MIT Developed A Movie Screen That Brings Glasses-Free 3D To All Seats (techcrunch.com)

An anonymous reader writes from a report via TechCrunch: MIT has developed a glasses-less 3D display for movie theaters. The Nintendo 3DS is one of a handful of devices to feature glasses-less 3D, but it is designed for a single users where the user is looking at the display head-on at a relatively specific angle. It's not something made for a movie theater with hundreds of seats, each of which would have a different viewing angle. What's neat about MIT's 3D display is that it doesn't require glasses and it lets anyone see the 3D effect in a movie theater, no matter where they are sitting. The MIT Computers Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) created the prototype display called 'Cinema 3D' that uses a complex arrangement of lenses and mirrors to create a set number of parallax barriers that can address every viewing angle in the theater based on seat locations. It works in a movie theater because the seats are in fixed locations, and people don't tend to move around, change seats or alter their viewing angle too much. What's also neat about the Cinema 3D is that is preserves resolution, whereas other glasses-less 3D displays carry cots in terms of image resolution. The prototype is about the size of a letter-sized notepad, and it needs 50 sets of mirrors and lenses. It should be ready for market once researchers scale it up to a commercially viable product.

Comments

Interesting sleep arrangement

[Darth Twon]

whereas other glasses-less 3D displays carry cots in terms of image resolution.

So that begs the question: what kind of bedding can we expect from this glasses-less 3D display?

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[mark-t]

Can someone enlighten me as to approximately when the expression "begs the question" started to mean "raises the question", instead of the informal fallacy of assuming that an unproven premise is true as part of a conclusion?

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anne Thwacks]

displays carry cots won't someone please think of the children!

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[WalksOnDirt]

It doesn't matter. That's the normal meaning nowadays. I suggest you use 'assumes the question' if that's what you mean.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Mr D from 63]

I beg your pardon but I beg to differ.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Mr D from 63]

Can someone enlighten me as to approximately when the expression "begs the question" started to mean "raises the question", instead of the informal fallacy of assuming that an unproven premise is true as part of a conclusion?

You "raise" a question AFTER the situation "begs" it. If you raise it too soon, it won't be begged. If you wait till it is begged, then its obvious. That in why begged questions are inherently obvious.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[110010001000]

Irregardless, I could care less.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Wraithlyn]

Just give it up. That cat will never go back in that particular bag. English changes over time with usage.

Personally, I'm fine with it. Intuitively, "begs the question" means the same as "demands the question"... because "begs" and "demands" mean the same damn thing. Phrases making sense intuitively is a good thing, IMHO.

Just use "assumes the conclusion" for the fallacy (which again, makes more intuitive sense anyway), and stop trying to perpetuate the original meaning which will never, ever take over as the common usage again.

Just my two cents.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone enlighten me as to approximately when the expression "begs the question" started to mean "evading the question", instead of the informal fallacy of assuming that an unproven premise is true as part of a conclusion?

Re: Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anonymous Coward]

1999. Get over it already.

Re: Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anonymous Coward]

Your answer can be found here: http://wondermark.com/c1234/

Re: Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anonymous Coward]

All that means is that more and more people have been making the same mistake for decades. It's still a mistake.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Bite The Pillow]

The moment teachers taught people to learn from context instead of a philosophy textbook. So pretty much as soon as someone not schooled in the jargon heard it.

You are arguing for a commonplace understanding of jargon, which is specifically and locally defined. That will never happen. We misuse terms from all kinds of professions all the time, as people.

So I guess you could ask us to stop being people. Or we can go back to classifying you as a girl. At one time that was gender neutral. Hardly the case now. Anyway, since the day it was uttered us the short answer.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, begging the question never made sense to me, since there was no question involved at all, only an assumption. Never mind the begging part making no sense whatsoever either.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[wbr1]

We use the phrasing we want to, irregardless.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anonymous Coward]

Can someone enlighten me as to approximately when the expression "begs the question" started to mean "raises the question", instead of the informal fallacy of assuming that an unproven premise is true as part of a conclusion?

