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back to article 3D TVs

It’s been hard to escape the 3D frenzy that was kicked off when Avatar took the box office by storm last Christmas. The recent remakes of Clash of the Titans and Alice In Wonderland got hasty 3D makeovers in order to cash in on the craze, and you can’t open a newspaper or a web browser without being deluged by headlines …

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  1. Pete 2 Silver badge

    one slight problem: it's NOT 3D

    Look at a statue. That's in 3D. You can walk around behind it and see its back. You can stand over it and see the top. Walk around the back of a "3d" TV and all you see are the wires. It's a deceptive term, used to market an effect of depth perception on a normal, flat, 2D screen. At best the manufacturers should take a leaf from the mobile phone industry and call it 2½D

    If it really WAS 3D, a la the holographic projectors in Star Wars, that would be something worth paying attention to.

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    1. CADmonkey
      Reply Icon

      A statue is 3d...

      ...because it doesn't vary with time. Well, not by much. Too slowly even for BBC4.

      If it moved, it would be in 4D.

      So whilst I agree that the term '3D' is deceptive, 3½D would be more accurate for a moving image.

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    what about the golden age

    "The technology now exists to bring 3D into your living room for the first time,"

    While i do agree that the quality is much better than the last time this was claimed, calling first on something that was achieved with a VCR and some color goggles years ago kinda misses the point though.

    Personally I'll be glad when the current 3d hype is over. I watched avatar in the cinema and apart from it being a shitty movie the, 3d effects didn't even come close to the quality that 3D-IMAX used to deliver. IMO the clunky shutter-glasses where well worth the superior 3d quality.

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  3. Trevor_Pott Gold badge

    3D?

    Pffft. My (now six year old) projector is not even HD yet. It's an old 1024x768 that hasn't even chewed through it's first bulb. And I still have a second one to go!

    I suppose I do have several "HD" monitors in that both my 17" laptops are 1920x1200, and I have a pair of 24" Samsung 244Ts...but I don't really think of them as "TVs." The "TV" is the projector I slapped onto the fileserver/HTPC. Strangely enough, I find 1024x768 perfectly okay, even if the screen size is "my wall."

    A 1080p projector, if/when I get the money might be nice, but I just can't see it as a "must have."

    3D? *shrug*

    Anyways, back to my book. My favourite authors are vomiting forth books again, and they're significantly better than the "content" available for video-based consumption of late...

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    question

    first my understanding: this technology (if you wish to call it that), is that the TV will display 2 different images, 1 for each eye. You will have to ware some glasses that can *block* one eye while allowing the other eye to receive the image that is meant for it. This will work because the TV will have a transmitter that will tell the nearby glasses, to which eye the current image is being displayed for. So if the image currently on display is for the left eye, the TV will tell the glasses to block the right eye, then the reveries for the next image, this happens about 120 time per second (120Hz).

    now, the reason we need to get the *NEW* 3D TVs, is because they have this *transmitter* built in (or as an optional add-on), but the *OLD* (current) TVs do NOT have this *transmitter* and there is no way of adding it to the TV as an add-on. But both the new and the current TVs are able to refresh the image 120 time per second (120Hz and even 240Hz). Which mean that the current TVs are *able* to display the 3D image, the problem is with the *glasses*, who will tell the glasses which eye should see the current image?

    now for my question (if the above is true), why can't the game console (PS3, Xbox360) or even the PC, be the ones to handle the transmitting of the signal to the glasses? Ultimately, the image being displayed on the TV is under the control of the console or the PC (the TV only need to worry about displaying the image it receives). So why can't we have a USB add-on to the console or TV that will handle the glasses part, while allowing us to keep the current TV / screens?

    P.S. the fact that they won't make enough money on a USB add-on is not the answer I am looking for.

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    1. Ben Ryves
      Reply Icon
      Boffin

      Already possible with CRTs

      LCD shutter glasses and the like work very well with regular CRT monitors. You can either drive the glasses with a pass-through adaptor that sits between the device generating the video signal and the display (used for watching stereoscopic VHS/DVD for example) or have the device generating the video signal drive the glasses too (Segascope 3D on the old Sega Master System did this). You don't need a special TV set.

      The reason this works is because a CRT will display image data as soon as it receives it. When the device generating the video signal sends a scanline to the display, that scanline is shown on the display. An LCD (or other modern flat panel display) may store a frame of data in memory and not actually display it until the whole thing has been received (incurring a delay of at least one frame). This delay becomes worse in sets that perform additional processing of the input signal, and is the reason that rhythm games have a configuration screen that lets you compensate for the lag between the picture and the sound. As the picture on the screen is no longer in sync with the signal being fed into it you can no longer accurately alternate between the sending images to the left or right eye.

      If you hunt around online you'll find a variety of circuits that can be knocked together at home to drive LCD shutter glasses. I use such a circuit with an old 17" CRT and some £11 LCD shutter glasses I acquired on eBay to great effect.

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  5. Adam Christie-Grant
    Thumb Down

    @ Home?

    Why would I want to wear glasses @ home just to watch some TV? In a cinema is one thing but I have less than 0% interest for that while relaxing @ home...

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    1. Bear Features
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      YES!

      Totally agree. They've just realised that televisions were a perceived business area. "Hey, we can make these suckers buy a computer every 2 or 3 years, let's do it with TVs!" First flat screen, then LCD, the "HD", then ... ahaa 1080 HD, now let's do 3D likee 5 minutes later.

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  6. Arctic fox
    Flame

    Memo to tv-manufacturers

    Get back to me when we are talking about genuine holographic projection and no stupid glasses. Until then there is not a frakking chance I am going to part with any of my hard earned for poorly realised erzatz versions that either involve glasses and blinding headaches after twenty minutes or so or the so called "glasses free" 3D where there is one sweet spot directly in front of the telly with a viewing angle of roughly plus/minus 5 degrees. Until then not even Cameron's "Dancing with smurfs" (which I quite enjoyed actually) could pursuade me to part with one mother loving penny.

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  7. Stuart Archer

    3D for games?

    I find it interesting that there's no mention of 3D for the games industry here. Personally I feel this is far more likely to drive the adoption of this technology among consumers than the odd half-decent 3D movie.

    I didn't buy my HDTV for HD programming; this is merely an added bonus compared to the joys of the HD game :)

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  8. CADmonkey
    Paris Hilton

    All I can say is WOW!

    To think, the world made it to 2010! FINALLY we have 3D in the Living Room* and frakkin' VIDEO CALLS on a MOBILE PHONE!!!

    The future is here! Whatever next? Horseless carriages? The sky's the limit!

    *old comics/ album covers / movies from the 60's-90's don't count, because you still had to wear those stupid glasses. Wait...what?

    Paris, because any perceived depth is an illusion.

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  9. Giles Jones Gold badge

    Gimmicks

    Widescreen was invented in response to TVs causing a drop in cinema attendances. 3D was another gimmick (that seems to have resurfaced).

    What will the cinemas do next?

    I they can just provide headphones to block out the noise of popcorn and stop people going to the toilets blocking your view it will be a start. These are reasons why people watch at home on their big screens.

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