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Sony Developing 3D Screen-Sharing Technology For Two Players

Posted by Soulskill on from the hey-an-actual-useful-feature dept.

Stoobalou writes "Sony has recently published patent applications which will allow two-player 3D gaming on a single screen. The new technology could spell an end to split-screen gaming, but is unlikely to see the light of day for a few years at least. Sony's method would allow player one to see frames one and three whilst player two would see frames two and four. Current technology requires a display with a 120 Hz refresh rate so it seems likely that we'll have to wait for 240Hz screen technology to become commonplace before two-player 3D becomes a reality. PDF versions of the two applications are available."

3 of 174 comments (clear)

  1. Re:When elephants dance by mcgrew · · Score: 0, Troll

    Meanwhile, Sony is part of the MPEG-LA consortium that's preventing free software and SMEs from including support for MPEG video formats, so they deserve no good will.

    Sony rooted my computer with their XCP trojan; no way in hell will they EVER get anything but ill will from me. I want to see their CEO and board of directors in prison and their company in bankruptcy.

    IMO Microsoft is a saintly company compared to Sony, and I don't even like much of MS's software. The MPEG thing is like a drop of piss on top of the swimming pool full of Sony shit.

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  2. Re:Patenting the patents? by Theaetetus · · Score: 0, Troll

    I thought patents were not supposed to be awardable if they are "obvious to an person of ordinary skill in the art."

    I am no expert, and I haven't even bothered to read TFA but if someone asked me "how can we make it possible for two players share the same screen", in the time it took me to read the above summary and click through to this page, (about 2 seconds) I can think of the following possible solutions:

    1) Have each player wear shutter glasses that lets each see alternating frames. or another solution: 2) have a second whole screen LCD cover - ie. essentially one giant screen sized pixel that covers the entire screen area. Each player would wear polarized glasses that are polarized 90 degrees to each other. Liquid crystals rotate the angle of polarization by 90 degrees when turned on, so this would make the direction of polarization shift by 90 degrees every odd frame. so if I can think of these solutions, as I am sure just about anyone else here could, doesn't this make it fail the "obvious" part of the requirement to get a patent?

    Now to read that article and see what cunning technical solution they have come up with...

    Well, let's see... Is the solution that simple, or are there additional things involved, such as coordinating the two player's glasses, which frames get sent where, how do you get a 240Hz refresh rate screen, etc.?

    I haven't bothered to read TFA either, but your "solutions" are naive and unrealized. Come back when you actually invent something, rather than just have the barest beginning of an idea.

  3. Re:Oh yeah? Well I patent it for THREE! by Theaetetus · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yeah, read that right. Player 1 sees frames 1 and 4, Player 2 sees frames 2 and 5 and Player 3 sees frames 3 and 6. Hold up, I'm having a Gillette moment here.

    1. Player 1 sees frames 1 and 6
    2. Player 2 sees frames 2 and 7
    3. Player 3 sees frames 3 and 8
    4. Player 4 sees frames 4 and 9
    5. Player 5 sees frames 5 and 10

    That's right assholes. Five blades^H^H^H^H^H^Hplayers.

    So, let's see your control circuits for your 600Hz display. What? You don't have them? I guess you haven't actually invented anything yet.