This may help: http://wondermark.com/c1234/
as you can see, it started it the 19th century

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[mattack2]

because "begs" and "demands" mean the same damn thing.

They do?

You can beg your boss to give you a raise, but you can't demand it. (You can give an ultimatum and quit if you don't get it, but that's still not demanding a raise, in that your demand is succeeding.)

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anonymous Coward]

"Begs the question" has always been a terrible mistranslation of "petitio principii", itself a poor translation from Ancient Greek. I can't consider being a vocal pedant to be in any way beneficial except to one's own ego, but this is a terrible issue to take a stand on: both modern and historical use of the phrase is incorrect, and for that matter the post-classical scholars who introduced the term into Latin weren't blameless either. You can either accept the colloquial definition, which happens to be the literal meaning, or you can avoid the phrase entirely. To a certain type of imperfectly educated 16th-century scribe you are entirely correct, though.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[dslauson]

Agreed. Here is a relevant Wondermark cartoon to accompany your thoughts. I long for the day when I don't have to hear internet pedants correcting people about the meaning of "begging the question".

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[mark-t]

I wasn't arguing for anything. I was asking question.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Wraithlyn]

They both mean "asking for something".

Yes, of course they differ in the details. Thank you for pedantically stating the massively obvious.

Re:Interesting sleep arrangement

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you were raising a question!

Weizmann, not MIT

[Anonymous Coward]

The first author is from Weizmann, not MIT. The headline is inaccurate.
Credit is due to whoever contributed, so the bias towards the more famous MIT is inappropriate.

Re:Weizmann, not MIT

[darthsilun]

Not to mention that CSAIL is Computer-blank-Science and AI Lab, not Computers Science.

Is 3D all that?

[tgibson]

I have yet to see a movie where I thought the 3D enhancements made the movie superior over a conventional screen. Regarding Nintendo's 3DS, I noticed that my daughters disable the 3D feature because they find it distracting. Is anyone pining for a movie to come out in 3D?

Re:Is 3D all that?

[PRMan]

Not in Nintendo 3DS 3D, that's for sure...

Re: Is 3D all that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you seen those oceanography movies in 360 degree stereography looking at the wildlife in coral reefs? Everything from shoals of fish darting about, dolphins, great white sharks. seals and whales. That's one of the best uses. The other is taking a trip through the Solar System and seeing all the planets close up. Even standing on the surface of Mars and Pluto.

Re:Is 3D all that?

[Dunbal]

Even worse nowadays is that a lot of movies are available in both formats, but obviously there are shots which you can tell ONLY exist for the 3D version so that something "coming out of the screen" can impress 4 year olds which would never have made it in a regular movie because they're stupid.

Re: Is 3D all that?

[behrooz0az]

When things are far you can't tell the difference if there are holes or bumps in them. it's either a dot or a big surface if you're close enough. you have to be on he surface of the planet to see the terain
if you really want to know why think about this:
(tan(a)tan(b))/tan(a)+tan(b)

Re:Is 3D all that?

[Bite The Pillow]

You're stupid and wrong. That's all I can do here, because now its about faith. You asked for anyone, and yes I am. Prometheus with Charlize Theron in tight white 3D, Tron the unspeakable with Beau Garrett in tight white 3D...

Avatar sucked, retroactive 3D sucks, animation is the Bees bollocks. 3D Jesus is one dimension better than your 2D Jesus.

So yes, people disagree with you. Also, VR gives 3D a new platform. Yes its nit holographic, but 3D content helps bridge the gap between 2D and VR.

Lemme guess, you hate that too? Wrong and stupid, and you will burn in hell for your sins against my dimension.

Re:Is 3D all that?

[Ranbot]

I have yet to see a movie where I thought the 3D enhancements made the movie superior over a conventional screen.

