First view of 3D TV

B

bbinnard

Well-known member
Saw one at Costco today - they just got it in: 55" Sony @ $3300 including 2 sets of glasses. The TV was showing some sort of promo Blu-Ray disk that the Costco guy said wasn't "real 3D" but that had been put together as a demo. I have no idea what that means.

Looking at the TV with no glasses all sorts of ghosting was visible. And it didn't help that there were a lot of reflections from the store's ceiling lights. But with the glasses on the ghosting was totally gone and the 3D effect was clearly visible. The image appeard to be both in front of and behind the actual screen. And it was just as bright and clear as a standard HDTV. It was noticeably clearer and brighter than Avatar 3D in a theater.

One interesting effect was that depth of field focus was much more apparent. With regular TV I guess we have gotten used to things in the background being out of focus. But this was much more apparent when watching the TV with the glasses on. So I wonder if CGI scenes in 3D films & games will be rendered with more background stuff in focus.
 
Given that our eyes adjust focus incredibly quickly when we adjust our focal point, and that things are generally less "out of focus" through our eyes anyway, I can definitely see 3D productions being done with much less background blur.

The Z (depth) axis opens up so many new ways to direct the viewer's attention, we don't necessarily have to use selective focus as much to do it in 3d.

- Mikko
 
can someone please explain to me what the difference between a '3D' tv and a regular tv is?

i mean, can't you watch 3D on a regular tv if the footage was shot stereoscopically and you wore glasses?

i can't understand it:

regular tv + 3d: you wear glasses.

3d tv: you wear glasses.

what the difference?

does the 3d tv (plus glasses) make all of your movies 3d?


(:hitting head on wall icon: )
 
As far as I understand it - you can watch anaglyph 3D on a regular television (red/blue 3D), but not LCD shutter 3D tech because the glasses need to be in sync with the screen. "3D" televisions (or '3D-ready') are prepped to work with the LCD shutter glasses, as well as usually having higher refresh rates in order to handle the frame rates needed.

(polarized 3D, as far as I know, requires projection and only works on reflective screens - like movie theaters, for example.)
 
Luis Caffesse said:
"3D" televisions (or '3D-ready') are prepped to work with the LCD shutter glasses, as well as usually having higher refresh rates in order to handle the frame rates needed.
Click to expand...

ok, now we're getting somewhere. hmm... so with these LCD shutter glasses, it's a 'better' 3d experience?
 
To perceive 3D each eye has to see a slightly different version of the same image. 3D TV and 3D movies use totally different methods for getting separate images to each eye.

3D movies project both the L & R images onto the screen at the same time, typically with dual projectors. But they project them through polarized lenses that have their polarization angles turned at 90 degrees to each other. To see a 3D movie you put on polarized glasses that have each lens polarized at 90 degrees. So each lens blocks out one of the 2 images.

But polarized lenses, regardless of the angle of polarization, block out 50% of the light going through the lens. So 3D movies either appear dimmer or have to be projected brighter (or both) than 2D movies. (Remember that the image on the screen is projected through a polarized lens, and you are viewing it through a polarized lens. Hence each eye sees only 1/4 of the initial projected light.)

3D TV's alternately display L & R images on the screen. They do this by having double the standard refresh rate so they can display 2 images (frames) in the same time a 2D screen displays one image (frame.) To see 3D TV you wear classes that alternately blank out one eye and then the other so your L eye only gets to see the L image and your R eye only gets to see the R image. Of course the eye blanking has to be synched precisely with the TV, and 3D TV's do this by sending IR signals to the glasses to keep them in synch. This means the glasses are pretty complex, and are also battery powered.

If you watch a 3D movie with no glasses you see both images with both eyes and that's why it look weird. There are 2 different images superimposed on the screen. Similarly, of you watch a 3D TV with no glasses get the same effect because your brain doesn't process fast enough to separate the alternating images. This is of course why movies and TV appear to be smooth motion when in fact they are just a series of still images.

