Ready or not, the latest 3D technology is coming home
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted Oct 26th 2009 2:06PM
posted Oct 26th 2009 2:06PM
posted Oct 26th 2009 2:06PM
The percentage of returned gadgets that have nothing wrong with them.
Of the $13.8 billion worth of returned products in 2007, only 5 percent were because gadgets were actually broken, according to a 2008 study.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
3D TV is going no where fast. No one cares.
Hurm - the post isn't entirely correct - 3D a long time ago did not use the colored lense - but the dark ones that have come back into 'fashion'.
"because no matter what you say, there are more people paying extra to go 3D movies than ever and the reason is simple;"
There's a huge difference between wearing glasses at an occasional movie and wearing them for day-to-day TV watching. There's also a huge difference between a $10 movie ticket and dropping $$$ on a new HDTV.
Not to mention the impending 3D technology war. It will be years before the technology is sorted out and there's a clear winner or two.
Isn't that also an argument that could be used against Blu-ray discs?
There's a reason people go to the theatre and pay $10.00 for a ticket and another $mortgage dollars in concession stand pricing. Its because they want the big surround sound like 5.1 to 7.1 systems and high resolution big picture.
Nobody's going to buy a tv over 42" at home, or a 7.1 sound system or high definition discs/tv. Sure its ok for the occasional treat but its completely different watching it everyday on a day-to-day basis!
BE CAREFUL PEOPLE. VIDIKRON SPEAKS THE TRUTH! BE WEARY OF CHANGE FOR BETTER CLARITY OR DEPTH IN YOUR ENTERTAINMENT SERVICES. IT'LL NEVER LAST. NEVER!!!! GIVE ME MY STANDARD DEFINITION OR GIVE ME MY FREEEDDDOMMMMMMMM.
Sarcasim aside, seriously, at first the only products in 3D HD will be the occasional pixar movie on cbc, cbs, etc on Sunday nights. Then slowly hit shows like the Mentalist, etc. Then shows with sexy males or females(of course). It'll take forever for Rachael Ray to be in 3D HD so rest assured delicious food won't be popping out at you for a while. Heck, it'll never make it onto Oprah until a fat-filtering technology can be applied to the lenses so she looks suprisingly two dimensionally thin.
@wes:
the difference is that having a big tv at home is awesome, whereas wearing glasses to watch tv all the time will suck ass.
Ben,
Have you been able to get any specific details about when and where that Panasonic truck is going to be? Their website doesn't reveal anything. I'd love for them to swing though N.C. so that my friends can go see the demo we saw at CEDIA - _very_ cool stuff. Like you, I was blown away at he sports.
Now, if only they could come out with some cool 3D active shutter glasses that make me look like Bono..or Lenny Kravitz.
Sometimes when I watch a blu-ray movie the clarity is so perfect that I can perceive the depth and the image almost seems to have a 3-D quality to it because it's so clear.
I would wear 3D glasses at home to experience that all the time. It's not about having images pop out of the screen in a gimmicky way. It's about depth perception, it's the next level of reality in HD, and if you don't want to bother with it you'll be missing out on the best there is to offer.
Why there is so many people unwilling to accept a new video technology on EngadgetHD I'll never know.
Have any of you guys even seen a demo of this new style of 3D? Or are you just blindly hating on it because it's different?
@Vidikron
The goal right now isn't to get all day-to-day viewing in 3D, the same way every single thing wasn't in HD in the beginning. Of course you don't need to watch the local news in 3D, but why wouldn't you want special events such as the Super Bowl or the newest action flick in 3D in your home if possible? That's the same thing as people "wearing glasses at an occasional movie", it's to supplement the experience.
And just because they're starting to get the ball rolling on 3D footage doesn't mean that you need to go buy a 3D capable display tomorrow. Again, this is the same as when HD was gaining ground and starting to become affordable for mainstream. 3D has been in DLP sets for a couple years now, and it will be a new feature on the high end flat panels. Just like 120+hz on LCD's, give it a year or two and it will be a feature that trickles down to all the models. So in a few years, when you're ready to get a new TV it won't really be a feature that you need to search for, it will just be supported if you want to use it.
@ PJ
Sony and Panasonic have already said that their new 3D sets will be fully backwards compatible with current 3D shutter technology. It says that in the linked Engadget article. And if anybody was to make their own "version" of 3D technology it would be Sony, if they're on the bandwagon I don't see anybody else steering to far off.
I just saw the 103" Panasonic Demo truck on Friday and was thoroughly not impressed. They showed clips of the Olympic opening ceremonies and of some Grand Canyon footage and I thought it looked worse than it does on my 50PZ800 in 2D. Maybe I would just need to get used to it but it looked very fake. Also the glassed were not comfortable and I don't think I could even stand to have them on for a 90 minute movie let a lone a 4 hour Superbowl or something like that.
