Finally making the transition from the trade show floor to retail shelving are Panasonic's famed Viera 3D plasma HDTVs. The company has just announced it will be launching two 1080p panels on April 23 in Japan, priced at ¥530,000 ($5,932) for the 54-inch P54VT2 and ¥430,000 ($4,813) for its smaller sibling, the P50VT2 (pictured after the break). For your money, you'll be getting those deep, deep blacks that ensure a ridiculous 5,000,000:1 native contrast ratio, a plethora of inputs highlighted by four HDMI jacks, and of course a pair of those inescapable active shutter glasses. Don't worry though, the screens are capable of working at the necessary 120Hz to ensure smooth frame rates for each eye. Whether the premium paid for 3D is worth it, on the other hand, remains a question best left for each deep-pocketed consumer to make on his own.

It isn't quite Oscar season, even though the nominations are out, so while we wait have a good laugh to Vince Vaughn in Couples Retreat. Sure, it isn't the funniest movie ever, but a movie as funny as Hang Over doesn't come out very often -- Old School is the last one we can think of.

• Couples Retreat (Universal)
• A Serious Man (Universal)
• Bronson (Magnolia)
• Serious Moonlight (Magnolia)
• Dare (Image)
• Drop Zone (Lionsgate)
• Hard Rain (Lionsgate)
• The Phantom (Lionsgate)
• The Running Man (Lionsgate)
• The Lily Town (Razor Digital)
• SGU Stargate Universe: Season One (MGM)
• The Stepfather (Sony)
• The Time Traveler's Wife (New Line)
• 36 (Tartan Video)

Netflix Watch Instantly fans could be due for a big upgrade, as CNET has heard the company will roll out 1080p and 5.1 surround sound later this year. No word on timing or any other details, but this could mean its moving to version 3 of Microsoft's Silverlight streaming platform with its additional tweaks for adaptive streaming and hardware graphics acceleration. Also unknown is how much bandwidth would be necessary, but considering Microsoft already uses very similar technology for its 1080p Instant On videos on Zune Marketplace through the Xbox 360 while only requiring 3 Mbps and VUDU HDX 1080p videos only state a minimum of 4500 Kbps, a massive jump in available bandwidth might not be necessary if you already get clear 720p video. The last big hurdle? How much content will be available that way, Gizmodo points out only about 6 percent of current offerings stream in HD we'll be watching carefully if the pace picks up going forward.

Update: Netflix pinged CNET to let them know that 1080p was mistakenly included on a roadmap of 2010 features, however if you can get over missing all those extra pixels, surround sound and closed captioning are definitely booked for an appearance later this year.

What we're watching tonight:

• CBS (1080i) has How I Met Your Mother at 8 p.m., Accidentally On Purpose at 8:30 p.m., Two and a Half Men at 9 p.m., The Big Bang Theory at 9:30 p.m. and CSI: Miami at 10 p.m.
• Fox (720p) brings House at 8 p.m. and 24 at 9 p.m.
• NBC (1080i) has Chuck at 8 p.m. and the season finale of Heroes at 9 p.m.
• ABC (720p) has the The Bachelor at 8 p.m. and Castle at 10 p.m.
• CW (1080i) airs One Tree Hill at 8 p.m. and Life Unexpected at 9 p.m.
• TLC (1080i) has the season finale of Cake Boss at 9 p.m. and The Ultimate Cake Off at 10 p.m.
• ABC Family (720p) has The Secret Life of the American Teenager at 8 p.m., Make It or Break It at 9 p.m. and Greek at 10 p.m.
• FX (720p) has Damages at 10 p.m.
• History (720p) has American Pickers at 9 p.m. and Pawn Star$ at 10 & 10:30 p.m.
• Showtime (1080i) brings Secret Diary of a Call Girl at 10 p.m., State of the Union at 10:30 p.m. and La La Land at 11 p.m.
• Travel (1080i) airs Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations at 10 p.m.
• TNT (1080i) has an NBA doubleheader with Hornets/Magic at 8 p.m. and Spurs/Lakers at 10:30 p.m.
• ESPN (720p) has a college basketball doubleheader with Villanova/West Virginia at 7 p.m. and Kansas/Texas at 9 p.m.
• ESPN2 (720p) has a women's college basketball doubleheader with North Carolina/Duke at 7 p.m. and Tennessee/Vanderbilt at 9 p.m.

It's Monday, and we know that getting the week started can be tough. We're here to help by letting you peek into the recording booth when the Engadget HD podcast goes to tape Monday the 8th at 5:30pm. Think of it as a kind of time machine that will help you power through your day by reviewing what happened in the week HD-wise. Embedded Ustream tools and a list of topics after the break.

We haven't seen a lot out of tru2way to start 2010, but maybe that can get turned around starting at the CableLabs Winter Conference, where Related Content Database (RCDb) is showing off its technology which pulls together cable set-tops with web databases like IMDB and Gracenote. Using a demo on a Panasonic tru2way box, the company's showing off the ability for Hollywood and others to bring BD-Live style features to discs and cable simultaneously. Of course, the adoption of BD-Live and tru2way have both been shaky so showing them off together might not strengthen the position of either right away, but we'll keep an optimistic eye out for any developments coming.

