Less remarked upon in our CES 2009 coverage was the green factor consistently mentioned in many presentations, with various manufacturers promising more responsible production facilities, and plans to offer recycling for all the old televisions that will be replaced in the years to come. Courtesy of AV Watch and Google Translate, we can take a tour through one of Panasonic's recycling facilities, where the latest breakthrough uses a laser beam to separate the front and rear glass of CRTs, allowing for three times faster processing. If there's anything better than machine translation, old TVs headed for certain doom, and lasers, we have no idea what it is.

Apparently blissfully unaware of how much the Engadget staff has paid for the events of the last CES to be forgotten, Panasonic is promoting the UK launch of its FreeSat+ compatible series of Blu-ray recorders (£999 for the 500GB DMR-BS850) by promising to archive ones most valuable memories. Is that enough for you to navigate the various copy protection flags towards Blu-ray disc archival, or will you risk the family Christmas video (worth £542) on something less than a 50GB Blu-ray disc?

Hey, look at that -- it's Panasonic's super-hot one-inch thick Z1 wireless HDTV, just cold sitting out for sale in a San Jose Magnolia store. No official availability announcement yet, but we're guessing it's coming soon, right on time for the Z1's planned summer debut. Everyone got their $6,000 ready?

While we got a quick look at the thing a few months ago, we were finally able to get our mitts all over Panasonic's new DMP-B15 portable Blu-ray player. With its bigger-than-a-laptop size and wild pricetag (for a consumer device), it's obviously a niche product, but that's not to say there aren't hints of consumer friendliness in here. Overall the hardware is light and strong, and while we felt a bit of heat venting out the sides, it's not uncomfortable, and the disc operation is virtually silent. Startup time and disc load times are comparable to most dedicated home Blu-ray players -- certainly not best in class, but passable -- and we couldn't get the player to skip despite our best efforts. The screen is really great, with a good amount of viewing angle and brightness for the category and plenty of resolution to differentiate HD content. We spotted a bit of pixel crunch in menus and stills, but once the motion started we could barely differentiate pixels. Sure, it's hard to imagine a reason for most people to pick up a DMP-B15 over a cheapish Blu-ray playing laptop -- the thing is monstrously thick, and can't even handle a traditional laptop-style screen orientation, only everything but -- but the hardware is reliable enough for kids to handle on the road, and the single-use makes it a good home Blu-ray player for plugging into that second HD-starved TV. Still, we're guessing most will wait to see what next year's (sure to be flush) crop has to offer.

Sure we'd love to see Panasonic mass produce that 4K 150-inch plasma, but so far we'll just have to be happy with a cheaper 103-inch HDTV and the latest model, an 85-inch 1080p display it's showing off at InfoComm '09 this week. All that super size flat panel building experience has been poured into a package that is 99mm thick and apparently 30 percent lighter per square inch than its 103-inch cousin, at a total of 130Kg. This one's coming through business channels to Japan and the U.S. this fall, 'til then you'll just have to live with your 4 x 42-inch matrix setup or for the cost conscious, a projector.

[Via AV Watch & Japan Corp (English)]

As Pansonic's latest plasma HDTVs proceed down the review gauntlet, it appears CNET is the latest to be impressed by the TC-P50V10, between its slick design, smooth handling of 1080p/24 by way of its 96Hz image processing, deep black levels and good color reproduction. The 96Hz features plus more adjustable picture settings are some of the improvements the V10 offers over the G10, but is it enough to satisfy the Kuro faithful, or attract buyers away from LCD? It appears the reviewer was convinced, give it a read and see if you are.

Right, so these two may not actually be the world's lightest HD camcorders without qualifications, but hey, they're still amongst the least burdensome on the market today. Speaking of which, Panny has just let loose details on US pricing and availability, though it looks as if you'll need to hunt elsewhere if hoping to capture all those summer vacations in 1080p. Indeed, both the half-pound HDC-SD10 and HDC-TM10 won't hit American shelves until September, when they'll be available for $549.95 and $599.95, respectively. If you're curious as to what the extra $50 buys you in the TM10, it's an 8GB internal flash drive, whereas the other guy requires you to rely solely on your own SD / SDHC cards. Full release is after the break.

It'll definitely run you less here in America than it would if you chose to import straight from Japan, but the planet's first BD-Live-capable portable Blu-ray player still ain't cheap. Today, Panny announced that its DMP-B15 -- which originally broke cover at CES -- will be shipping later this month in the US for $799.95. That nets you an 8.9-inch WSVGA display, VIERA CAST internet accessibility, an SD card slot, 2.5 hour rechargeable battery, HDMI output and BD-Live (Profile 2.0) functionality. Oh, and quiet kids on the next road trip to Gramps' pad, which is totally priceless.