A 3D TV will display a standard 2D signal OK because it just displays the same single frame twice, once for each of its 2 cycles. In other words, it displays the same image for each eye, and, because the image is the same, you see no problem when viewing with no glasses.
 
I was in a Best Buy a week or so ago and a guy was demoing a Sony 3D TV and had me try it out. At least from what they had on their demo reel, I wasn't impressed at all. It seemed more distracting than anything. I'm not sure what on the reel though was actually shot in 3D or possibly converted to 3D in post.

For the most part, it didn't feel like it added any realistic depth. It felt more along the lines of how 3D works in After Effects, with basically 2D planes positioned in 3D space.

I keep hearing how this is the next big thing, but I'm still not sold on it ever really taking off in the home. The biggest obstacle is still the glasses.
 
handsome pete said:
I keep hearing how this is the next big thing, but I'm still not sold on it ever really taking off in the home. The biggest obstacle is still the glasses.
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this is my gripe with the whole 3d experience. as long as there are glasses, it can never be a 'big thing'. it will never go past novelty, imo.

and, from a filmmaking/artistic stand point, if you had the ability to control when '3d' comes on screen and off, then it would truly be something. as it is though, with the glasses, you can't expect of viewers to take their glasses on and off when you would like them too.
 
People are working on 3D TV and film without requiring 3D glasses. I haven't saved the link to the film technology (theatre experience) but it was pretty simple in concept.
It's something like running 2 projectors, say 45 degrees apart towards the screen. The screen is made up of glass/reflective beads (something like that) in such a way that the left and right eye receive only one of the projections. Kind of like tiny mirrors that can only see in one direction.
I did post a link describing the technolgy once in the cafe but I'm not going to look for it. But it would be under a 3D type captioned post in the Cafe.

I don't know how they are doing 3D T.V but I know some people have shown synthetic hologram type deals but that's far from ideal at this point.
I have read that people are working on 3D T.V in the labs.
Probably IBM, Intel, Sony or companies like that.

I can't vouch for this link, it's the first one I came across, so...
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/10/intel-shows-off-glasses-free-3d-demo-now-this-is-more-like-it/

and...
http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/05/05/nec-develops-new-3d-display-that-works-without-glasses/


It's all out there on the web somewhere though.

And just for fun, the first post specifically...
http://www.evilavatar.com/forums/showthread.php?t=116216


 
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Shutter vs Polarization technologies aren't limited to any specific medium

For example here in Finland (where I'm on vacation at the moment); Shutter glasses are the norm in the movie theaters.

And just yesterday I stopped by my old college and they have a JVC 3D TV that uses standard RealD polarized glasses. - Looked much better than shutter glass TVs IMO.

Panasonic's professional 3D monitors also use passive (Polarized) glasses.

- Mikko
 
That's a very clever demo for sure, but it is really 3D in reverse, meaning there is only a single image presented to both eyes and those eyes have to be the ones using the head tracker. It also precludes the maker of the video from creating 3D effects that will be visible to a stationary viewer, even if that viewer is the one with the head tracking equipment.

Also: If you look up the JVC 3D TV it implies that the TV uses some sort of lenticular-type display, and specifically states that the display is only 540 lines, not 1080. I'm sure this is because they combine both L & R image into one composite and rely on the screen geometry to send each half to the correct eye.

I remain convinced that shutter glasses are the way we will see 3D TV in the next few years.
 
bbinnard said:
Also: If you look up the JVC 3D TV it implies that the TV uses some sort of lenticular-type display, and specifically states that the display is only 540 lines, not 1080. I'm sure this is because they combine both L & R image into one composite and rely on the screen geometry to send each half to the correct eye.
Click to expand...

Polarized glasses with TVs mean you only get half the horizontal resolution, because its like interlacing for each eye. Odd or right, even for left.

Shutter glasses TVs run at twice the normal frame rate, strobing for each eye.

There are pros and cons of both: like the price of glasses for each.
 
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