I agree with you that I prefer non-3D formats, but I'll be more specific. I don't like that in 3D movies peripheral and background images are typically out of focus. I want to view the whole scene, not just the camera's main subject(s). This may also harm movie-making in general because when directors know that 3D viewers may not clearly see a background image, then it can limit the creativity they apply to a scene. If you don't know what I mean, consider the Star Wars The Force Awakens, which I saw at the theater in 3D and regular formats [because I'm a nerd]. In the Maz's bar/cantina scene there were interesting looking aliens and activities going on all around the main characters. In the 3D version most of the background images were terribly out of focus for the sake of the main 3D image, not so with the regular non-3d version, which made it much better, in my opinion. If this new 3D screen technology in the article can fix that problem, then I'm all in, until then I prefer the standard flat screen.

Gimmicky 3D effects suck too, like when objects fly at the camera for no reason, but I fault the movie director for that, not the technology.

My have to change the name

[slapout]

Not to be confused with Cinema 4D, a 3D modeling program.

Letter sized?

[agm]

<troll>
How many A4s is a letter sized? What's with these weird measurement units?
</troll>

Re:Letter sized?

[Anonymous Coward]

For all the thick brits who can't seem to get their heads around the fact that they're never going to get us to change our paper size, date format, or the way we spell aluminum–– (Got any tantalium or molybdenium?) In this case (and actually in most cases) "letter sized" is exactly A4. Because "letter size" is just that, an adjectival phrase that describes the size of a piece of paper you write a letter on. In your case: that's A4.

You may even have noticed that A4 size and US Letter size are pretty close to each other.

Re:Letter sized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Letter-sized can be anything from the size of the letter A (some 3mm) to the size of a letter which fits in a letterbox (a sheet of paper folded in three parts along the larger border -- that's what I thought first) or what you apparently means, the US-only standard which resembles A4.

Oh, and BTW, we got notebooks for children which are roughly the size of letter/A4 sheet folded in two.

Finally, it's not about the US changing the units. It's about communication. Feel free to use whatever you want. Our only remedy, it seems, is to go read elsewhere.

Re:Letter sized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its about the size of a A4 sheet of paper. Christ, Europeans need to have everything spelled out with them. How could you build a system that is only 3mm? Jesus. Get a grip.

Re:Letter sized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Got any tantalium or molybdenium?

Nope. I've got some Americium though. Is this a bad time to point out that the US inch is metric?

Re:Letter sized?

[Applehu Akbar]

We want to keep our spellings, but at the same time we have to go metric at some time. We have a choice between spending a lot to convert now, or spending an exorbitant amount to convert later.

Re:Letter sized?

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesn't have to cost much at all.
Just require that any new textbooks/road signs/web shop/whatever must have both units marked out and let the old ones be.
Some fifty years from now or so you can make the British imperial unit optional.

Re:Letter sized?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much all of the inches have been redefined to be metric.
Partly because the kings the feet were based upon are long dead and their feet aren't available to create new references.
It's also more convenient to have a common unit to go through when converting from one inch to another.

Re:Letter sized?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Its about the size of a A4 sheet of paper.

Ok, please see my comment ahead about being exact. But I got the approximate size, thanks.

> Christ, Europeans need to have everything spelled out with them.

My point is not really the size. My point is confusions arise (read above how I thought the size was of a mail letter, which is actually the size of just the outer envelope...).

> How could you build a system that is only 3mm?

As a matter of fact, I couldn't. But I know who can:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Light_Processing

> Jesus. Get a grip.

The "letter" measure is particularly obnoxious for those like us who use the A4 size, because we end up getting letter-sized papers (e.g. labels) now and then. Printers have a clever way of printing things both on A4- and letter-sized paper: they scale the contents to be printed. This mostly works well -- in the sense you get prints with the right proportions but a little smaller in size.

This must be annoying when you absolutely want to get characters of a precise given size (like in books) and -- much more importantly -- when you must print things in precise positions (like in said labels).