That camera lens look like wall-e lol
That camera looks like Johnny 5 was disassembled.
A new AV technology is sorta like a new version of Windows:
(1) You can be sure there will be hype in abundance
(2) When it is first delivered, it will have rough edges
(3) It'll takes some time to smooth out the rough edges. Years, in fact.
(4) And even after all that, it still may end up being a dud (HD-DVD, Vista)
This applies to folks who got Blu-ray and HD-DVD players as soon as they came out, and first-generation plasma displays, and so on, and so on.
While 3D TV sounds very exciting, conceptually, I hope nobody gets offended if I just sit out this dance until the units are actually in stores, proven, reliable, we have 3D content readily available, and we've addressed the first wave of "gotchas" nicely.
"because no matter what you say, there are more people paying extra to go 3D movies than ever and the reason is simple;"
that's because my local theaters didn't give me an option if i wanted to see it in 3d or not... i've driven 30 minutes out of my way to watch a movie NOT in 3d because the theater had that option...
and yes, it's still that crappy 3d i grew up with...
I don't think 3-D will have any serious progress until they get rid of the glasses, and not because you look ridiculous wearing them. What if I have a Super Bowl party at my house and we want to watch it in 3-D? If there are say 20 people there, am I going to have 20 sets of glasses laying around? How about just another couple come by to watch a movie. Will I have to invest in 4 sets of glasses even though 2 of them are only used on occasion? What about when I have kids and they hide the glasses and I miss the first 10 minutes of a game looking for them? So you see, glasses present a rather big hurdle for the technology beyond their looks.
In order for 3-D to take off, there needs to be no requirement for glasses, viewing angles have to be as good as current LCD's and plasma's, and the content has to be compelling. At the moment I see none of those happening anytime soon.
I don't think 3-D will have any serious progress until they get rid of the glasses, and not because you look ridiculous wearing them. What if I have a Super Bowl party at my house and we want to watch it in 3-D? If there are say 20 people there, am I going to have 20 sets of glasses laying around? How about just another couple come by to watch a movie. Will I have to invest in 4 sets of glasses even though 2 of them are only used on occasion? What about when I have kids and they hide the glasses and I miss the first 10 minutes of a game looking for them? So you see, glasses present a rather big hurdle for the technology beyond their looks.
In order for 3-D to take off, there needs to be no requirement for glasses, viewing angles have to be as good as current LCD's and plasma's, and the content has to be compelling. At the moment I see none of those happening anytime soon.
Stupid comment system.
Ben's article is a bit insulting. He believes that the readers on this site are too stupid to understand that 3D isn't the same as it was 30 years ago. Apparently none of us have been to an animated film in the last two years.
Ben, we've seen it. It's neat, but it's not worth it. In order for 3D to catch on, it needs to be viewable WITHOUT glasses. That might even mean those without glasses can only see a 2D image. Right now, those without glasses get a headache.
Otherwise, it'll be the same splash in the pan it was 30 years ago.
yes i am in the same boat yall need to stop hating on the 3d i for one cant wait and i know i dun said this over and over time again this not the 50s 3D its 2009-10 3D come on people please get off that hating vibe u have in ya fingers when u type ya silly comments on why you are not gonna do this or do that i will be gettn one of these 3DTVs by the end of the year i just gotta find the right glasses for them
well cashmonee if ure like me when u done watchn tv,playing the game,etc u know to put up ya toys right controllers,remotes etc so ya kids wont get to them now i understand the of buying more than 1 pair i ve thought about that two that just a choice u gonna have to make.......see me i will buy a few pairs of them glasses for me and my family thats only 4-6 pairs in the future some movies will come pack with the glasses fa the same price um i just read that avatar game will come with a pair of the glasses too beside who said anything about taking them outside to wear on the streets hmmm what are u on over there dawgg
The punctuation and grammar in by jesse and hoodgangstaz makes me fear not only for the future of the English language but also the fate of the planet.
From Idiocracy:
".. the English language had deteriorated into a hybrid of hillbilly, valleygirl, inner-city slang and various grunts. Joe was able to understand them, but when he spoke in an ordinary voice he sounded pompous and faggy to them."
It happens more and more every day.
On to the subject now.
3D does have the potential to take off with Glasses required. Early adopters with disposable income will purchase the technology just to look cooler than their friends. Mass adoption of the technology probably won't happen until the requirement to use glasses is gone.
And, of course, I screwed up in my own post.
I would be happy just to watch full-bandwidth 1080i without any compression artifacts on my 42'' panny.