Panasonic put out a 1080p bundle story earlier this week that was almost lost in the holiday shuffle. It seems the CE behemoth is beginning to leverage its enviable position with multiple product lines into a competitive advantage in the crowded consumer electronics market place.

Steve Sechrist
Senior Analyst and Editor
of Projection Monthly

Case in point: Panasonic recently announced it will transition away from offering stand-alone entertainment devices in favor of a "complete solution" - with an eye toward "full HD" - and it makes perfect sense as the world is moving in this direction. In fact, DisplayBank recently reported that in the 40-inch-and-above TV market, 58% of TV sets will be full HD (1920×1080) by 2010. But getting the image on the display is no easy task.

Take for instance your standard 21st-century home entertainment "system" cobbled together with pre-and post-2000 CE purchases. There is, more than likely, a several-year-old VHS still hanging around to play legacy VHS movies, a couple-of-years-old DVD player, a newer DVD burner, some kind of AV tuner to get 5-, 6- or 7.1 surround sound, a TiVo (if you are somewhat of an early adopter) and a satellite or cable STB that may or may not have HD capabilities. Count them up: that’s six remotes - not counting the TV. Now, take a look behind the entertainment system and see if it doesn’t look like the old Bell Telephone switching central with a rat’s nest of wires, cables and plugs of different vintages, sizes, and colors.

Some brave souls have purchased a universal remote and gone to the trouble of programming it to work with most or even all of the components - but you still have to select the right button to make the right component work. Now, try teaching your spouse how to use it, not to mention a visiting relative from the previous generation.

Panasonic wants you to chuck all that - or at least parcel it out to various bedrooms and guest rooms - and purchase a "home entertainment package" that is a future-proof, full-HD solution. This is complete with a $1,300 Blu-ray disc player, a 1,080p-ready SA-XR700 HDMI A/V receiver ($1K) and a 5.1-channel surround sound SB-TP1000 speaker package ($3K), all of which will be available in September.

Thats $5300 and you haven’t even bought your flat screen yet. But don’t get me wrong. If you’re a "must have full-HD today" kind of consumer and you already have a full-HD display, this could still be worth doing because Panasonic is targeting easy set-up and product interoperability. The solution includes a single remote control that promises all- component operation with a limited number of buttons and "EZ-Sync HDAVI Control."

This approach will be attractive to many purchasers because getting to full HD is not a simple matter, and a new set with "standard" HDMI connector does not guarantee you’ll get you there - at least not yet.

Bottom line: Panasonic is demonstrating a clear awareness that just throwing components into the market leaves a "satisfaction gap" among customers and is simply not good business. Some consumers are willing to pay for simple set-up and ease of use, and Panasonic and other CE manufacturers can reap a component-attachment windfall if they pay attention to this fact by offering bundled solutions that really work.

Why should you pay a BestBuy Geek Squadder to come set things up if you can "plug and play" yourself - and spend that installation money on better hardware or HD content?