After three years of spent treasure, Sharp and Samsung have finally settled their LCD patent fight. Although the terms of the agreement won't be made public, a Sharp spokesman was caught boasting about conditions that "will be in favor of Sharp" -- the company that kicked off the battle back in 2007. As a recap, the disputed patents covered LCD TVs, monitors, and mobile phones in lawsuits filed in the US, Europe, Japan, and South Korea. After a string of defeats in the US and Europe resulted in an import ban on its panels, Samsung, it seems, was left with little choice but to settle on Sharp's terms.

Before you get too excited about the bandwidth number, you should know that Sony's latest wireless innovation works at a range of up to 14 millimeters. So no, it won't be replacing your WiFi antenna anytime soon, but it may well be showing up in your next television set or other bit of Sony-branded gadgetry. Working in the 30GHz to 300GHz frequency range, this is designed to replace wired communication channels inside electronic devices, with Sony claiming it will deliver "advantages such as size and cost-reduction and enhanced reliability of the final product." Basically, erecting 1mm antennae that can beam information at each other at a rate of 11Gbps turns out to be simpler and more reliable than printing ever wider data lanes into the circuit board. Makes sense to us. Full PR after the break.

Here at Engadget HD, we'd prefer not to just focus on high-def happenings in the US of A. Thus, we round up the best of the best from the international front each week and present it here, bundled together in a single, easy to digest list. If something went down in your corner of the globe over the past seven days, let the rest of the world know it in comments. 'Til next week, Até a vista!

Read - HD Version of TV3+ Launches (Sweden)
Read - Eurosport to launch HD channel on Virgin Media (UK)
Read - Taiwan market: CHT to offer 3D content at MOD in 3Q10
Read - Canada backyard Olympics coverage gears up
Read - Sporting Germany Goes HD
Read - KUAM broadcasting Super Bowl 44 in HD (Guam)
Read - Kathrein update offers HD for CI boxes (Germany)
Read - Shaw Direct Adds V HD to Lineup, Offers Exclusive Programming (Canada)

We weren't sure exactly what Beyonce, David Goes to the Dentist and Chocolate Rain all had in common, but VIZIO squeezed them all into its Super Bowl ad. Still striving to remake its reputation from being merely a cheap HDTV manufacturer to a premium one offering lots of features, the ad (embedded after the break) shows how it's bringing "the best of the internet" with VIZIO Internet Apps. We still need to see if its picture quality will measure up and whether the widget experience has gotten any better (read: faster) in 2010 to be truly convinced, but a slick ad never hurt.

What we're watching tonight:

• CBS (1080i) kicks off Super Bowl XLIV at 6:28 p.m.
• Fox (720p) airs 'til Death at 7 & 7:30 p.m.
• HBO (1080i) has Big Love at 9 p.m.

Once upon a time, a smattering of new HD channels in one major metropolitan area was a huge deal. Nowadays, it's almost expected that one area or another will experience some HD expansion each week. In order to keep things nice and tidy around here, we deliver high-def expansions, market expansions and anything else dealing with HD channel growth right here. If we missed an area that you're familiar with, drop us a line in comments so everyone can catch up. The more the merrier, we say!

Read - Comcast ending analog format for 40 channels (Denver)
Read - Hot Springs Village receives additional HD TV channels (Arkansas)
Read - Cox Communications announces price increases (Las Vegas)
Read - GVTC adds 15 new cable channels (San Antonio)
Read - Comcast gearing up to offer more HD and other channels this summer (Arizona)
Read - 2010 Olympics? Not in high-definition on local cable (Utica, NY)
Read - Verizon Unveils More Interactive FiOS TV Features, Including Navigational Shortcuts, in Mid-Atlantic Markets
Read - Time Warner changes high-def channels (Akron, OH)
Read - Verizon Brings Customers NBC Universal's Coverage of 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games
Read - Verizon Expands Its Award-Winning FiOS TV Service to More Than 5,300 Households in Munhall, Pa.

What we're watching tonight:

• Fox (720p) has the NASCAR 2010 Budweiser Shootout at 8 p.m.
• HBO (1080i) presents Temple Grandin at 8 p.m.
• Food (1080i) brings Food Network Challenge at 9 p.m. and Iron Chef America at 10 p.m.
• NBC (1080i) has Saturday Night Live with Ashton Kutcher at 11:29 p.m.
• ESPN (720p) has college basketball with Michigan State/Illinois at 9 p.m.

That $600 million investment appears to be going to good use, as Telus is ready to offer a new version of its Telus TV service to customers powered by Microsoft Mediaroom. No word on which version of Microsoft's IPTV offering they'll be utilizing, but customers in British Columbia and Alberta will be enjoying very U-verseish features like a whole home DVR solution capable of recording up to three shows at once. They'll also enjoy the more than 40 HD channels plus VOD and PPV up to six TVs in each home (no word on how many HDTV streams are available at once, only "multiple.") The switch from the old Minerva platform mirrors the move SureWest made last year, lets hope the long wait means they can jump directly to version 2.0 with Media Center and Xbox support included.

