be cheap in themselves, but at ¥428,000 for the 50-inch model, and ¥528,000 for the larger set, Panasonic could have at least stretched the budget to let you watch 3-D TV with a friend. panasonic.jp/viera/3dworld/