Listen up, aspiring HD content creators -- VOOM HD's demise could be your gain. If the HD video features of the latest crop of DSLRs and DILs (digital interchangeable lens) aren't enough for you, you'll have a chance to pick up some of VOOM HD's gear at an auction on June 16. Among the items up for grabs are a bunch of Sony HD camcorders, Canon HD lenses, and 5 Panasonic PT-AE2000U projectors that we imagine would do a perfectly fine job in the living room. If you've got some cash burning a hole in your pocket, this could be a great way to jump-start your HD rig, but those attending the auction in person will need to watch out for snipers sitting in on the webcast.

The corporate cultures at Panasonic and Sony are quite different, but the two companies now have something in common -- annual losses for the first time in a long time. At seven years long, Panasonic's run of profitability was only half that of Sony's, but this economy doesn't discriminate -- Panasonic wrapped up the fiscal year in March with parentheses surrounding a ¥444 billion ($4.6 billion) figure. All the product sectors we love -- TVs, digicams, appliances and semiconductors -- are hurting, falling short of the previous year's sales figures by 14.4-percent. With cost-cutting a top priority for the coming year, Panasonic's plasma TVs will have to pull in some numbers to avoid the axe -- we're hoping the NeoPDPs are as much of a hit with consumers as they are with reviewers.

Panasonic's new plasma TVs packing the NeoPDP panels are compiling a solid reputation across their respective price brackets, and now it's the V10 series' turn to continue that trend at the more expensive end of the spectrum. Stepping up from the G10 series, the 50-inch UK-model TX-P50V10 AVForums had on hand acquitted itself pretty well. The "sheet of glass" thin design looks nice, but it was the THX picture mode that saved the day. Despite the lack of image controls that videophiles love to tweak, the THX preset delivered very good performance right out of the gate; good enough that the reviewer gave it the nod over the G10 series. The review also noted that 24p material was handled correctly, which gives us hope that Panasonic's 96Hz refresh in the US models will finally put 3:2 pulldown artifacts to rest. Hit the link for all the details.

[Thanks, Quentin!]

A little skeptical of rave review the HD Guru gave to Panasonic's NeoPDP-equipped G10 plasma? After reviewing the smaller 42-inch TX-P42G10 from the G10 plasma series, the good folks at TrustedReviews have another data point for you. The set turned in a solid performance without blowing away the reviewers -- which to our reading back up feelings around these parts that plasma still has an edge over LCDs in some performance areas, including black levels, off-axis viewing and motion resolution. It's interesting that even though the review itself is pretty reserved, the set scored very highly (9 out of 10) in the "image quality," "value" and "overall" categories. It sounds like TrustedReviews was torn between pulling the trigger on the G10 or waiting a few weeks for the V10 models -- a feeling we know all too well. Hemming and hawing aside, it sounds like the mid-tier G10 sets (below the V10 and Z1 lines) have plenty to offer those not ready to jump the plasma ship just yet.

Pioneer's decision to axe the Kuro earlier this year set off a wave of gloomy predictions about the future of plasma, but we've never really bought into it -- and it sounds like the product planners at LG, Samsung, and Panasonic haven't either. HD Guru asked reps from each company for their thoughts on the state of the plasma market, and the responses were pretty similar across the board: plasma remains the connoisseur's choice overall, and it still makes up just about half of 50-inch and bigger sales. Of course, that means that plasma's niche is shrinking and moving higher-end while LCDs more or less take over the rest of HDTV market, but until something like OLED develops into a true competitor we think plasma's around for a while. Check out the full company responses at the read link.

Infuriatingly restrictive DRM aside, Panasonic's FreeSat+ Blu-ray burning DVR brings some new capabilities to the UK, apparently enough to impress Home Cinema Choice. A few downsides, like ITV marking its HD broadcasts Copy Never preventing any disc backups, and an inability to connect to other devices on the network didn't take away its DVR features, h.264 compression capabilities and solid Blu-ray playback. Of course the entry price for the DMR-BS850 is high, but take a look at the rest of their notes before deciding whether or not all those arrows and padlocks are worth the trouble.

Finding itself in the odd position of selling a suddenly low-end 103-inch 1080p plasma, Panasonic has responded by cutting the price of the professional model TH-103PF10UK by $20,000 to a mere $50,000. Despite waiting over two years to move to a much more reasonable, mass market price the company has racked up over 6,000 installs of the model, with displays starring at the Democratic National Convention, as virtual air hockey tables, on NBC's Sunday Night Football and Beijing Olympics studio, TNT's NBA Playoffs set and more. This seems like a good time to mention the display is also capable of being matrixed in a 5 x 5 video wall -- and at these prices, we can't see why anyone wouldn't. Of course, they could just be clearing stock to bring out the 150-inch behemoth or a more home oriented TH-103PZ800 model Stateside, so weigh your options carefully.