3D TV Technology Demonstration Video
Despite 3D technology being around since the 50s, this once novel technology has been refined, improved and built upon to pave the way for the technology to become common place in every consumers household.
Intels innovation in HD graphics and TV have helped bring a new dimension to home entertainment, accelerating change and helping to introduce a new and improved consumer viewing experience.
3D TV Fad or Fabulous?
The big box-office returns scored by 3D films like Avatar and Up have led the showbiz moguls to foresee that the next giant leap will involve taking 3D to television. It has been foreseen that couch potatoes around the world will be wowed by the entry of 3D small screens into their homes. It’s an aspiration that the shift to 3D home systems will be just as much of an upheaval, if not more so, than high definition pictures and digital audio in home theaters. Before you start lining up at your corner appliance shop, however, you may want to check out the status of the 3D world currently, and what it means for home 3D TV.
Broadcasters are starting to race each other to create the next generation of 3D TV programs. A number of content producers are gearing up to provide 3D features over a diverse variety of genres, from public events to musical events. 3D cinema features will now be just as watchable and enjoyable in one’s house as in the theater.
Favorite television offerings once broadcast in 2D can be translated into a 3D format. The ultimate result is a much more immersive experience that should, hopefully, have individuals across the globe immersed in the 3D technological breakthrough.
This isn’t to say that the 3D small screen is certainly going to be the future of home entertainment. Rather, it might share the same fate as that of the Laserdisc. Honestly, how many of us really need to see programs like CSI, Mad Men or even the evening news in 3D majesty? Moreover, features like Avatar and Up are demonstrative of the finest examples of the innovation – most other works may well fall far short of these parameters of quality. Also, while cinema patrons may be willing to suffer with cumbersome 3D glasses for a few hours, TV audiences may be significantly less appreciative of the requirement to wear glasses. What’s worse, 3D televisions will certainly be much more pricy, and the program producers may not be able to adequately supply the outcry by viewers to make it worthwhile upgrading. Likewise, experiencing 3D can induce headaches, even in a movie theater, and compressing 3D into a TV-sized screen could be even more uncomfortable. Home-based 3D technology is still in a prototype phase, so it could take some years for the revolution to gather momentum. For now, it may be more reasonable just to wait and see.
How 3D Glasses Work
Since 3D TV will be huge this year, it’s fitting to learn a little bit about 3D glasses. In the past couple of years, we’ve seen an incredible push towards 3-D technology in movies. Of course, the concept has been around for decades, but it had been largely abandoned until recent hits, such as Avatar and Up, showed everyone just how innovative the technology could be. This article examines the history of 3-D glasses, and how they work to create those lifelike images that keep you coming back to the theater.
How do 3D glasses work?
The entire concept of inducing 3-D vision is based around your capacity for binocular vision. Basically, your two eyes work together to gauge the distance between you and the object that they’re focusing on. This works due to the placement of the eye, and how far each object is perceived according to each eye, creating a triangulation effect that allows things that are within 20 feet of you to have a very tangible three-dimensional look. Each eye looks at the object at a slightly different angle, and your brain uses these two distinct images to figure out your distance from it. You can still perceive distance to an extent when you only see with one eye, but you definitely don’t get the accuracy that you have with both eyes and the binocular vision that comes with it.
How do red and blue 3D glasses work?
Due to the distinct signal you get from a television screen, a unique form of 3D has to be utilized, where there are two images placed on the screen, one in blue or green, and the other in red. You then use certain glasses that have a red filter on one eye, and a blue filter on the other. Viewing the image through both these filters will remove one of the colors from each eye, only leaving the other. Thanks to the aforementioned binocular vision, the brain will fill in the perceived gaps in the image, leaving you with an image that appears to pop out from the screen. Keep in mind, however, that since there’s such a limited color spectrum to this particular method of 3D, it’s hard to have very distinct colors in your 3D movie. This was the favored method of 3D moviemaking when it had its heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, but has since fallen out of favor now that more innovative and quality technologies have been developed.
