Monday, September 5, 2011

The Confusing World of 3-D Television

Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and Xpand 3D announced last month that they were forming a partnership to create a universal standard for 3-D televisions and for other devices like laptops that are capable of 3-D viewing.

This "Full 3-D Glasses Initiative" aims to create joint licensing for the Bluetooth (polarized glasses method of 3-D) and the separate infared-controlled shutter glasses so that 3-D is compatable across both standards. The initiative hopes to have products that meet this goal in the marketplace by 2012.

The new standard will not include the passive technologies of LG and Vizio. So the initiative isn’t truly universal. Some consumers are going to wind up with a "dying" standard, as when the Toshiba HD players lost to Blu-Ray or the betamax videotapes lost to VHS.

Though the 3-D television market is confusing, it is growing. From now on, all televisions over 40 inches will be 3-D compatible, according to In-Stat, an industry analyst group. It turns out that 3-D is an added feature to High Definition television (HDTV), not a different technology. 3-D television is available as either plasma television or as liquid crystal display (LCD) television (and some of these LCD models have backlighting to compensate for ambient light in a room).

The compatibility initiative refers to passive systems such as those from Panasonic, Samsung or Sony. Passive systems are similar to those in movie theaters. Active systems compensate for smaller screens and for the relatively bright lights in the rooms of most homes.

Active systems outsold passive systems with 937,000 units to 817,000 units in the second quarter of 2011. This is an advantage to the active system except that the glasses required can cost up to $100 each (the passive glasses are much less expensive, being polarized glasses with no signal reception nor shutter effect).
It will take at least five years for general availability, but 3-D with no glasses at all will be available eventually.

Toshiba unveiled on August 16th a new laptop, the Qosmio F775, which costs $1,700. [See http://laptop-computer-planet.com/blog/2011/08/03/toshiba-is-launching-a-3d-laptop-thats-glasses-free-on-august-16th/ ]

-- Summarized by the blog author from

http://www.technewsdaily.com/buying-guide-active-or-passive-3-d-tv-3144/

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