More accurately, 3-D is a matter of survival for these companies, whose two-dimensional sales continue to decline.

At the conference here, FPD International 2009, top executives promoting Blu-ray systems -- from Panasonic and Sony, respectively -- made clear that they are ready for a 2010 launch of full HD 3-D-equipped Blu-ray players and matching 3-D TV sets.

The new 3-D Blu-ray format, whose standardization is scheduled to finish at the end of this year, will use two 1920 x 1080p full HD resolution frames, one for the right eye and another for the left eye. 3-D disks will maintain backward compatibility with 2-D Blu-ray players, so that new disks can be played back in 2-D on current Blu-ray hardware.

While there will be a single standard for 3-D Blu-ray disks and players, the market is likely to see fragmented 3-D display technologies on new 3-D TV sets.

Broadcasters likely to opt for different 3-D technology

To further complicate matters, broadcasters who want to reach mass audiences for the minimum investment in infrastructure, hope to offer 3-D programs in a format different from the 120Hz, full-HD frame sequential method adopted by the Blu-ray Disc Association, according to Ikuo Matsumoto, executive director at Fujiwara-Rothchild, a 3-D market research firm based in Tokyo.

Some satellite operators and pay TV companies plan to use a so-called "half-HD" format, which crams two pictures -- left eye and right eye -- in one frame. There are various "half-HD" methods, because the information going to each eye can be arranged in "line by line," "top and bottom," side by side" or "checker sampling" configurations.