How do polarized 3D glasses work?
Polarized 3D glasses are the wave of the future, and have been used at theme parks for many years before being put into widespread use in current and recent features. Polarization occurs when a lens is oriented or created in a way that will only let certain types of light through, via microscopic slits in the lens. This form of 3D uses two different projectors to transmit the film onto a screen – both of those projectors possess a different polarization. You are then given a pair of polarized 3D glasses that are meant to interpret the images the projector provides you. When these two are played at the same time, your polarized 3D glasses only let in the particular image with the polarization that matches the lens. Thanks to this innovative technology, you can have a more vivid color image, dramatically improving the picture quality of most motion pictures.
3D TV’s In US Sold Out In First Week
Panasonic Corp. said its 3-D TVs sold out in the U.S. in their first week, raising optimism the technology that helped “Avatar” break records at the box office will extend to living rooms and help boost profits.
The shortage is prompting the world’s largest plasma TV maker to take back-orders from retailers, Hitoshi Otsuki, the senior managing director heading Osaka-based Panasonic’s overseas operations, said in an interview yesterday in Tokyo. He declined to specify figures. “It’s a great opportunity to turn around our TV business,” he said.
TV makers are betting movies such as James Cameron’s “Avatar,” the highest-grossing film of all time, and sports events such as the 2010 FIFA World Cup will help drive demand for 3-D sets using improved technology. Still, a lack of programs and the need to use special eyewear, a reason that thwarted previous attempts to push adoption, may deter consumers.
“There are always people who want to buy high-end products,” said Kazuharu Miura, an analyst at Daiwa Securities Capital Markets Co. in Tokyo, said by phone today. “That’s probably what’s driving sales.”
Panasonic became the first major TV maker to sell 3-D sets in the U.S. when its 50-inch full high-definition plasma TV went on sale at outlets of Best Buy Co. with a pair of glasses and a 3-D Blu-ray player for $2,899.99 on March 10. Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest TV maker, began offering a 55-inch 3-D model there for $3,299.99 on March 14, while Sony Corp. plans to start selling 3-D Bravia TVs from June.
Unprofitable TV Operations
Samsung hasn’t yet tracked its 3-D TV shipment figures, said Hwang Eun Ju, a spokeswoman at the Suwon, South Korea-based electronics maker.
Panasonic’s TV operations had a loss of more than 10 billion yen ($111 million) in the quarter ended Dec. 31. The business may turn profitable in the year ending March 2011, President Fumio Ohtsubo said March 3.
Panasonic rose 1.7 percent to close at 1,343 yen in Tokyo trading, erasing its loss so far this year. Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average gained 1.2 percent. Samsung advanced 4.3 percent in Seoul.
“Avatar” in January passed “Titanic” to become the top- grossing movie worldwide and has taken in $2.64 billion since its release, according to Box Office Mojo.
Box Office Winner
Walt Disney Co.’s “Alice in Wonderland,” the Lewis Carroll tale directed by Tim Burton, made $116.1 million in U.S. and Canadian ticket sales on its first weekend, the best opening for a 3-D film and the sixth-biggest debut ever, according to Hollywood.com Box-Office.
The biggest draw to 3-D for customers after the success of movies in the format “will be sport broadcasting,” Otsuki said.
TV makers are counting on 3-D broadcasts of major sporting events to stoke demand. FIFA said in December it agreed with Sony to deliver 3-D images from as many as 25 matches of this year’s soccer World Cup in South Africa.
Disney’s ESPN 3-D will start in June and broadcast 85 live events the first year, the Bristol, Connecticut-based sports network said in January. Discovery Communications Inc., Sony and Imax Corp. announced a venture at the time to introduce a 3-D channel in 2011.
