Featuring 2-NTSC tuners for Picture-In-Picture compliance along with an new open dome speaker system (Panasonic says this enhances the set's virtual surround sound) the CT-36HX40 offers support for 480i/480p and 1080i HDTV broadcasts.

The CT-36HX40's price has not been announced yet, but it's expected to be in the $4,500 - $5,500 range when it debuts this summer.

Sharky Extreme opinion: To our naked eyes the new Panasonic 36-inch wonder is the equal of Sony's Wega KV-36HD2 HDTV, both are indistinguishable in terms of color depth, saturation, and image display. Plus they're both 4:3 aspect ratio HDTVs, which makes future comparisons when both are in our lab much easier later this year.

We said earlier that Sony and Panasonic are much like oil and water in terms of how well they work together, but to the consumer the two are more like Forrest Gump's peas and carrots. Each continually tries to out perform the other, and it doesn't matter if it's CPU battles between AMD and Intel, or HDTV battles between Sony and Panasonic, the end result is better product offerings for mainstream customers.

PT-65WX50: Panasonic's monstrous new 65-inch rear projection HDTV is named the PT-65WX50, and it's slated to enter the market in the spring at an MSRP of $6,500.

Offering support for 480i/480p, 720p, and 1080i HDTV broadcast formats, this 16:9 aspect ratio Godzilla can stomp Tokyo into the ground and still have room for an Osaka dessert.

From the specs it's clear that Panasonic may have a big winner on its hands at the high end here, mainly because their new bigscreen is so price competitive versus similarly sized rear projection HDTVs from Sony and Mitsubishi. In the 61 to 65-inch HDTV category the PT-65WX50 is the lowest priced 2000 HDTV set thus far announced.

Sharky Extreme opinion: The John Goodman-sized PT-65WX50 is a gorgeous HDTV, in our subjective opinion it provided a brighter and more defined image display versus the new 65-inch Sony KWP-65HD2 HDTV that was also at the show.

A show floor is no place to truly judge consumer electronics products, particularly televisions, as the source material being shown could be flawed or artificially enhanced. We heard from several sources that certain HDTV vendors at the show were using $20,000 Faroudja Digital Video Processors which upgrade the HDTV signal before it's sent to the television in order to effectively "turbo-charge" the image quality of their sets.

We weren't able to verify these rumors first hand.

Regardless, Panasonic is to be commended for their robust HDTV lineup for 2000, and their new image display technology.