Panasonic 3D TV Does Not Disappoint

Engadget recently had a chance to try out Panasonic's 3D demo rig, and, aside from the goofy glasses, report some impressive results. "Active shutter 3D technology once again did not fail to impress, though large format action content like the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony and action sports footage was far more impressive than the movie trailer. The benefit of a picture where everything, regardless of distance from the camera, is in focus is one of the biggest benefits 3D has going for it and nothing makes that more apparent than video from a large stadium. Aside from a few glitches from a pair of the glasses being low on battery and flickering annoyingly throughout, the framerate was smooth and the picture sharp, a marked difference from the jittery motion we witnessed during JVC's 3D demo earlier in the day."

Comments

Does not disappoint?

[mcgrew]

Aside from a few glitches from a pair of the glasses being low on battery and flickering annoyingly throughout

Personally, I don't think the "shuttered glasses" tech will last long. I've seen 3D movies with the polarized glasses tech, and it's amazing. It might be hard to pull off with a TV, but I don't see why you couldn't have an LCD screen with every other pixel polarized in the opposite direction.

The benefit of a picture where everything, regardless of distance from the camera, is in focus is one of the biggest benefits 3D has going for it

Incorrect; you can as easily have a 2D photo where the depth of field is infinite. Fiolm makers and photographers use use depth of field to their artistic advantage. The smaller the aperture, the greater the depth of field. The more light, the smaller an aperture you can use.

BTW, I RTFA and there's not really any more than in the summary.

Re:Does not disappoint?

[earlymon]

I don't see why you couldn't have an LCD screen with every other pixel polarized in the opposite direction.

Odd idea. An LCD element - subpixel - is light-permissive, meaning a polarizing action takes place to lower the (normally) constant backlight through the aperature.

How would you propose changing a chemical polarizer and what manufacturing process would you suggest to built such a beast? (No ad hominem intended or implied - just throwing a rock at the idea in case you know something I don't.)

Re:Does not disappoint?

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider 2D: you can get by with, let's say, 1000 pixels for 1m of screen, and a framerate of 60Hz. That gives rise to several density figures that must be met: 1 px/mm^2, 1 Mpx framebuffer, and, most crucially for current tech, 60Mpx/s total throughput.

Now let's consider a stereoscopic version of that 2D display. The pixel density is the same, while the framerate is doubled (or vice versa, depending on which tech), the framebuffer is doubled, and the total throughput is doubled to 120 Mpx/s.

So in exchange for doubling most parameters, and adding some sort of mux/demux hardware (whether time-sliced, polarization, or whatever), what's gained? Complete coverage, from one viewpoint, of the entire pyramid from the viewpoint, through the screen plane, out to infinity. Your resolution scales with distance in a manner consistent with the visual system's capabilities. And the geometry degradation, from reasonably close viewing positions, is no worse than that with 2D displays viewed off-axis.

Finally, consider a volumetric display covering 1 cubic meter at the same resolution. Now you need a Gpx framebuffer, and 60 Gpx/s (assuming 24-bit color, that makes for 1.44 terabits/s!). In exchange for this thousand-fold increase in complexity and cost, you do eliminate the demux goggles, but you still only have imaging for a small area -- only 1m deep! Now maybe for a sitcom occurring mainly indoors, that cubical volume could work ok, but for movies, you're always going to wind up with significant amount of background, and sometimes even action, effectively "painted" on the back wall.

The strength of volumetric displays is that they're viewing-point independent; as you move your head around, you can see accurate perspective of everything. This makes them valuable for certain industrial and scientific applications, but doesn't add much to entertainment (in fact, it would drive production costs up, to avoid bloopers when viewers can look from any angle). There are also issues with opacity -- just because light is emitted from a surface doesn't mean you can't see light shining through from another deeper surface. Again, while this translucency may actually be a boon for model visualization, it's bad for entertainment.

So, frankly, there's no reason we don't create 3D displays; we do, but you can't afford them, and they don't do what you really want anyway. Since your eyes each perceive everything in 2D. multiplexing 2 channels of 2D is really the best fit for playing back artificial visual experiences.

Sweet!

[longfalcon]

TV with added splitting headache!

Panasonic: John Q Public's Electronics Company

[reporter]

During the last 30 years, the brands possessing the most value (for the money) for the typical customer has changed dramatically. In 1979, heaven for the consumer was Sony audio and visual appliances and Honda cars. Now, heaven for the consumer is Panasonic audio and visual appliances and Toyota cars.

30 years from now, what will be heaven for the consumer?

Everything in focus is usually considered a flaw

[PingXao]

Depth of field is important to film makers. They don't want everything to be in focus. It looks too much like video instead of film. For live sporting events, that may be fine, but the fact that the movie trailer looked like shit is no surprise at all.

Will never catch on

[parlancex]

I actually laughed out loud when I scrolled down the article and saw the picture of the man wearing the glasses. While I'm sure it looks lovely when you're wearing them, as long as your 3D display technology requires headgear it will never replace or even slightly displace mainstream conventional displays. Period.

Instead of wasting their time developing this kind of technology they should be working on developing alternatives.

Re:Glasses breaks the deal for me

[Facegarden]

Having to wear special glasses, especially ones that need batteries or cords is just a deal breaker for me.

It's a novelty item and maybe an impressive one at that. But if you're going to sit down and watch a few tv shows or a movie or two, do you really want to have to find your 3D glasses and some batteries first?

I'm thinking not having to deal with the hassle will trump the initial "fun" factor of having "3D" television.

I dunno, I wear sunglasses when driving, safety glasses at work, goggles when swimming, and plenty of people wear glasses when reading, if not all the time. I don't see how wearing glasses when watching TV is really any less convenient than all the other things I wear them for, if it means I get a 3D TV sooner, rather than later.

Plus, I already wear a silly headset when playing Xbox. You could pretty much put my head in a fishbowl if that made anything cooler, I'm not trying to impress anyone in my living room.
-Taylor

Re:Lets get these out of the way

[TheGreenNuke]

You mean people will complain about stupid and irrelevant shit, regardless of what is said (i.e. my previous post).

Re:Everything in focus is usually considered a fla

[bickle]

There's no law that it *HAS* to be in focus. A filmmaker could specifically keep one section in focus and other layers of depth out of focus. Furthermore, it's not usually considered a flaw. It's considered a choice.

Re:Glasses breaks the deal for me

[tgzuke]

I dunno, I wear sunglasses when driving, safety glasses at work, goggles when swimming, and plenty of people wear glasses when reading, if not all the time. I don't see how wearing glasses when watching TV is really any less convenient than all the other things I wear them for, if it means I get a 3D TV sooner, rather than later.

Plus, I already wear a silly headset when playing Xbox. You could pretty much put my head in a fishbowl if that made anything cooler, I'm not trying to impress anyone in my living room. -Taylor

Yeah, but I'm not usually trying to multitask while wearing swimming goggles, and eyeglasses don't get in the way of doing other things. Like most people, if I'm watching TV, I'm also doing other activities: cooking, browsing the Internet on my laptop, etc. So long as these 3D glasses interfere with my normal vision, they won't be a part of my entertainment system.