With the advent of 3-D in theaters, it was only a matter of time before the format came to home video and Blu-ray, and Panasonic is offering a way to make it happen. According to Tech-On, Panasonic has submitted a proposal to the Blu-ray Disc Association to create the standard for Blu-ray to move into the 3-D world.

The format would store these images on BD in a two-channel format, with a separate image for the left eye and right eye, in HD with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,080 pixels. The proposal is to adopt this format as the standard for BD 3-D, to avoid a costly format war like Blu-ray and HD DVD were engaged in.

It seems that the technology for this to happen is already available on BD players, thus avoiding costly upgrades to systems. The system will utilize the two-channel encoding function on BD, and this system will have the second channel store only the data not seen in the first channel, enhancing it by 1.5 times.

"All we have to do is define a flag to identify image data, equipment and other elements supporting 3D imagery. We really don't need any other major changes," explained Hiroshi Miyai, director, High Quality AV Development Center of Panasonic.