‘Real’ Television
Global shipments of 3-D TVs may reach 4.2 million this year and more than triple to 12.9 million in 2011, according to El Segundo, California-based researcher ISuppli Corp. this month. Revenue from the sets may more than double to $20 billion next year, according to ISuppli.
Samsung has said it aims to sell more than 2 million 3-D TVs this year, while Panasonic expects to sell as many as one million globally in the year starting April 1. LG Electronics Inc. has said it’s targeting sales of 400,000 3-D TV sets in 2010.
“Finally we have real televisions,” Bob Perry, a U.S.- based senior vice president at Panasonic’s audio-visual products marketing unit, said in a March 10 Bloomberg Television interview. “3-D makes TV real.”
Sony, which said last week it plans to sell at least 25 million TVs in the year starting April, predicts sales of 3-D sets will probably account for about 10 percent of the total.
Glasses a Deterrent
“It will probably take a long time for 3-D TVs to expand broadly, maybe about three years” said Ichiro Michikoshi, an analyst at electronics research firm BCN Inc. in Tokyo. “There isn’t enough content and consumers dislike wearing the glasses. Those issues will take time to be solved.”
3-D material has been produced for decades without turning into an enduring success. The world’s first commercial 3-D movie was “The Power of Love” in 1922, according to the Internet Movie Database. The lack of technology and the inconvenience the audience felt while watching the films made the popularity of 3- D short-lived in the 1950s, according to Lee Seung Jin, an analyst at Tong Yang Securities Inc. in Seoul.
Samsung has said improved technologies such as enhanced glasses and better flat-panels with improved picture quality will help viewers watch 3-D TVs more comfortably.
3D Glasses For 3D TV Not Being Standardized Yet
The good news about the 3D TVs coming out this spring and summer is that they’ll come packed with two pairs of 3D lenses. The bad news? Those plastic glasses work only with the brand of TV with which they’re shipped.
That means that if you buy a Panasonic 3D TV, you can’t use the accompanying lenses with your neighbor’s Sony 3D TV, should you want to get together to watch the World Cup in 3D this summer. That’s because each TV brand has a sensor that picks up a signal from the corresponding brand of glasses.
If that seems backwards, it’s because it is. But it’s also the sign of a new technology that hasn’t yet worked out all of its kinks. Thankfully, the burgeoning 3D industry knows that this is a shortcoming and is concocting a fix.
One company that makes 3D eyewear, XpanD, has staked its claim to be the vendor of choice for brand-agnostic 3D glasses. The company has been manufacturing 3D glasses for movie theaters in Europe and Asia for years, and it is now moving to make the glasses work for people’s homes as well.
XpanD has been contracted to produce the lenses that will ship with Panasonic and Vizio’s 3D sets, but the company is also aiming more broadly: to be the provider of one pair of glasses that people buy once and use everywhere. XpanD’s glasses will be available for between $125 and $150, starting June 1 at retailers such as Best Buy and Sears.
“The goal of the glasses is to work with every (size of) 3D display, from laptops to cinema,” said Ami Dror, XpanD’s chief strategy officer.
Dror says that would include all 3D televisions using infrared to communicate between the TV and the active-shutter 3D glasses. (“Active” glasses have battery-powered shuttering to allow the eyes to see 3D images, while “passive” glasses are the polarized lenses you get at the movie theater.) All major manufacturers–such as Sony, Samsung Electronics, and Panasonic–and most 3D-capable computer monitors and laptop screens–which gamers are expected to gravitate toward–use active-shutter glasses.
Dror anticipates the glasses being for sale in theaters or in retail stores alongside 3D displays. The way he sees it, people will want the option to choose their own glasses, especially if 3D-watching parties become popular.
Besides consumers being limited in how and when they can use their 3D glasses, XpanD believes that retailers can’t be expected to stock glasses from every possible manufacturer on their shelves.
“At Best Buy, they carry 15, 20 models of TVs,” Dror said. “We can’t expect them to carry 15 types of 3D glasses. That doesn’t make sense.”