How many times I Ioathed losing time to remember that "adjusting" function (which is usually default) and how to turn it off! This leads me to loathe the use of the letter size itself. And, of course, if we talk about having a single standard in the world to improve daily tools (like printers) and the person we're talking goes like "F.U." -- perhaps not your case, but, yes, that's the usual response -- well, that is not exactly lovely, if you know what I mean.

Re:Letter sized?

[ananamouse]

Not so simple. All real property is recorded in the individual county court houses in inch/feet/miles. Legal nightmare to convert the title to everything. Seriously. When you look closely and see surveys routinely saying, "more or less" then there will be a squabble that will put several multiples of the nations domestic output into scumbag lawyers pockets.

Now if everything is digitized then maybe a bot can go through the database and straighten things out. Maybe...

Waste of effort

[Grishnakh]

Sorry, but theaters are obsolete, and gimmicks like 3D are only going to slightly delay the inevitable. Why would I want to waste my time and money watching a movie at a theater when I can just watch it at home and get many benefits: no screaming kids, no people talking on their cellphones, a rewind button so I can go back if I didn't understand a line of dialog, a pause button so I can go to the bathroom, no sticky floors, the best-positioned seat instead of one way off to the side, whatever food I want instead of some crappy overpriced concessions, whatever kind of seat I want (such as a recliner), and the ability to watch the movie at whatever time I want?

Re:Waste of effort

[Gavagai80]

Some people go to the theater to get away from the screaming kids, family members talking on their cell phones, etc which they have to deal with at home.

Re:Waste of effort

[chispito]

Why would I want to waste my time and money watching a movie at a theater when I can just watch it at home and get many benefits...

I almost never get a chance to go to the theaters any more, but I still see the value in many cases. First, you're not at home. Sometimes it's nice to go out for the sake of going out. Second, most genres of film are better with an audience. Comedies are much better with an audience, though the audience can also spoil it if they aren't invested (much like stand-up). Third, the picture and sound are almost certainly better than what you have at home. I saw Interstellar at the Chinese Theater in Hollywood and I'm glad I did. Home theaters are great, but they aren't the same.

Re: Waste of effort

[Anonymous Coward]

The benefits are that it generates content for both cinema and home users. The main obstacle to the use of 3D visualisation was the cost of content generation. In the past this was restricted to high end studios. But now anyone with a laptop with Blender can make their own 3D movies and pictures.

Re: Waste of effort

[BarbaraHudson]

The last big thing was iMac. 3D would have been big in the '60's. Now it's just too late to excite people

we saw from the failure of 3d to be a real selling point for TVs (3d or a larger screen for the same price - bigger wins)..

if you want a better more immersive experience, spend the money on better audio.

Re:Waste of effort

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have a big screen TV (60" or more), you sit at the right distance from it, you have an external sound system and (most importantly) you set it loud enough, the experience that you get is pretty darn good. While it is true that the sound at theaters is better than what you can get at home, the real difference is, for the most part, one of loudness.

Re:Waste of effort

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they went to the wrong place.

Re:Waste of effort

[Misagon]

Indeed. Movie theatres should deal with getting rid of the bad experiences at the theatre and make sure that the picture and sound quality is top notch.
That is what would bring people back - not gimmicks.

There are theatres that will kick you out if you talk too much during the movie or use a cell phone.
All theatres should be that way.

Instead we have theatre chain executives who "give up" because "millenials are always on the phone", we get movies projected in 2K -- which is only a little bit more than the five year old "Full HD" TV that I got at home -- but with stutter.

Re:Waste of effort

[Grishnakh]

Yeah, what the other guy said: they went to the wrong place!!!

Actually, to be fair, I will note that there are some theaters where you can have a fairly nice experience (though still no pause or rewind capabilities). Usually these are called "dinner theaters"; you get a huge comfy chair, and can order a full meal (and alcohol if you want) and eat while you watch the movie. I also hear good things about Alamo Drafthouse. Most theaters aren't like this though, and they aren't available everywhere.

