First Look Preview with Panasonic 3D TV and NVIDIA 3DTV Play
NVIDIA announced 3DTV Play with its partner Panasonic today. 3DTV Play will enable 3D LCD, LED and Plasma TVs, such as those by Panasonic, to play 3D games and Blu-Ray 3D movies from PC to TV using NVIDIA’s new 3DTV software and a NVIDIA GeForce graphic-enabled PC. The software will retail for $39.99. Concurrent with the announcement, NVIDIA showed off 3DTV for the first time on Panasonic’s Touch the Future Tour. GamerLive.TV got an exclusive first look preview of the new technology as it caught up with the tour in Hollywood, California.
Nvidia 3DTV Software Allows For Desktop and Laptop Owners to Connect to 3D Television
Windows 7 or Vista easily will connect to your easily. Nvidia has announced the release of its new 3DTV Play software, which allows owners of desktops and laptops that use Nvidia graphics to connect their Windows Vista or Windows 7 systems to new 3D televisions. This looks like yet another branch of Nvidia’s 3D ever-expanding 3D initiative, which already encompasses 3D Vision (released last year) and 3D Vision Surround (due for release sometime this year).
3DTV Play can be run on any desktop or laptop with video hardware based on Nvidia GeForce GPUs, and that also has an HDMI or a DVI connector. It includes full support for all HDMI 1.4–compatible 3D TVs, and can display in 1080p24, 720p60, or 720p50 3D formats.
The 3DTV Play software will be available later this spring, and will be sold separately. Pricing has not yet been officially announced, but Nvidia expects it to be $39.99. According to an Nvidia statement, the software will also be made available for free (via a future software update) to current 3D Vision customers.
3D Gaming by NVIDIA and Panasonic
NVIDIA wants to show you how awesome 3D video games and movies can be, and it has teamed up with Panasonic for a US-wide road tour to display case the latest in 3D home the stage technology. As part of the tour, you’ll be able to test out PCs organization NVIDIA’s 3DTV Play software with Panasonic’s 3D HDTVs and close glasses (what a mouthful!).
3DTV Play let you play 3D games or watch 3D video from your PC, and it mechanism with well-matched GeForce GPUs, over 400 games out of the box, and supports 3D TVs with HDMI 1.4, with resolution up to 1080p at 24 frames per second. 3DTV Play isn’t now for gaming; it lets you watch 3D movies, view 3D images, and even look through 3D Web sites. There’s no release date yet for the app, but NVIDIA says it’ll be “available later this spring” for $39.99. Though, if you’re an NVIDIA 3D Vision owner, the software’s free.
While current PCs with NVIDIA GeForce cards will support 3DTV Play, 3D gaming requires twice the frameratw of 2D gaming, so newer, faster machines will provide the best experience for 3D. An NVIDIA rep told Gizmodo that the demo rigs used for some press previews were “inside a 3.5-foot-tall tower with a plexiglass side to show off the water cooling inside,” which I can only guess will not be cheap.
