Launching the first 3D Video App on Panasonic

Enabling 3D playback on Panasonic devices is an entirely different challenge compared to doing so on Samsung. While Samsung had native support for such playback, getting the information about how to get it to work was tough. In contrast, with Panasonic, there was no information about whether Panasonic even offers 3D triggering capability in its API.

Initially, we started working with the information that there was no way of triggering 3D mode in Panasonic TVs from the app. Under that assumption, the app was designed to ask users to manually switch to 3D mode before starting playback.

What we didn’t know was that Panasonic folks were equally excited to get the first 3D app on the Viera platform. With the app almost complete, they decided to open up their hidden 3D triggering API to JunctionTV. The opportunity to launch the first 3D app was too good to ignore and we decided to change our app to incorporate this.

While integrating with the API, our team discovered that some of the 3D capabilities worked with TVs but not with BDPs. Once Panasonic team confirmed this, we decided to release the auto-3D-triggering version of the app on TVs only. With help from the great folks at Panasonic, the 3D triggering part was added to the app in a whirlwind fashion.

And now the first 3D app on Panasonic is Live – a moment of pride for our team!