As with pretty much every other optical disc out there that claims to hold a near-infinite amount of data, we're still skeptical about TDK's ability to actually bring to market the 320GB spinner you see above. But hey -- it's got ten 32GB layers and it's practically see-through. Did you really expect us to walk on by without clicking the shutter even once? Exactly.

We can't say for certain how good it feels to hoist this big-faced behemoth onto one's shoulder, but it's the first time we've seen Panasonic's 1080p twin-lens P2 3D camcorder out and about since its fabled introduction at NAB earlier this year. Strategically placed beside a 3D Avatar trailer demo, the camcorder looked exactly like the press shot we saw of the prototype before, though there's still no formal word on when it'll be used to film your friend's Bar Mitzvah (or anything else half as cool). A boy can dream, yeah?

At this point, Panasonic's 50-inch 3D plasma is just another one joining the fray, but considering how highly hyped the technology behind this was, we couldn't pass up an opportunity to throw our eyes on it for a bit at CEATEC. The 1080p panel was strikingly thin (or well mounted to give that impression), and the viewing angles were fantastic. The glasses that Panny provided, however, were relatively annoying (no surprise there). It should be noted that the actual spectacles sit pretty far off of your face, which simultaneously enables those with actual glasses to partake in the 3D experience while frustrating those without by giving them a cute blue rim that refuses to leave the periphery. As for image quality, the G-Force demo looked downright stunning, with depth being easily perceived and fast moving action whisking about seamlessly. Still, we're having a hard time believing a family of four would sit down and use these glasses for a two-hour presentation, but hey, we're not going to give up on the marketing squads just yet.

We've seen some dark, dark panels in our day, but Panasonic's next-generation IPS-Alpha has us all sorts of hot and bothered. Unlike Pioneer's plasmas of yesteryear, the prototype seen here at CEATEC has wide angle viewing down to an art, and the image quality was simply stunning. Fast moving objects slid in with nary a jagged edge in sight, while the production unit on the left produced a noticable and continual blur. When portraying a pitch black background, it's easy to see just how much darker the IPS-Alpha panel was compared to the next best thing. Have a peek at the video below for a more personal peek, and look forward to us prying out some sort of price and release estimate when the company shows this again at CES. You will have that information at CES, right Panny?

Remember when Seagate introduced its Betamax-esque FreeAgent Theater HD way back at CES this year? Of course not -- you were locked onto the Palm Pre keynote. At any rate, the next generation of that very device somehow made it through the product development stage and now sits in our very hands, and we have to say, it's no more modern in person than it is in press shots. Equipped with the usual assortment of ports (HDMI, component, composite, Toslink, Ethernet and two USB) ports, the FreeAgent Theater+ HD media player gets all of its content from a FreeAgent Go USB 2.0 hard drive (sold separately or in a bundle) or whatever you shove into those USB sockets. You can count on 1080p output and a pretty standard UI, and while it's wired-or-die right now, Seagate's hoping to pop out a USB WiFi adapter ($69.99) for it next month.

We've yet to really put this player through its paces, but we can say for sure that it's not made for abuse. The mostly-plastic box is staggeringly light, and one drop from atop your AV rack could lead to utter disaster. Furthermore, this is really only useful for those wound tightly around Seagate's finger; the bulk of its functionality relies on having a FreeAgent USB drive at your disposal, and if you've selected any other portable HDD, you'll have to deal with connecting it the old fashion way and ditching the "clean look." At $149.99 sans an HDD, it's one of the cheaper options on the market, but it still can't beat Popcorn Hour's heralded lineup when it comes to value and format support. Those looking for an all-in-one deal can opt for the $289.99 bundle, which throws in a 500GB FreeAgent Go drive. Have a look at retro exemplified in the gallery below.

Without much fanfare, Samsung has released a TV / tablet combo in Korea that seems to deliver on all the untapped promise in Toshiba's JournE touch tablet. Dubbed the LED TV Couple, Samsung has paired a 55-inch LED baclkit LCD TV with a brand new 7-inch touchscreen tablet, which communicates with and controls a full home theater over 802.11n WiFi. The tablet offers a visual program guide, including video previews of TV shows, along with access to media stored on a PC -- which can in turn be "tossed" up to the full TV -- and even a few widgets. But the real money is in the pair's ability to stream live TV and Blu-ray content from the home theater to the tablet, making that next trip to the kitchen for munchies so much less painful. No word on a US or Europe release, but we hope to see a lot more of this pair in the near future. Peep them in action after the break.