Re: Waste of effort

[Grishnakh]

We've had modern 3D since Avatar came out in 2009, and still no one's shown that it can be used to any really good effect. Avatar was really the only movie where it added anything at all. Sorry, but so far it's just looking like a gimmick.

Re:Waste of effort

[Anonymous Coward]

no screaming kids, no people talking on their cellphones

What kind of shitty-ass theatre are you going to? The one I go plays a vignette at the start of the show asking people to turn off their phones. I've literally never seen a person talk on their phone in the theatre. That's the kind of behaviour that would get your ass kicked out... Is it an American thing?

the best-positioned seat instead of one way off to the side

Go to a theatre with reserved seating, or arrive there early.

Re:Waste of effort

[Grishnakh]

I've literally never seen a person talk on their phone in the theatre. That's the kind of behaviour that would get your ass kicked out... Is it an American thing?

Probably, yes. People do text on their phones a lot these days, probably a lot more than talking on them.

Go to a theatre with reserved seating, or arrive there early.

Reserved seating? You're kidding, right? I've never, ever, ever, ever seen a theater like that in my many decades of theater-going.

Arriving early isn't going to help that much; now you get some well-positioned seats but you're crowded in by too many people, a bunch of whom are texting or talking to each other or loudly crunching on their popcorn.

What country do you live in where people are all well-behaved? Maybe I should look for a job there.

Re:Waste of effort

[Gaygirlie]

I've literally never seen a person talk on their phone in the theatre. That's the kind of behaviour that would get your ass kicked out... Is it an American thing?

Probably, yes. People do text on their phones a lot these days, probably a lot more than talking on them.

It's certainly not a thing over here. People do turn their phones off or silent and they don't play with them during movies.

Reserved seating? You're kidding, right? I've never, ever, ever, ever seen a theater like that in my many decades of theater-going.

Most theaters over here do reserved seating. As long as you buy the tickets a couple of hours or days ahead of time you can choose what seat(s) you wish to occupy.

Re:Waste of effort

[Applehu Akbar]

My town has one of these, built by and for the annual film festival but used year round for opera simulcasts and special film screenings.

Re:Waste of effort

[Gavagai80]

I go to theaters on weekdays, daytime. They've very peaceful. A couple times I've actually been the only person in the theater.

Re:Waste of effort

[Anonymous Coward]

That's, like, just your opinion.

Glasses-Free 3D

[Feneric]

Glasses-free 3D has potential in a number of applications and it's surprising to me how little penetration it has in the market at large. Just as adding color to a display is a means of providing more information, adding depth to a display adds information. Just as we don't typically grade a movie or an application on how effectively its color has been used, once the novelty of 3D has worn off and it's become just another tool in the box we'll start to see what sort of impact it really has. Now we seem to be limited to the 3DS, expensive Ultra-D displays, and soon glasses-free cinemas. What about the 3D phones and tablets? (Yes, I know about add-ons like EyeFly3D, but they're still pretty niche at the moment.)

Re:Glasses-Free 3D

[Anonymous Coward]

Glasses-free 3D has potential in a number of applications and it's surprising to me how little penetration it has in the market at large.

Back to the Future - 8 seconds.

That's what you're going to end up with from the wonderful advertizers who think their ad is the most important thing eva! in the history of humankind. After a fair number of people die as a result of the distractions, well, the bribes will flow and nothing will change. Except the ads will get bigger. Imagine a large building chasing you to sign up for MOAR! "free" crap. Yep. ~

Captcha: subsidy.

Not anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

The Nintendo 3DS is one of a handful of devices to feature glasses-less 3D, but it is designed for a single users where the user is looking at the display head-on at a relatively specific angle.

This hasn't been true ever since the N3DS was released. It may in fact have more freedom of movement than this new movie screen tech, considering I don't expect the latter to feature actual head-tracking.

 

What's also neat about the Cinema 3D is that is preserves resolution, whereas other glasses-less 3D displays carry cots in terms of image resolution.

