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If the movie and display industries have anything to say about it, your next TV...er...Media Display...will have 3D, HDTV, and be really, really, big. Gary Floyd subjected himself to excessive photonic radiation and repeated attacks of vertigo on our behalf at CES 2010 to bring back this report on the state of the little big screen.

It's hard not to miss the 3D logo at the movie theaters, especially with James Cameron's Avatar breaking box office records. Not surprisingly, this year's CES brought a look at the emerging 3DTV technologies by LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, and Toshiba. At a quick glance, the displays looked a lot like last year's models, only in 3D. For those looking for a new TV today, there are plenty of improvements as well. For a really big "wow" or "wall", Panasonic displayed a 152" plasma with 4k resolution.

First a quick explanation of the 3D technology. Yes, it takes two images, one for each eye. Every manufacturer has a method to transmit this information to the viewer. The glasses are specific to the brand you are watching, so you can’t take yours to the neighbors house unless it's the same technology. Around the floor, words like "active-active", "vertical horizontal polarization" and "active shutter" glasses were being tossed out like Mardi Gras candy. The trend in displays appears to be the active shutter variety, where left and right images are alternately transmitted at various frame rates (60hz and up) with glasses that open the left and right eyes to match, hence the "active shutter" term. The shutter is controlled via infrared from the display. Active glasses require a battery, which makes them bulky birth control devices and need recharging. Battery life has a design spec of 48 hours based on a study of viewer habits. Whether this works in practice has yet to be seen or not seen as the case may be.

Panasonic's presenters took time to discuss their effort to unify the new 3D standard and has taken a position on it with full 1080P frames at 60 hz for left and right eyes, for a combined frame rate of 120 hz. Some displays are using 240 hz. Mentioning past format wars, i.e. Betamax, elicited a "step out of the booth" response. Seriously, the effort is to provide content, distribution and appropriate licensing and avoid the past issues. To bolster content, DirecTV and Panasonic have collaborated to provide a dedicated 3D channel.

Be prepared to buy a new TV, (plasma, LCD or LED) for this experience. A new Blu-ray DVD player may also be required as well as extra glasses at $30-$40 apiece. Expect to see some units in the stores as early as April, but most likely in the second half of the year. No pricing yet set.

What else is coming this year? Expect more ecological marketing by the manufacturers, new features like Ethernet and HDMI 1.4 connectors, video camera add-ons and media center functionality. Sharp featured "quad" displays with four colors, adding yellow as a primary color. It looked great but so did the improved 3 color displays. In addition, the on-line content services bundled into the sets are more inclusive with Netflix, Pandora, YouTube, Hulu, Facebook, Twitter, Vudu, and branded content. Skype video and cameras attached to the display top is another feature which will make the family room a teleconference studio. LED thickness continues to decrease with LG leading at 6.9 mm, followed by Samsung at 7.6 mm. Another trend is decreased power consumption and energy star labels. Plasmas are down four fold from 2007, about 85 watts for average brightness in mid-size sets.

OLED displays continue to be a premium price item with Sony's 11" display accounting for most of the market. LG currently has a 15" display in Korea and plans to introduce it to the U.S. market towards the end of the year. Price not yet announced.