[Thanks, Eric]

What we're watching tonight:

• CW (1080i) airs Smallville at 8 p.m.
• CBS (1080i) has Ghost Whisperer at 8 p.m., Medium at 9 p.m. and Numb3rs at 10 p.m.
• MyNetworkTV (720p) airs WWE: SmackDown at 8 p.m.
• Syfy (1080i) has Caprica at 9 p.m.
• Discovery (1080i) has Swamp Loggers at 10 p.m.
• TLC (1080i) airs What Not to Wear at 9 p.m.
• Starz (1080i) has Spartacus: Blood & Sand at 10 p.m
• ESPN (720p) has an NBA doubleheader with Bulls/Hawks at 8 p.m. and Nuggets/Lakers at 10:30 p.m.

3D's happening whether you like it or not -- but the good news is that there won't be any format war to go with the adoption of the new tech. At least that's the sense we've been getting, as most manufacturers are adopting active shutter glasses, delivery will happen on cable, satellite, and Blu-ray, and now the HDMI Licensing group has opened up the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 spec so non-licensees can make their gear compatible. There'll be some changes coming down the pike in HDMI 1.4a, but that's also due for public release, so really we'll all be one big dorky family in 3D glasses when this is all over.

When you think back to the dark ages of the nineties -- just four terrestrial channels and the inevitable snowflakes on your screen if you were in a poor reception area -- it just wasn't a very good time for free television in the UK. Fast forward to today, and dirt-cheap Freeview boxes are getting their inevitable, in fact somewhat belated, upgrade to HD. The Humax HD-FOX T2 will cost a predictably hefty £170 ($270) at launch, but as its kind starts to infiltrate the market that price should suffer an equally appropriate precipitous fall. Offering decent media streamer capabilities via wired Ethernet, the T2 stands out with its attractive GUI and blisteringly fast channel scanning, while giving you pretty much exactly the performance you'd expect from a high-quality Freeview HD box. The UK HD rollout is set to start in earnest this March and you can learn more about it at the links below.

[Thanks, Dave]

Over the last several months complaints that Panasonic's plasma HDTVs experience sudden adverse changes in their black levels after a certain number of viewing hours have been piling up in an AVSForum thread, and now that behavior has been confirmed, though not very well explained, in a response the company sent to CNET today:

In order to achieve the optimal picture performance throughout the life of the set, Panasonic Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an automatic control which adjusts an internal driving voltage at predetermined intervals of operational hours. As a result of this automatic voltage adjustment, background brightness will increase from its initial value ... The newest Viera plasma HDTVs incorporate an improved automatic control which applies the voltage adjustments in smaller increments. This results in a more gradual change in the Black Level over time.

Especially considering many buyers purchased their televisions specifically for those deep black levels, you can see why a TV suddenly going Sammy Sosa overnight would be upsetting. One of the reigning theories in the thread indicated by poster & calibrator D-Nice has been that this is by design, but a flaw in the settings caused the large jumps (around double the brightness, as measured by several owners light meters) instead of a much more subtle change. So what now for owners or potential buyers? Without more details about what is going on and whether or not anything can be done about it, like CNET's David Katzmeier, it's hard to see how we can continue to recommend these HDTVs for purchase without knowing what they will do months or years down the line. The ball is in Panasonic's court now, a speedy response could do a lot to assuage the concerns of current and potential owners.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

So, Jeff Zucker of NBC was hanging out his new best friend Brian Roberts from Comcast today, talking up the proposed acquisition in front of Congress. A certain Rep. Rick Boucher asked "what about Boxee?" and things got a little interesting. Jeff says that Boxee was "illegally taking the content that was on Hulu," as opposed to the "many distributors of the Hulu content that we have legal distribution deals with." We're not exactly sure which deals Zucker is referring to, but Boxee's Avner Ronen takes issue with the first point:

I'd like to set the record straight regarding Boxee's access to Hulu. Boxee uses a web browser to access Hulu's content – just like Firefox or Internet Explorer. Boxee users click on a link to Hulu's website and the video within that page plays. We don't "take" the video. We don't copy it. We don't put ads on top of it. The video and the ads play like they do on other browsers or on Hulu Desktop. And it certainly is legal to do so.

He also takes issue with some of Zucker's other points, pointing out that Hulu dropped Boxee based on a request from NBC, while Zucker calls it a decision by "Hulu management," and he also points out that Boxee hasn't found NBC as open to negotiations as Zucker claims to be, but will be giving it another shot -- perhaps with some of that subscription fee cash mixed in somewhere to sweeten the deal? It's worth watching the short clip on C-Span and reading the entire Boxee rebuttal, even if it won't make you any less angry.

The nominations are in, the picks have been sorted, and now it's time for you, the reader, to help us judge the best in tech from 2009! We've put together a long, long list of the top selections below -- all we ask is that you cast your vote for the gadgets nearest and dearest to your hearts.

Votes will be tallied until Saturday February 20th, 11:59PM EDT. You can vote in this post -- the nominees are after the break. After we've checked for abuse (just say no!) we'll publish the results alongside our own Editors' Choice picks the following week. May the best gadgets win!