I don't understand what is meant by this. The 3D does not affect the resolution of the 3DS' screen.

Re: Not anymore

[Anonymous Coward]

Some systems sacrifice frame rate for resolution. To get 3D vision on a desktop you need a 120Hz screen with each eye getting alternating frames. That means lowering screen resolution to maintain maximum bandwidth.

If you want stereoscopic rendering with a smartphone, the top and bottom halves of the screen become left and right eye viewports.

Of course people move around

[chispito]

I don't agree with this statement:

people don't tend to move around, change seats or alter their viewing angle too much

All it would take is moving to the left or right a couple inches and you're on your way to a headache.

Re:Of course people move around

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't mention the head-clamps in the article, but that's how you solve the moving-head problem. The clamps also work to crush the heads of anyone texting in the theater.

Re:Of course people move around

[PRMan]

The author has clearly never had a tall guy with a big head sit in front of them.

Re:Of course people move around

[Anonymous Coward]

The author has clearly never had a tall guy with a big head sit in front of them.

Or taken a date to a movie.

Re:Of course people move around

[Anonymous Coward]

All it would take is moving to the left or right a couple inches and you're on your way to a headache.

Uhm, what exactly do you think happens when you move your head a couple of inches to the side?
It's setup to give the left half of your seat the left image and the right half of your seat the right image.
Unless you get two seats because you love having the armrest in your ass all that is going to happen is that you get the same image for both eyes.
Move your head too far to the left and it will appear to you as if you looked at the movie from the left, move it too far to the right and it will appear as if you looked at it from the right.

You are trying to find a problem that doesn't exist for some reason. That is a problem with your personality, not with the technology.

Strange...

[freeze128]

I haven't really noticed any cots in the resolution of glasses-less 3D displays. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough.... Or maybe I'm not watching movies in an army tent.

solved everything

[Anonymous Coward]

"“Existing approaches to glasses-free 3-D require screens whose resolution requirements are so enormous that they are completely impractical,” says MIT professor Wojciech Matusik, one of the co-authors on a related paper whose first author is Weizmann PhD Netalee Efrat. “This is the first technical approach that allows for glasses-free 3-D on a large scale.”
While the researchers caution that the system isn’t currently market-ready, they are optimistic that future versions could push the technology to a place where theaters would be able to offer glasses-free alternatives for 3-D movies."

So the solution to the completely impractical current setup is completely impractical at the moment and ..well...nm
Minor detail, but they complain the other can't scale up yet have/show no indication this can scale up but...future.

should be ready when it's ready

[fisted]

It should be ready for market once researchers scale it up to a commercially viable product.

Well no shit.

Re:should be ready when it's ready

[AK Marc]

It'll be ready when scaled up. Unlike flying cars, which have no current path to commercial viability. That's the point. It works, and would be commercially ready for small screens now, but that's not where the profit is.

Re:should be ready when it's ready

[flopsquad]

It should be ready for market once researchers scale it up to a commercially viable product.

See also: quantum computers, invisibility cloaking metamaterials, and fusion.

Re:should be ready when it's ready

[tlhIngan]

It'll be ready when scaled up. Unlike flying cars, which have no current path to commercial viability. That's the point. It works, and would be commercially ready for small screens now, but that's not where the profit is.

It already is. Ultra-D technology offers glasses free 3D on screens 50" and 65" screens. It's been featured at CES and it's fairly impressive.

It's got a wide 3D viewing angle (120 degrees - 60 degrees off perpendicular each side), and from 120 through 178 degrees, it degrades into a 2D image, so no matter where you are, if you can see the screen, you can see an image. Unlike some other technologies (like the Nintendo 3DS), it never goes unviewable.

Re:should be ready when it's ready

[AK Marc]

Is that the same tech as the one in the article? So many people are solving the same issue in different ways, I have trouble keeping them straight.