3D TV Promotions Have Begun
3D TV is moving right along with major manufacturers and retailers rolling out new offers. Panasonic has paired up with Fox to give away the 3D Blu-ray edition of “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” as an incentive to buy its TVs and Blu-ray players, while Samsung will provide free copies of DreamWorks Animation’s “Monsters vs. Aliens,” followed by the “Shrek” films. Sony had already been touting its own 3D-at-home technology with “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.”
Companies hope that providing consumers with something they can instantly watch on new 3D TVs and Blu-ray players will entice them to pony up the thousands of dollars to buy the hardware.
Panasonic started selling its 3D TVs at Best Buy’s store in New York’s Union Square on Wednesday, bundling a 50-inch plasma TV, one pair of glasses and a 3D Blu-ray player for $2,900. The glasses alone cost $150, while the 3D TV is $2,500.
Fox won’t start offering “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” to Panasonic customers until April. Pic will be its first 3D release on Blu-ray. It has not yet set a release date for the 3D homevid version of “Avatar.”
Meanwhile the 3D Blu-ray version of “Monsters vs. Aliens” will be bundled with Samsung Electronics’ 46-inch set, two pairs of glasses and a 3D Blu-ray player for $3,000, also starting this week.
As a promotional tool, Samsung will have an exclusive on the 3D Blu-ray versions of all four “Shrek” movies later this year for a full year, while regular versions of the Blu-rays will be available through all retailers.
Rivals LG Electronics will introduce its 3D TVs in stores in May, while Sony will bow its hardware in June, and Vizio in August. The TV sets will be able to switch between 3D and regular 2D.
Partnerships between electronics makers and Hollywood aren’t unusual. Bundles of movies with hardware was common when DVD and Blu-ray was introduced, to get consumers to adopt the homevid formats.
Fox had already been working with Panasonic to promote movies, including “Avatar,” while DreamWorks Animation has long paired up with high-tech brands to promote its toons.
As studios release more movies in 3D in theaters, their homevideo divisions are hoping that the sale of 3D TVs will take off and help sell higher-priced 3D Blu-rays, as well, significantly boosting profit margins.
It’s expected that owners of 3D TVs will seek out other movies to view, and the bundles will remind them of other titles that are worthy of slipping on a pair of 3D glasses.
“There may be a couple of times that are considered game changers in the industry and this is that moment for home entertainment,” said Mary Daily, executive VP of marketing for Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. “Over the last year we have seen 3D invigorate the theatrical experience and it will do the same for the living room.”
Naturally, it helps that customers are already fans of the movies being offered.
3D TV to Launch in US by DirecTV in 2010
Satellite cable provider DirecTV has a new satellite in the air, and according to HD Guru, one of the 200 new HD stations to be broadcast from it includes the first U.S. HDTV channel in 3D.
There are still some technical hurdles to clear before you’re watching zany sitcom antics flying toward you, but the trend is clear. The satellite begins full operation in March, and existing DirecTV set-top boxes will simply need a firmware upgrade to support the 3D programming. Unfortunately, you’ll still need to pick up a 3D-capable HDTV to play it back, and that’s where the market lag will play a role in determining how fast 3D will penetrate.
Although 3D content has a long history stretching all the way back to 1922 — when the first public 3D movie was displayed — a number of optics and display challenges, as well as market realities, relegated 3D to a periodic novelty for decades. With the vast majority of the technical hurdles now solved and 3D displays making steady inroads at seminal trade shows like CES over the past couple of years, 2010 is poised to be 3D’s breakout year. The emergence of a string of blockbusters like Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and more rounds out 3D’s emergence — or re-emergence — on the big screen. Soon, consumers will come to expect the same experience in their home theater as well.
