Company Profile for Panasonic

Panasonic Has No Idea Why Your 3D TV Keeps Adding Phantom Channels
Josh really enjoys having a 3D television in his home, and spent a lot of money for the privilege. About six months after purchase, the set began adding phantom channels to his lineup. Not a catastrophic problem, but not a problem that's easy to ignore when you dropped more than two grand on the TV set less than a year ago. But Josh is apparently the only one on the planet with this problem, and while Panasonic can't figure out the cause, they're not about to send Josh a new TV or even send someone out to his home to fix it, even though his service agreement states that's sort of what they have to do. More »

Panasonic Marketing Guy: Lack Of Good 3D Movies Makes 3D TVs Sell Poorly
A Panasonic marketing executive says it's Hollywood's fault you don't want to buy a 3D TV. If there were more Avatars and fewer Clash of the Titanses, he insinuates, you'd feel compelled to spring for the expensive products and their obnoxious accompanying glasses. More »

Star Wars Coming To Blu-ray; Greedo Still Shoots First
Fans who've been waiting 12 parsecs and more to watch Star Wars in HD video can finally cut their thrusters. All six movies — the three real ones, and the three that kids under 12 refer to as Parts 1-3 — will be available on Blu-ray in September. Pricing for the sets, which were introduced by Darth Vader at the Consumer Electronics Show, will be priced at $139.99 for the six-disc set, and $69.99 for the each three-disc set. More »

Why Does Digital Camera Repair Cost More Than Just Buying A New One?
Dan writes that he was very happy with his Panasonic camera, a point-and-shoot with a nice zoom lens. He would have been happy to pay $100 to get it back in working order and avoid buying a new one. Alas, this was not to be. Since a special part needed to be ordered from Japan, Panasonic wanted $488 to repair a camera that originally cost $300. Dan is better off buying a new camera—which won't be a Panasonic. More »

Panasonic: If We Had Actually Helped When You Called For Support, Your TV Would Be Under Warranty
James has a sweet Panasonic 42" plasma screen TV. He writes that the device has an exciting new feature: it now refuses to turn on. Back in January, he called Panasonic support, who were able to help him unplug and reset the TV a few times. That helped, but it broke for good back in May. Now Panasonic says that his warranty is up, but they totally could have helped him if the set had broken closer to the end of this one-year warranty. Say, two months after the warranty ended in November 2009. Also known as January—when he originally called Panasonic about the problem. More »

New 3D TVs To Cost You $1K Per D
Colin Boyd of Get the Big Picture put together a roundup on the upcoming home entertainment craze of 2010, 3DTV. The verdict: New bigscreen, 3D-capable TVs in the 46 to 50-inch range from Panasonic and Samsung will cost about $3,000. And the early industry standard seems to be that the sets will come with two pairs of glasses. Additional glasses, required for watching in non-blurry vision, will cost an extra $150. More »

Panasonic & Best Buy Really Want To Sell You A 3-D TV
Okay, so Avatar was a big blue dud at the Oscars last night. But that still doesn't change the fact that the 3-D spectacle has made more money than some small countries. And with Alice In Wonderland raking in over $100 million in its opening weekend, the U.S. movie audience has shown it's willing to embrace 3-D. That's why Panasonic has teamed up with Best Buy to push its new line of 3-D TVs. More »

E.E.C.B. Forces Best Buy To Finally Replace Defective TV

—>It took an Executive Email Carpet Bomb to convince Best Buy to replace Bryan's Panasonic LiFi LCD Projection TV after it ate through four lamps. Bryan had purchased Best Buy's extended warranty, which contains a no lemon clause that promises a replacement after three failed repairs. Best Buy conveniently insisted that replacing the broken lamp did not count as a "qualified repair." Bryan first escalated his complaint through normal channels; when he had no other choice, he launched the mighty EECB.  More »

Watch Out For Panasonic's Proprietary Battery Cameras

—>Many of Panasonic's cameras will only work with official Panasonic batteries—the newest models require "an embedded security ID chip," while older models have been issued a firmware upgrade that locks out third-party vendors. This is already pretty obnoxious, but what makes it even worse is Panasonic can't keep up with demand, so the batteries they insist you buy for your camera aren't available.  More »

Panasonic Won't Replace Defective DVD/VCR Combo

—>David in Massachusetts bought a Panasonic combination VCR/DVD player about a year ago. It came with a special feature none of his previous Panasonic VCRs had: it randomly freezes. A lot.  More »