2 Things...

[OfficeLackey]

As has already been said, I've yet to watch a movie with 3D and thought, 2D just wouldn't have cut it. This whole 3D thing is kind of a dead horse and I'm getting really tired of people kicking it. Secondly, you have to know that they will also build this into the next "gotta-have-it" television/monitor. Where does it end? It's high-def 1080p. No it's curved! Better yet, it's back lit. No, 4k! Oh 4K in 3D!! You know, any more I just want to watch a show/movie that the story doesn't suck. I want the story to draw me in so I am mentally engaged with it. NOT, "I'm watching the equivalent of paint drying". They might have used a really fancy paint sprayer, but it's still paint drying.... (Damn! I must be getting old)

Re:2 Things...

[Anonymous Coward]

As has already been said, I've yet to watch a movie with 3D and thought, 2D just wouldn't have cut it.

Same here. But the same goes for color and stereo sound.
Any new movie would work in mono with gray-scale, I still prefer to watch it with colors and 5.1 sound.

Re:2 Things...

[thegarbz]

As has already been said, I've yet to watch a movie with 3D and thought, 2D just wouldn't have cut it. This whole 3D thing is kind of a dead horse and I'm getting really tired of people kicking it.

I could get to work on a horse and cart too, that doesn't mean that everything new is automatically a dead horse when a few people can't see the point or remained unimpressed. We had the same arguments with colour, DVD, HD, etc. I'm unimpressed with 3D TVs but only due to the ghosting issues I have with mine. In the cinema I happily pick a 3D movie over a 2D one after a quick search to see if it was shot in 3D or if it was a crappy 3D perversion of 2D content.

But you know the amazing thing here? This has literally no impact on you. Don't want 3D, don't do 3D. It's not like the 3D drive has anything at all to do with the story just like colour TV didn't suddenly magically give script writers dementia.

Why do they bother?

[avandesande]

People either hate(3d) or are indifferent to it... and it's not because of the glasses.

Its not wearing glasses that causes headaches

[mark-t]

It's the forced stereoscopy.... when you project different images into each eye, unless you are sitting only at certain spots in the movie theater, the angle that your eyes will have to converge to fuse the two images into a single 3d image in your visual cortex is unnatural with respect the distance that the visual differences between the two objects conveys to your brain about the apparently distance of what you are seeing.

Holograms would not have this effect, since where you are focusing on when you view a hologram is consistent with where the 3d image actually is supposed to be. The image appears as fully 3 dimensional as would looking at real physical objects on the other side of a pane of clear glass, or looking at things in a mirror.

But I imagine we're still some years away from real holographic movies being a thing.

Re:Its not wearing glasses that causes headaches

[MountainLogic]

Is is simple Lenticular projection. The "magic" (lower case) is reducing the number of angles because folks are stuck in seats. This was done much better by Alioscope for CRTs and LCds many years ago. That was really "Magic" stuff.

Is there really a need for this?

[cfalcon]

I think this will be a hard sell for movie theaters. Many spent a lot of money on the polarized 3D tech, and that's pretty much just a really expensive projection solution. Some viewers (like me) love 3D, and will pay a premium. But some do not, and cannot watch 3D because they get headaches. Mostly when you see a movie with these folks you just see the 2D one, but in some cases they will just go ahead and rig up special glasses (two left or two right lenses).

With some solution like this, they will definitely be ill unless they wear like an eyepatch. That's absolutely silly.

Are there a bunch of people for whom the 3D polarized glasses are specifically an issue? Those deliver a very compelling 3D experience to anyone.

I think this tech would be way cooler on a monitor or television, I dunno.

Re:Is there really a need for this?

[suutar]

I don't have much trouble wearing their glasses over mine, but I don't doubt that some folks do.

Re:Is there really a need for this?

[jader3rd]

Are there a bunch of people for whom the 3D polarized glasses are specifically an issue?

It's been my experience, that the movie is fuzzier with 3D glasses. Both my wife and I had experience where we'd see a movie with her family in 3D, then go see it later on our own in 2D and were blown away the second time by how nice the film looked. Now we have kids and certainly don't have the time to see a movie multiple times in the theater, but because of our previous experience we always opt for 2D.

