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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."
When watching 3D movies, I tend to go cross-eyed and get a headache very quickly. I think it's because everything I'm seeing is on the same focal plane, but my eyes attempt to adjust for parallax based on different apparent distances of objects. I had to walk out of Avatar 3D after about 10 minutes, I just could not watch it like that. Does anyone else experience this?
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.
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*
crazy dynamite monkey
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?
What do active glasses give you that polarity glasses wouldn't? Why go that road except to eek out a bit more cash from the consumer?
It's technically feasible to build a consumer television that alternates the left/right eye images, frame by frame, in sync with alternate blanking on glasses. All you need is a LCD with a good enough refresh rate and the right electronics.
To use polarising glasses requires a large exotic projector, the space to set it up (think 'theatre' not 'living room') and a massively expensive reflective screen (AFAIK, anyway). Thats why.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
We finally get a display technology with zero flicker, the LCD, and the 3D crowd has to put it back. Yuck.
It's like those 38-DDDs are right in your face!
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
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.
Really, if your 3D TV requires powered glasses in order to experience 3D viewing, why not just get rid of the TV altogether and simply display slightly offset images on each lens of a pair of glasses? I doubt that cost would be an issue seeing as how video glasses seem to be available for under $200 (it would take a lot of people viewing to overcome the cost of the 3D TV + TV glasses). It obviously can't be related to a communal viewing experience as everyone viewing the 3D TV will need glasses anyway.
At least with polarized glasses the power requirement is gone but still, since some form of eyewear is required anyway, why not just get rid of the TV altogether? Is it just because you'll still be able to watch 2D without the glasses?
Don't get me wrong, the prospects look interesting, but it just seems like holding onto the TV for no other purpose than being able to manufacture large and expensive displays.
"Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
An article on Sony and "betting it all" on 3D TVs was published in the Wall Street Journal, yesterday. A pretty detailed article, imo.
Basically, that article pointed out the fatal flaw:
The challenge for Sony and the other electronics makers: persuading people to adopt 3-D so quickly after hundreds of millions of households just made the transition to high-definition video. Consumers will have to buy brand new televisions, which, according to some estimates, could cost between 10% and 20% more than the high-definition TVs currently on the market.
Not going to happen. People are going to resist this like mad. "New TV? I just bought a new HDTV, and now you want me to go buy a new one so soon which is more expensive? Yeah, go fuck yourselves."
Inflammatory rhetoric aside, what I found most interesting, though, is that CEO Stringer appears to be his push (at least in this arena) against the "Not invented here" bias that is apparently so prevalent at Sony. Most slashdotters will agree--we don't need more proprietary, incompatible Sony formats. Hopefully this attitude is promoted outside the 3D TV realm.
Oh, you have a girlfriend. Are you going to get married?
Do you love her?
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
Active glasses are old tech. I saw them demoed about 14 years ago - worked okay, a little distracting. But it wasn't at CES, it was Comdex. Well, okay, it was actually Adultdex, an "adult industry" tech/trade show that occurred at the Sahara during Comdex.
Pron really pushed the tech envelope back then....
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.
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.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
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.
Red and Green aren't the same, they are chemically different and the prices of the consumables can affect the cost of each color.
You're delusional if you think TVs haven't changed radically in the past 30 years...
30 years ago you were lucky to have a display capable of 640x480 which is .3MP... Today you can buy a 1080p 2M display, that's a nearly 7x increase in resolution.
You are also highly delusional if you think price has remained consistent with inflation... I purchased my 30" 1920x1200 display for $350... In 1990 dollars that would be $215... You are insane if you think you could purchase a 2MP 30" Display for $215 in 1990.