Aside from the new JournE touch, the other main thrust at IFA's booth is Blu-ray -- at least, one would think. In reality, when we finally found the lone BDX2000, the LCD it was plugged into was off, while numerous DVD players and upscaling tech demos littered the surrounding booth area. Once we got a rep to turn it on for us, the Blu-ray player seemed to work just fine, as should be expected. The new Blu-ray equipped P500, however, wasn't so successful: our colleagues at Engadget Spanish watched an attempted Blu-ray showing on the laptop go awry, and by the time we'd dropped by the booth, any Blu-ray models of the P500 had been pulled from the show floor due to crashiness. In talking with a Toshiba rep, it's clear that the company hasn't abandoned its ideas of internet distribution and other alternatives to the once rival format of Blu-ray. The company is looking into a solution that uses a Blu-ray disc and BD Live to stream internet media to the player, and has packed in decent codec support for playing back media off of the BDX2000's SD card reader. We're sure Toshiba will figure out its P500 woes before the laptop ships to consumers, but there's no lack of interestingness in these first displays of Toshiba's "commitment" to the Blu-ray format.

What better to complement your new trippy, edge-glowing Philips 3rd gen Aurea HDTV than an egg-shaped remote? Our friends at Engaget Spanish hunted down the controller and walked away impressed at its build construction and design -- but not before capturing numerous pictures and footage, of course. There was some concern with the rigidity of the buttons, but nothing worth squabbling over on this bundled device. Hit up the read link for the full, machine-translated impressions, or affix your gaze on the pics and video below.

What can we say -- it's a near final build of LG's 15-inch OLED TV that's set to go production in Korea before the baby New Year can suckle at the big one-oh. We could say it's beautiful, that even motion looked good pushing genuine blacks on this razor thin panel. But we wouldn't want to rub your noses in the fact that we're at IFA and you're not. Perhaps this will make you feel better: by the time it makes it Stateside in February or March it'll be carrying a price tag right around $2,500. Really, but it's Wireless TV-capable and that's gotta be worth something.

Oh, and LG tells us that its 32- and 42-inch OLED panels are on schedule and due to be released sometime in 2010. Yes, 2010 contradicting what we've heard earlier. No word on price but it's going to be tres, tres expensive.

If you haven't noticed, 3D is going to be big in 2010. Not at Philips though, at least not yet. Instead of charging in to the market like Sony, Philips is willing to hedge its bets and wait on consumer demand. Consumers, of course, are waiting for content. And hey, maybe everybody's wrong and quad-HD will be the next big thing to drive TV sales. Regardless, Philips wants everyone to know that its technology is ready when you are so its got a 3D prototype Blu-ray player and stunning 3D version of its 56-inch Cinema 21:9 TV here at IFA in Berlin. While the idea of watching movies in 3D sounds like a novelty, the idea of gaming in 3D is downright compelling -- awkward passive polarized glasses be damned!

We've seen it in the flesh, and we must say VUDU is doing things right with its move to a device-agnostic service. They haven't chucked a single feature, and the interface is rather responsive for a TV-based video service (though not quite as flashy as its PS3 and Xbox 360 counterparts). Even with a bit of crummy hotel internet getting in the way, the device managed to buffer streams of 720p and 1080p content at a fairly rapid rate -- besting a best-case-scenario Netflix buffer time in most cases. It's clear that the 5.1 surround, 1080p-equipped HDX format, which can downgrade its bitrate based on available bandwidth, is really going to eat up your pipes, but the 720p looks quite good even in the face of a somewhat limited connection. While LG and Vizio are the jumping off point for this service, it's VUDU's stated aim to land on pretty much any home theater device that'll have them -- we can't imagine Microsoft or Sony taking very kindly to the offer, but it's hard to argue with this level of HD selection. Video of the service in action is after the break.

While nothing here solves Blu-ray's number one problem, price, there's no denying Sony's got some fun tech on display in its new 400 disc Blu-ray MegaChanger and the new BDP-S1000ES single disc Blu-ray player with WiFi. The MegaChanger presents a lovable XMB-style, Gracenote-powered onscreen menu for sorting through all the media stashed in your MegaChanger, and the S1000ES packs in 802.11n for BD-Live, along with premium analog outs and some dashing good looks for the well-heeled enthusiasts. $1,900 and $700 of respective awesomeness? Well, that's up to you decide.

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.

Toshiba already showed us what its freshest line of HDTVs looks like, and now its Mitsubishi's turn. The outfit was on hand in NYC to showcase a few of its now-shipping sets, including the 3D-ready Home Theater line and its speaker-infused Unisen crew. We won't bore you with the specs (which can be found here and here, respectively), but we will confess that the 82-inch WD-82737 has us squirming uncontrollably. Have a peek yourself in the gallery below.

Remember that trio of HDTV families that Toshiba told us about this morning? You know, those models that you've been waiting for since CES? Yeah -- we just spent a few quality moments with the gang at an unassuming New York hotel, and while we can't speak for the refreshments, we will say we're digging the panels. Have a peek yourself below.