Hardware CES 2011: Toshiba demos glasses-free 3D

No specs or 'sweet spot' required, but they're not going to be cheap.

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2011/01/06/toshiba-demos-glasses-free-3d/1

 

So no special 3D films on this, everything is simply made a little 3D?

 

I'm sick of 3D. When will they put in the effort to start making good films again without ruining everything trying to get that "Wow! 3D!" moment in.

 

more interested in the 4k2k resolutions of large panels than the 3d effect.

 

Wearing glasses AND 3D shutter glasses sucks. So I'm very keen on 3D technology to move on. Nice to see some progress in the consumer market segment.

 

This was only a matter of time and I have been waiting for this developement with youthful enthusiasm.

This will be the defining moment of 3D in the living room due to the barrier of glasses.

 

While glasses based 3D is yesterdays tech for me (and I shunted it therefore), this is the genuine step forward needed to push 3D to mass-acception.
4K has been a japanese standart for some time now. We'll get it as "normal" 1080 here, but that's a good start.

 

i had Elsa 3d glasses and played half life with them about 12 years ago . It worked but i was expecting "more".
Recent 3d cinema is a little better but i doubt you can even get that quality level at home. I'll go back to another 3d cinema in 5 years and see if it's any better. till then - @home 3d will still be..... meh.

 

Great news! More tech, feed me. And check out those Sony 720p specs! Combine them with a kinect-like peripheral and trackIR ... Mmmmm!

To those suggesting the intro of consumer 3D is just another way to get people to rebuy media they already own, but in 3D - that is not entirely accurate unless you are a brain-dead fan who insists on owning hard copies of all their fave media on whatever format gets newly released (ie. VHS to DVD to BD and now to 3D). I already have Sky HD and Sky 3D is included in my package, therefore I already have access to 3D films etc whenever I want them. No need to rebuy anything, I just set my Sky boxes to record the films/content whenever it gets shown. I don't buy any films these days, saving myself hundreds of pounds over the year.

 

Can we report these TV's to trading standards as they are only 2D with a 3D effect / illusion.
Till they do propper 3D not intrested. Glasses or not.

 

So you'll only be happy when Bruce Willis jumps out of your TV and punches you in the face?
ALL 3D technology is an illusion at the end of the day...

 

Chuck Norris already can

 

Just give us holographic technology already!!

 

yeah, save us Obi-Wan!

 

Ill wait until all the initial heath scares are over and prices of TV drop. Haven't fully jumped on the HD bandwagon yet since the ps3 is the only blu ray player in the house and only 2 tv's are even HD ready. No point upgrading either until digital actually works in our area (still not officially in a digital reception area) and gets more HD channels worth watching!
wonder how well these will work with people who are blind in one eye. A problem my friend has with the current incarnation of 3D. The first time I tried 3D i was one of the few who suffered from headaches and motion sickness, recently I went back and tried 3D again and was left very unimpressed. The films the guy in the shop showed me left me feeling 3D is a waste of time. Animations work well but Alice and wonderland and resident evil where horrible to watch due to the scenes being so dark and fast panning was just a disorientating blur. Yes it is good in some cases but overall Its just not brilliant. While removing the glasses means its easier to pick up and use for a slightly extended period of time, I can still see it having the "Alice in wonderland problem" of just not working

 

Obviously won't let them see 3D - all 3D display technology relies on presenting a different perspective of the same scene to each eye. If your friend only has one working eye, he won't be able to perceive depth in a 3D image, but then he can't perceive depth in the real world either, at least not by stereoscopy. His brain has probably adapted to compensate for this to a degree by relying more on parallax and focal range depth cues and on his other senses.

 

I still don't see glasses-free 3D taking off any time soon. Ultimately you need to be able to present a different image to each eye to create a 3D effect. There are, as I see it, only a limited number of ways to achieve this:

(a) you use a filter over each eye to selectively present a different image to each eye. I know of 4 distinct implementations of this:
(i) alternate frame with synchronised shutter glasses ("active" 3D as deployed on most consumer 3D TVs);
(ii) alternate lines with left/right circular polarising filters on the TV and the glasses (as used in the sort of setup you're likely to see in a pub);
(iii) alternate frame projection through a single projector with an alternating polarising filter and left/right circular polarising glasses (as used in the "real-d" 3D projectors currently used in most of the new generation of 3D cinemas); or
(iv) twin projectors, one with a horizontal polarising filter and the other a vertical filter, matched to corresponding filters on viewers' glasses (as used in IMAX).

I've seen all of these, and Real-D is by far the most comfortable and convincing to watch. I find cross-talk to be a real problem in IMAX and active shutter setups (though I believe plasma can reduce this compared to LCD 3D TVs, which is all I've seen), and the 'passive' LG LCD I saw just felt wrong. Active shutter also gives me a real headache after less than a minute, though the interaction with the horrible fluorescent lights in the store where I tried it probably contributed to that.

(b) some sort of mechanism to direct a different image to each eye from the display, with no glasses required. This is how the Nintendo 3DS works, using lenticular lenses in front of each column of pixels. I imagine this works well on 3DS, because typically you only have one viewer and he's looking straight on. The problem is you need to be in a sweet spot to make it work, otherwise the left and right eyes may see the same image (so you get a 2D image), or (worse) the images may be received by the wrong eyes, so you get a screwed up 3D image where depth is reversed, which I imagine would bend your brain pretty quickly.

(c) a system which somehow detects viewers' eye positions and adaptively displays each pixel in such a way that the left and right eye of each viewer sees only the appropriate pixels. Apple has just patented such a system, but at present I think it is fanciful that it could be implemented, especially for multiple viewers. Maybe in 20 years.

(d) some sort of holographic projection. This is what naysayers mean when they talk about "true 3D" and say that current stereoscopic solutions aren't "real 3D" they're just "2D with a 3D effect / illusion". Sadly not going to happen any time soon, and even if the display technology existed, the bandwith required to transmit such an image (if you could even figure out how to capture it) would be enormous, as you're representing not simply 2 perspectives on the same scene, but the entire scene in 3D. Maybe in 50 years.

 

forget all that above, just hack optic nerve and viola. cant wait for the future

 

this is what will really launch the 3d market who wants to spend upwards of $200 per 3d glasses its just stupid so I hope all the companies shift in this direction.

 

Having been at 95% of 4K for a few years (albeit with a bit of a hacked setup) I'll say now that once we have that it'll be real hard to go back.

decent & thoughtful explanations of 3D techniques

A: Glasses) Most versatile. I've tried some that I don't mind. And I say that as someone who wears glasses every day.

B: No glasses, 1 image per eye) Forever limited to a single user in the sweet spot. Could be awesome for certain things but of limited use.

C: Detect viewers eye positions) I expect this to be crazy complex for multiple viewers and foresee that leading to displays that are "good for up to _ number of viewers only".

D: Holograms) Easiest with computer simulations and perhaps live actors would all end up being motion captured then rerendered in computers. The big question is what resolution would be good enough? Another issue is that, while being the most 3d of the bunch giving every viewer a slightly different angle on the show could end up ruining the show for those not in the sweet spot (though I guess it would be like having bad seats at a play).