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Sony Announces First 3D Blu-ray Disc Players
angry tapir writes "Sony has announced a new 3D Blu-ray Disc player and upgrades to existing players so that they will be able to show high-definition 3D movies too. The company introduced the BDP-S470 Blu-ray Disc model and upgraded existing home theater systems, which will be able to play Blu-ray movies when related firmware for the devices is released later this year. Movies based on the Blu-ray 3D specification, which was finalized by the Blu-ray Association in December, can be shown on the players."
Can the TV industry all stand behind the new HDMI or Displayport spec?
Having the media standard and players are nice, but until I know I have a TV that will support a standard (that will be around for more than 2 seconds) is somewhat important as well.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I thought the PS3 would be the first one to have BR 3D support, since it was announced when the spec became ready.
It's yet another HDMI version. They were supposed to even have larger connectors that transferred more data, but I see those nowhere. I'm not seeing why a 24 Hz movie can't be doubled to 48 Hz for 3D when it transfers at 60 Hz anyway usually. I think the tremendous amount of bandwidth needed for those black bars around movies means we all have to upgrade.
Awesome, thanks. I was wondering if they'd come out with some way to release movies like Avatar in 3D soon since most people are saying that's the only way to see it. Good to know.
:P
on a side note, hooray for being labeled off topic for trying to clarify what the new technology is
Exactly. I was bothered by the "Flat Screens" being sold in a confusing manner to "Flat Panel". I dislike "High Definition DVD Player" which "upscales" DVDs to "HD resolutions" as a method to confuse consumers expecting HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. I loath 480p/i, 720p/i, and other resolution display devices being sold as HDTV in markets where the consumer is expecting 1080p/1080i.
I have issues with marketers selling crap using names that approximate something else in an effort to confuse the consumer into making a purchase they would not otherwise make. In this case though, masses will not rush out to buy a 3D tv/player with the expectation of anything other than stereo-scopic projection. I leave some room for a few true idiots out there who may believe they are getting 3D TV as I believe society was built upon the stupidity clause. However, since we don't have anything coming to market with "true 3 dimensional projection", 3D Blu-ray is fine.
Which 3D spec is it?
The tech is incredibly immature right now, there's about 3 different methods of doing 3D - some require glasses, some apparently don't. How is it encoded on the disc, can the disc still contain the regular 2D blu ray movie. Is it the same spec as the other companies? What about the TV guys, is it the same spec there?
They (not just Sony) are really praying for this 3D thing to take off and cause a whole new run of consumer idiot sales, we aren't falling for it this time, the 1080p fiasco was bad enough (it was never an official HD spec, it was added later) you expect us to sell out 1->30 month old HD TV's for a 3D one when the spec is a complete shambles?
I think a 'lol, no!' should suffice here. I'm definitely waiting this one well, well out.
The usual term is "stereo" or "stereo-3D." It's been around since shortly after the invention of photography.
I love stereo-3D myself, and have a collection of it in various forms including an antique Stereo-Realist camera that can take action stills in stereo. It's also quite easy to take stereo stills with any digital camera, providing there's no movement involved in the subject-- just by taking the picture, moving over about a foot, and taking another framed the same (and hopefully, with the same exposure). Viewing can be done with budget viewers from your LCD video monitor, side to side, or using the crosseye technique, etc.
That said though, I think in this case it's a cheap excuse to try to sell more BluRay players since the market just hasn't been taking off-- HD doesn't get you enough over SD DVD for many people to bother to spend the money (including me). Unfortunately, 3D will get the short-shrift it always does, and when it doesn't explode into an "everybody's gotta have it right now" craze, the producers will tire of spending money in the production for insufficient results. So we'll have a couple of wowzer stereo films (Avatar and one or two others, probably), but not enough to justify converting your entire video system over unless you've got too much money or you're a total gadget geek.
A "Ted Turner" could start taking old content and producing artificial plane-separated synthetic stereo from existing media, and that might pull it a long for a few more miles, but even then I seriously doubt it'll be enough to carry it along. And it likely won't be quite as easy or as cheap as "colorization" was, at least to do well.
I'd love to see stereo become mainstream, but we've been down this road before, and I don't see anything new here, just the dollars involved are bigger (which itself doesn't bode well, because for too many people, it's just non-essential)...
If stereo computer monitors got cheap enough I might get one of those so my 3D modelling work can be done in full stereo, but I don't get paid for that so I'm not willing to spend a whole lot over what a plain-old 2D monitor costs.
I'd like to see it, I really would, but I just don't expect it to happen. There's just not enough momentum. It looks to me like a last-ditch attempt for a few desperate folks in tinseltown to give the public a reason to pay more for their stuff. It's just not a good enough reason, frankly. And even if we weren't in a recession, and digital entertainment hadn't lost a whole lot of it's value over the last decade due to the glut of content and its distribution, I just don't see it becoming any more than an expensive parlor-trick...