Hot Or Not — 3D TV

Several sources have written to tell us that in terms of hype at this year's CES show, there is none bigger than that surrounding 3D TV. Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, LG, and Toshiba all have their own flavors of hardware and ESPN announced a 3D sports channel, but Microsoft seems to be bucking the trend with their apparent lack of 3D interest surrounding the Xbox product. "We're yet to see any major brand at CES pushing a 3D TV that doesn't require them. In most cases these aren't the basic Ray Ban style you might have worn to watch Avatar. In many cases they'll actually require power. For example, Sony's 3D TVs use a 'frame sequential' display method, which involves active-shutter glasses that turn on and off in sync with the images. Some TVs come with the glasses and have the transmitter built in, but again, in some cases you'll need to buy the transmitter and glasses separately."

Comments

Re:Auto Stereoscopy...

[poetmatt]

don't you know why this is done? TV manufacturers are running out of ways for being able to insulate the price barrier.

This has nothing to do with 3d being good or bad, it has to do with how every manufacturer has an agreement on artificially insulating price with a new technology. Same was done with flat panel, then LCD, then high def, then hz wars(120! 240!).

All marginal technologies that should normal drive the price down. Instead they'll be able to have 52" TV's be in the many thousands of dollars amount for years to come due to raising it back up for 3d.

Think of it like apple's feature creep, it's the same idea and same reasons, to force price to an arbitrary amount before it eats into their margins.

meh.

[decipher_saint]

Who wants to wear an extra pair of glasses just to watch TV?

This whole 3D video thing smacks of a industry money grab disguised as a fad...
Exec: "Well everyone and their gramma has a 'flatscreen' jumbotron at home, what do we do now?"
R&D: "Gentlemen, we've reached the limits of this plane of entertainment, we must go to the next dimension"

*dramatic music*

I don't get it

[Brandee07]

I just don't see the benefit in 3D TV. I know the technology is getting better, but the 3D in Avatar was just good enough to not be a distraction from the movie- it certainly didn't add anything to it, besides $5 for the ticket. The point is that for most of the movie, I did not perceive anything different than a normal movie, and those moments when I did were distracting and jarring. I have seen a couple imax movies in 3D and I think I tend to mentally flatten the images- except for the parts where the snake jumps out at you, which is just distracting and cheesy.

So, if I'm going to be mentally flattening the images anyway, why bother?

Re:I don't get it

[CannonballHead]

Then don't buy it.

I don't see the benefit in a big screen TV. I don't watch TV and don't watch too many movies. So I don't buy one. It's pretty simple. :)

Re:I don't get it

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

You just explained why colour TV and colour movies are useless. Watch a black and white and within a couple minutes you'll forget you're watching black and white.

The short answer is "because we can". It won't be too long before 3D technology brings prices down so that it's as cheap as 2D is now. Just like when colour first came out, people were initially using it for whiz-bang "look what we can do" effect and it took a few years before it just became nothing special. So it will go with 3D.

Re:I don't get it

[ZorbaTHut]

See, I think this is actually a sign that the 3d was done well.

I've seen movies where the 3d jumped out at me. Boing, giant monster in my face, sproing, 3d gizmos in the face, hey look at how many things we can jam in your face.

Avatar didn't do that. It wasn't a 3d tour de force, it was a movie that happened to be in 3d. Most of the time, you're right, I just didn't notice - and that was its strength. Instead of being a pile of 3d special effects, it was a movie that just happened to be deeper and realer due to the use of 3d.

It's like HDTV or, as some have mentioned, color. If you don't notice it, it's doing its job. Sometimes its job is just subtle.

Flicker comes back

[Animats]

We finally get a display technology with zero flicker, the LCD, and the 3D crowd has to put it back. Yuck.

Killer app: porn

[base3]

It's like those 38-DDDs are right in your face!

Re:Auto Stereoscopy...

[TheKidWho]

Sure, but compare the price of Plasma displays now and when they were introduced, or even regular old LCD TVs... No one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to buy a 3D TV, you can buy a 40-50" regular HD LCD TV for sub-$1000 these days.

Besides, I don't understand what your reply has to do with the actual technology behind 3D displays. I swear, almost every other post here on slashdot has become about how expensive something is or how it's not free or extremely cheap...

Oh wait, I must be new here or something.

Re:Auto Stereoscopy...

[timeOday]

Well, sure, innovation is supposed to spur new sales. Sony released the PS3 so people would want to give them money, including people who already bought PS2s. So long as there's value for the consumer, how is this bad? You could argue it will displace what would have been cheaper options, but I don't think that's true. A couple months ago I got a 20" 1080p LCD monitor for under $100. Even after decades of maturity, CRTs were never that cheap (except perhaps in their waning days after the assembly lines had been sold off to generic manufacturers). The PS2 has enjoyed a long & cheap life on the market, post-PS3. Now, at some point, it will be almost as cheap to make a PS3 as a PS2, and at that point the PS2 will disappear. But it's not like the price of the PS2 could ever have dropped much further anyway.

I think 3D will end up being an almost free feature you can use or ignore. And since having somewhat of a 3d revelation watching Avatar, I'm looking forward to it.

Re:Competition

[maxume]

30 years ago, you could hardly buy a television that wasn't a CRT, and if you wanted something over 30", you had to be very prepared to bust out your wallet. Today, a 30" LCD costs $750 (or whatever, I'm probably within $250, which is fine when you consider that the 30 year old television probably cost $2,500, and those numbers don't bother to account for inflation).

You are delusional.

Re:Auto Stereoscopy...

[TheKidWho]

Are you implying in your example that they didn't improve the antenna? Or are you trying to imply that they already had the design for an improved antenna but decided to wait to push the technology? Or are you cynically implying that they had the technology and capability to introduce the improved antenna at the same price point but decided to create an artificial barrier?

Because I would say all of that is Grade A BS spoken from someone who has no knowledge of actual engineering and product development.

Yes, there are only a handful of LCD manufacturers, one of them being Sony, LG, and Samsung... All of whom are trying to push 3D. However a clueless individual like yourself might assume that since there are only a handful of manufacturers, that every LCD that comes from these manufacturers is exactly the same. That would be a highly ignorant statement. Companies who purchase the Liquid Crystal Displays for usage in TVs for example have the choice of purchasing high quality or low quality components. Usually the components will be run through an automated QA process and the best components will be sold for the highest prices. Also, companies can ask for the components to be produced with higher quality components and tighter manufacturing tolerances.

To assume that all LCDs from one manufacturer are the same is foolish.

You know what's happened with electronics over the past 20 years? They've improved tremendously.