Sony, Samsung, Mitsubishi, LG and other manufacturers will be showing off 3D displays at CES 2010 next week. They’ll be hoping the stars will align properly to make 2010 3D’s breakout year, and DirectTV’s news is a timely piece of that puzzle. Are you excited about 3D’s inroads to the home, or is your pocketbook still weary from the last cycle of high definition upgrades?
3D TV Features and Benefits
3D TV will change the way you watch television. With the star power of hip-hop group The Black Eyed Peas and Avatar director James Cameron, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics giant unveiled the world’s first 3D TV technology aimed at revolutionizing the home viewing experience. A 3D television is a television that employs techniques of 3D presentation, such as stereoscopic capture, multi-view capture, or 2D plus depth, and 3D display—a special viewing device to project a television program into a realistic three-dimensional field. 3D episodes became moderately popular in the late 1990s when several shows in the USA used the technique to attract viewers and increase ratings.
3DTV sets are those that can operate in 3D mode, in conjunction with LCD shutter glasses, where the TV tells the glasses which eye should see the image being exhibited at the moment, creating a stereoscopic image. These TV sets usually support HDMI 1.4 and a minimum (input and output) refresh rate of 120Hz; glasses may be sold separately.
Mitsubishi and Samsung utilize DLP technology from Texas Instruments. As of January 2010, Toshiba, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, and LG all had plans to introduce 3D capabilities (mostly in higher-end models) in TVs available sometime in 2010. 3D Blue-Ray players and DirecTV broadcasts are also expected in 2010.
The Chinese manufacturer TCL has developed a 42-inch LCD 3D TV called the TD-42F, which is currently available in China. This model uses a lenticular system and does not require any special glasses. It currently sells for approximately $20,000.
LG, Samsung, Sony & Phillips intend to increase their 3D TV offering with plans to make 3D TV sales account for over 50% of their respective TV distribution offering by 2012. It is expected that the screens will use a mixture of technologies until there is standardization across the industry.
3D imaging dates to the beginning of photography. In 1844, David Brewster introduced the Stereoscope, a device that could take photographic pictures in 3D. It was then improved by Louis Jules Duboscq and a famous picture of Queen Victoria was displayed at The Great Exhibition in 1851. By the Second World War, stereoscopic (3D) cameras for personal use were already fairly common.
3D movie development was parallel to that of 3D pictures and images. Already in 1855 the Kinematoscope was invented, i.e. the Stereo Animation Camera. The first anaglyph movie was produced in 1915 and in 1922 the first public 3D movie was displayed – The Power of Love. In 1935 the first 3D color movie was produced.
In the fifties, when TV became popular in the United States, many 3D movies were produced. The first such movie was Bwana Devil from United Artists that could be seen all across the US in 1952. One year later, in 1953, came the 3D movie House of Wax which also featured 2D sound. Alfred Hitchcock originally made his film Dial M for Murder in 3D, but for the purpose of maximizing profits the movie was released in 2D because not all cinemas were able to display 3D films. The Soviet Union also developed 3D films.
There are several techniques to produce and display 3D moving pictures.
Common 3D display technology for projecting stereoscopic image pairs to the viewer include:
- Anaglyphic 3D (with passive red-cyan glasses)
- Polarization 3D (with passive polarized glasses)
- Alternate-frame sequencing (with active shutter glasses/headgear)
- Auto stereoscopic displays (without glasses/headgear)
Single-view displays project only one stereo pair at a time. Multi-view displays either use head-tracking to change the view depending of the viewing angle, or simultaneously project multiple independent views of a scene for multiple viewers (automultiscopic); such multiple views can be created on-the-fly using the 2D plus depth format.
Various other display techniques have been described, such as holography, volumetric display and the Pulfrich effect that was used by Doctor Who for Dimensions in Time in 1993 by 3rd Rock from the Sun in 1997 and by the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week in 2000, among others. Real-Time 3D TV is essentially a form of auto stereoscopic display.
