Panasonic to customers: Buy a new TV

Panasonic has been committing a bunch of blunders these past few days. It all started when some folks at the AVS Forums noticed the black levels on their Panasonic plasmas were deteriorating. (Get the full background story in this week's podcast.)

And now comes news from CNET that old Panasonic TVs with Viera Cast will not be able to stream Netflix movies like the new 2010 models. Likewise the new Skype app, which will come pre-installed on Pannie's 2010 TVs, won't work with the older sets. On the flip side, Panasonic said that old Viera Cast models will get the Fox Sports, Twitter, and Pandora updates that the new models will come with natively.

Still, it's a bit of a bummer regarding Netflix since we've been led to believe by manufacturers that all of these Web-enabled TVs are fully firmware upgradeable. Not to mention Netflix can be found on pretty much every Web-enabled TV (both new and old) out there. Once again the early adopters are getting burned. Take heed, TV shopper.