Panasonic Corp. has signed on "Titanic" director James Cameron and his upcoming film in an advertising blitz for its televisions equipped with 3-D technology, both sides said Friday.

The deal between the major electronics maker and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.'s "Avatar" — the first major Hollywood 3-D release that's not animation — comes as competition heats up in flat-panel TVs that show three-dimensional images, or stereoscopic vision.

To watch 3-D TVs, viewers must wear special glasses that block vision in one eye and then the other as the TVs switch rapidly between images for each eye to create an illusion of depth.