Stereoscopy is most widely accepted method for capturing and delivering 3D video. It involves capturing stereo pairs in a two-view setup, with cameras mounted side by side, separated by the same distance as between a person’s pupils. If we imagine projecting an object point in a scene along the line-of-sight (for each eye, in turn) to a flat background screen, we may describe the location of this point mathematically using simple algebra. In rectangular coordinates with the screen lying in the Y-Z plane (the Z axis upward and the Y axis to the right) and the viewer centered along the X axis, we find that the screen coordinates are simply the sum of two terms, one accounting for perspective and the other for binocular shift.
Consumers Very Impressed by Newest 3D TV Technology
New 3D TV technology is so impressive, if you are in the market for HDTV, you might want to wait to examine more models, shell out the extra few hundred dollars for 3D TV instead and move to the head of your gadget-packing peer class.
That’s the news from initial findings in preliminary tests of three of the newest 3D models, two 46-inch LCD models from Samsung and a 50-inch plasma set from Panasonic, conducted by Consumer Reports (CR), the respected, independent tester and rater of consumer goods and services.
Preliminary tests “have been impressive,” the non-profit Consumer Union operation reported.
“The high-definition, 1080p images on these TVs have excellent three-dimensional depth, color, and detail — especially with animated content — creating a compelling and realistic three-dimensional experience. You’ll be ducking when that Frisbee comes flying toward you!” CR reported.
While largely positive, preliminary tests revealed only minor “performance differences between the models, which in the 3D mode are mirroring some of the differences we see when we test LCD and plasma TVs with regular high-definition programs.”
CR said as of mid-March, there were three 3D TVs in stores: two LCD sets from Samsung, the 46-inch UN46C7000 — $2,600 at Sears; and the 55-inch UN55C7000 — $2,970 at Best Buy and $3,300 at Sears.
CR said the 50-inch Panasonic TC-P50VT20 plasma it tested was available in select Best Buy Magnolia stores for $2,500.
Models from LG, Sony, Toshiba, and Vizio are coming down the assembly line and expected to arrive in a few months.
“The big one (question), of course, is whether these new TVs can recreate the 3D excitement we’ve been getting in movie theaters in our own homes. Based on our exclusive tests of the first models available, the answer is a resounding “yes,” the publication reports.
With real 3D TV programming still on the horizon, 3D TV buyers will have to also shell out up to $400 for a 3-D Blu-ray player to watch 3D DVDs. While most 3D TV models are packed with a pair of two of the cool-looking 3D shutter glasses, you’ll have to shell out another $150 a pair for full family fun, according to Jim Wilcox, senior electronics editor at Consumer Reports.
Get the full scoop from CR in “7 things you need to know about 3D TV” as well as from additional CR 3D TV research, test results and content.
Warning About 3D TV by Samsung
Samsung Warning note with new 3D TV’s:
- Note that watching TV while sitting too close to the screen for hours may weaken your eyesight.
- Note that watching TV while wearing 3D active glasses for many hours may cause headache or fatigue.
- If you feel headache, fatigue or dizziness, stop watching TV and rest.
- Some 3D pictures may startle or excite viewers. The pregnant, elderly, and eplleptic and those suffering from a weak heart or serious car sickness are advised to avoid watching 3D pictures.
- We don’t recommend 3D pictures to those who are in bad physical condition, who are in want of sleep or who drank liquor.
- When watching 3D pictures, ensure you do not place any object that is harmful or can easily be broken near you. Being startled or deluding yourself into thinking that the 3D images are real may cause you to crush a nearby object or get injured trying to move your body.
Well, if that’s not encouraging I don’t know what is. If your technology is not suitable for the pregnant, elderly, or eplleptic, count me in. Pehaps the “crushing a nearby object” is a little far fetched, but hell if it can get me that excited, I’ll take the precaution. Thanks Samsung, hopefully your new 3D TV’s will be so good that this warning note will actually have value.
