3D-ready TVs could hit the market as soon as March this year, according to a report by the Korea Times.

February 9, 2010 — A report on the Korea Times’s website quotes sources within Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics as saying the companies plan to release their first 3D TVs next month. Figures published by LG in December predicted that the company will sell 1.2m 3D TVs during 2010, and the company also provided 3D TVs to the nine pubs that showed Sky’s first live 3D broadcast in the UK on January 31. Samsung, on the other hand, had kept relatively quiet about its 3D ambitions until an announcement late last month, in which the company said it had begun mass production of 3D display panels.

Some lucky viewers in the UK will already have seen these in action: The LG LD920 was shipped to nine pubs for January 31’s live 3D broadcast of Arsenal vs. Manchester United.

Having a 3D-ready TV is one thing, but viewers will also need access to 3D content. For now, it looks like they’ll have to wait a while: Although Sky has said it will commence weekly 3D broadcasts in the UK from April this year, these won’t be available to home users — the broadcaster has said it will only take that step when 3D sets have become more widely available. The possibility of 3D Blu-ray and 3D HDMI cables is also looming, but it will most likely be several months before buyers can fit together all the pieces of the 3D puzzle — a TV, a player or set-top box, the necessary cables, and (crucially) 3D content.