Re:Is there really a need for this?

[dgatwood]

That's probably because there's no such thing as perfect 90 degree polarization. Each signal will interfere with the other a little bit, and you always get a bit of bleed from one eye into the other and vice versa near areas of high contrast.

Re:Is there really a need for this?

[Anonymous Coward]

That problem only exist with passive 3D. With active shutters you get bulkier glasses but not the bleeding.

Re:Is there really a need for this?

[thegarbz]

There is a lot more perfect polarisation than you get with a $0.25 filter, and certainly enough to eliminate ghosting issues.

Re:Is there really a need for this?

[dgatwood]

Well, yeah, but they're not going to give you that with the cost of a movie ticket. :-D

Re:Is there really a need for this?

[thegarbz]

*Sigh* They don't anyway. And screw those idiots for attempting to charge me $1 even when I bring my own glasses.

Actually this makes me wonder if there's a market for this. I'll take 2 quality camera polarisers into the cinema with me next time and see if it improves the effect any. I smell a kickstarter.

But can you look anywhere on the screen?

[RogueWarrior65]

This is a fundamental problem I have with 3D films. The focal point is always where the director decided it should be so if you try to look at something off to the side of the screen, the 3D illusion falls apart.

Re:But can you look anywhere on the screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, and more importantly, does watching the movie in 3D actually add anything?

I've never come away from a 3D movie and thought, "That was so cool in 3D", because after you've adjusted in the first 30 seconds or so, you were just watching a movie, except with cardboard glasses on.

Re:But can you look anywhere on the screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never come away from a 3D movie and thought, "That was so cool in 3D", because after you've adjusted in the first 30 seconds or so, you were just watching a movie, except with cardboard glasses on.

I've never come away from a technicolor movie and thought, "That was so cool in color," because after you've adjusted in the first 30 seconds or so, you were just watching a movie, except with color.

Re:But can you look anywhere on the screen?

[swb]

3D cinema only has 2 points of view. There are other 3D display technologies that offer 8 points of view, creating a wider sweet spot and allowing more compelling depth.

Re:But can you look anywhere on the screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've never come away from a 3D movie and thought, "That was so cool in 3D", because after you've adjusted in the first 30 seconds or so, you were just watching a movie, except with a headache and two pairs of glasses.
Your comparison will be valid when color movies require me to wear a second pair of glasses over my current ones, and when it gives me a headache after a few minutes.

Re:But can you look anywhere on the screen?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it's just like a 2D movie, except in 3D.

Not sure why that should be a problem. Directors can easily open up the aperature and focus on infinity, but there is an artistic reason they don't.

Using a shorter focal length emphasizes the subject, which is where the director wants you to look.

3D

[Dunbal]

Talk about beating a dead horse. Seriously.

Like movies aren't expensive enough...

[HockeyPuck]

A 2D movie is $12, 3D is $15.75 and $21 for IMAX-3D. And that's with a standard screens. Once you replace the screen with a complex arrangement of lenses and mirrors to create a set number of parallax barriers...

Get ready for the $40 ticket.

Re:Like movies aren't expensive enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

The pricing has very little to do with actual costs.
Movie prices are all based on artificial scarcity to begin with.

Gains resolution, loses brightness

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

First all the viewers must sit quite still and not move outside a narrow band in their seats. Even after that each seat gets a slice projected to it. Though the projected image fills your field of vision, it is a narrow slice and the brightness perceived will be less. Anyway the effect will be more like the 3D image on printed magazine covers like Nat Geo. With color bleeding fringing and 3D in some small central area and quite blurry in the periphery.

"it is designed for a single users"

[Anonymous Coward]

Written by an American, perchance? And "glasses-less"? That really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it.

"whereas other glasses-less 3D displays carry cots

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. Unbelievable. "carry cots" - do they mean for babies? Fucking idiots.