back to article 3D TV fails to excite, gesture UIs to flop: analyst

3D television is not exciting global TV buyers, says analyst firm NPD. While the firm notes that 3D now pops up in nearly 20% of global TV purchases for devices larger than 40 inches, Director of Industry Analysis Ben Arnold says “3D TV sales growth thus far has been more a function of the feature’s attachment to bigger …

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    1. Anonymous Coward
      WTF?

      Re: simple list for TV makers to follow

      Black levels have improved consistently and dramatically over the years.

      Motion blur is gone - it has to be, or else shutter glasses could never work at all. Framerates are irrelevant - source material is at 24, 60i, or 60p (or 50p whatever maybe). Higher display refresh just means frame multiplying, the ability to run smoothly in multiple refreshes, shutter 3d, or interpolation.

      Color options are there in spades on somewhat higher-end TVs. Sonys I've used get down to pro ISF level stuff in the 'public' menus. And it's the work of a few minutes to turn all he BS off. As for adjusting based on room lighting... Err, they already do it,but it's largely pointless as any kind of auto adjustment will be way off target.

      Connectivity to media systems? Since when has this been a problem? Most TVs have so many inputs you could use them for casino surveillance.

      Good quality sound is an impossibility in this form factor, at any price. You just can't move enough air.

      Small panels? Have you even seen some of these things? There are a few not much thicker than the PlayBook I'm typing on, and with essentially no bezel. Have you even looked at TVs in the last 10 years?!

      Energy efficiency? Again, a big selling point. LCDs wih LED backlights are pretty damn efficient, and it's not like the manufacturers are just shrugging and saying, 'meh...'

      I don't know, the only thing I can think is that you're posting from 1999 and are thinking of a 42" plasma with 50:1 contrast that uses 80000 watts and has two RGBHV / BNC inputs.

      -boggle-

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: simple list for TV makers to follow

        no I just think you misunderstood the whole post

        Tell me, what actually matters to you when you purchase a new TV? I assume its none of the above mentioned areas given that you think there is no room for improvement, so am I to believe you would actually buy a TV based on whether or not it had a new gimmick, like, oh I dunno, 3D?

        you May sit in your own world surrounded by cutting edge top of the range equipment which has perfect black, skin, greens contrast and all manor of other stuff, but I can promise you that most of the market cant afford such gear, pop down to your local tescos and see whats on offer and ill point out half a dozen panels that look like shit. I have a Mid range Samsung panel and its largely ok but the black levels are pretty poor, and it draws 140W, is that a lot? not compared to a hair dryer no it isnt, but 140W is still 140W, why cant that be lower? oh that's right, it CAN be lower but only on higher end systems,

        The point is, if you want an average punter to buy a new set over their old one you need to give them something worth while to upgrade to within their price bracket!!

        That consumer base has the highest level of potential increase in sales and that is what they should be targeting.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: simple list for TV makers to follow

          Given that the nearest Tesco's is several thousand miles from here, I'll have to take your word for it.

          Obviously, even the newest stuff isn't perfect; my ancient CRT projector smokes much of it in a few ways (on/off contrast, color accuracy, latency, ability to handle different signals well). But even mid-range TVs are being sold based on things like contrast (witness absurd contrast claims by manufacturers) and so forth.

          As chance would have it, I did happen to buy six large Sony TVs based purely on their 3D capability. But that was for business, so I'll let it slide.

          As for power usage, some things just flat out cost more. You want lots of effort in the design for efficiency? You want tons of testing to ensure that components running on the edge can handle it? You want excellent design and testing of heat dissipation and other such things? Money, money, money. And they're the kind of things that don't tend to commoditize well.

          And put it in perspective - look at those 140 watts this way - look up in the air at a bright incandescent light bulb. There's 100 watts for you. It makes a single point source of light.

          It's one color. It's blazing hot. It only lasts a few thousand hours. And it's fairly good at lighting up a room.

          Now take your TV. It's fairly bad at lighting up a room on its own, if left on full white.

          But it has a big panel with millions of elements that all change color dynamically, on demand, based on an electronic signal arriving at a breakneck pace. It does all that decoding, and then processes it, and performs operations to composite its menus and handle various audio decoding, HDMI protection, and so on and so forth. It has speakers. It lasts for tens of thousands of hours. It has a remote control. It can likely connect to the internet and watch videos on YouTube.

          Your light bulb can do none of those things, yet it draws only 40 watts less than the TV.

          I don't think 140 watts is unreasonable.

  1. Dropper
    FAIL

    3D?

    I remember this movie from the 80s that did the rounds repeatedly, then made it to TV (with crappy cardboard 3D glasses stapled to TV Times mags). It was shite and 3D movies have progressed precisely nowhere since then. My favourite characters from these movies are crossbow bolts, with good supporting roles from random debris. What I don't get is why the movie companies employ on actors and writers for 3D movies, when clearly they could save money by just producing 90-120 minutes of random objects flying out of the screen.

    Of course this is the reason why 3D has no bearing whatsoever on why a person chose a particular brand/model of TV.

    I didn't even get to the part where having decided to hand over the extra cash because you wanted a better quality screen, you then proceed to downgrade it towards the low end of a 1970s set wearing crap, plastic glasses. The price per viewer to downgrade the quality of your TV is presumably a source of great amusement to the bigwigs at LG, Sony and Samsung.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: 3D?

      While the head-tilt color shift in TV style actively polarized 3D means I wouldn't consider it for movie watching, the bulk of your statements suggest either wild hyperbole or utter unfamiliarity with any remotely-correctly-set-up modern 3D system. Saying that current tech reduces perceived resolution to ~280x220 and has 3D only good enough for flying objects is objectively untrue.

      It's well and good to assail a tech for subjective or reasonably accurate technical reasons, but fabricating arguments out of whole cloth not only fails to prove your point, but reduces your credibility even in the areas in which you are correct.

      Why bother?

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