Jonathan Takiff: From big screen to small, comin' at ya: Ready or not, it's 3-D TV

THE GIZMO: The 3-D TV war heats up.

With 3-D adventures like "Avatar" and Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" burning it up at the box office, consumer-electronics firms have reason to feel optimistic about their new high-definition 3-D TVs also winning favor, fast.

And over the last couple of weeks, leading set-makers Samsung, Panasonic and Sony have been jockeying furiously for position with marketing and promotional moves. Their goal is to be "first in mind" when consumers decide to take the plunge.

WHO'S GOT THE GOODS (AND THE HYPE)?: Samsung and Panasonic heralded the availability of their first 3-D sets with events in New York last week.

And, while Sony won't have 3-D TVs for sale until June, the company has already put pre-production samples on display at its Sony Style stores.

The Panasonic event at Best Buy's Union Square location was relatively low key - celebrating the sale of the first, $3,000 3-D home-theater system: a 50-inch plasma screen and a 3-D-capable Blu-ray player with a couple of pairs of those gotta wear 'em, active-shutter glasses. For the next three or four months, the Magnolia Home Theater departments inside Best Buy stores are the only locales where you'll be able to see and buy these products.

OK, I take that back. Panasonic also is putting a new products caravan on the road, spotlighting 3-D. The portable showroom stops at the King of Prussia Mall, March 25-27.

Early buyers of Panny 3-D sets will get a free copy of Fox's "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," the first Full HD 3-D Blu-ray movie to go on sale next month. Later in the year, the offering may switch to 3-D titles like "Coraline" or (be still my heart) "Avatar," which Panasonic promoted heavily before its opening. (The 2-D DVD and Blu-ray versions of "Avatar" go on sale April 22.)

You'll also see Panasonic alligned as sponsor of DirecTV's trio of 3-D channels launching in June.

SAMSUNG EXPERIENCE: While already available online at Amazon.com (and coming soon to Sears and Best Buy), Samsung spent two days and big bucks celebrating the release of its first two (of 17!) 3-D LCD- and Plasma-based models. The festivities capped with a Times Square mini-concert by the Black Eyed Peas, then a celebrity strewn party at the Samsung Experience.

"Avatar" director James Cameron was hired to shoot the Peas in 3-D (take that Panasonic!). The footage will doubtless play on Samsung sets at retail to lure in gawkers. Samsung also shot the Red Carpet parade at the Academy Awards in 3-D, for more exclusive showroom content, I'm guessing. And this leading TV brand has made a deal with Dreamworks Animation to be the exclusive distributor of "Monsters vs. Aliens" and (later in the year) the "Shrek" series on 3-D Blu-ray discs to buyers of Samsung 3-D ensembles. That's clout.

SONY'S PITCH: Sony Style stores are showing off on demo sets its sister studio's one and only 3-D movie of note, "Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs," and will probably toss in the title with a gear purchase.

And, ironically, you'll see Sony sponsoring 3-D cable/satellite-fed events even before the company's sets go on sale - starting with Masters golf rounds April 7-11, which Comcast will show, then the first FIFA World Cup soccer game (June 11), premiering on the ESPN 3D special-events channel. Sony's also co-sponsoring a Discovery 3-D natural history channel, but it won't launch til 2011.

WHO DOES 3-D BEST?: While all these new-generation TVs have the goods to decipher 3-D-encoded Blu-ray discs and channels served up by cable and satellite providers, a seasoned eye may detect differences in picture quality.

Panasonic claims that the high-speed "sub-field" switching and faster-refreshing pixels in its 3-D plasma sets are better suited than LCD technology to the rigors of stereoscopic display. For sure, the pictures popping out of Panny demo models looked awesome.

Then again, so were the images that Samsung put up on its first LED edge-lit LCD sets, which deploy a technology called "black frame insertion" to sharpen viewers' perception of the picture.

Ah, but those Sony prototype LCD 3-D sets are not ready for prime time. In some "Cloudy" scenes I sensed a strobing effect that would surely induce headaches and drive me mad over time. And none of the 3-D effects really jumped out in front of the screen. Other challenging content originally part of the Sony Style demo - including clips from the PS3 videogame "Wipeout 3D" and some soccer match footage - was judged so harshly by online reviewer Gary Merson (HDGuru.com) that Sony has stopped showing it. Given the big push that Sony Computer Entertainment is planning for 3-D PS3 titles as a "game changer" separating the system from the Wii and Xbox 360, those demo eliminations, albeit temporary, have got to be painful.

WHAT'S THIS GOING TO COST?: As high-end sets that also do very well with 2-D content, the first 3-D TVs won't be cheap. Samsung's LCD line starts with a conventionally backlit (CCFL) 46-inch LN46C750 priced at $1699, and a 50-inch plasma (PN50C700) at $1799. Panasonic's least expensive TC-50VT20 and similar TC-P50VT25 plasmas are in the $2,500-$2,600 range. Then you've got to buy extra pairs of the battery-powered shutter glasses, as only one pair comes with a set. Panny's go for $149 each, while Samsung's are priced at $149 for the version with a standard battery, $179 and $199 for coming-soon kid and adult versions with a rechargeable battery. (The batteries in the non-recharging models are rated for 50 to 100 hours of use.)

Complicating matters, first-generation shutter glasses are brand-specific. So you'll want sports-viewing and game-playing pals to buy the same brand of 3-D TV and specs, or the latter won't work on your set.

Sony can save you some coin if you buy the maker's first "3-D upgradeable" Blu-ray player (BDP-S470) now available for $199, or 3-D-ready (soon) PlayStation 3 game console (starting at $299), compared with the $399 tag that Samsung and Panasonic put on their first 3-D Blu-ray players. The Panny at least has two HDMI output jacks on its DMP-BDT300/350 models -- the second for streaming high-def audio to a recent receiver that won't pass through 3-D video.