3D capable Blu-ray players coming as soon as Q2 2010?
By Richard Lawler 
posted December 21st 2009 11:38AM
posted December 21st 2009 11:38AM
In one of the few analyst predictions that may actually make sense, Futuresource has peered into its crystal ball and decided that with a spec finally in place, we could see 3D Blu-ray players on shelves as soon as the second quarter of next year. Of course, according to specs the BDA revealed to HD Guru, that hardware will need to be able to feed 3D to displays at 1080p resolution in either 48fps (24 fps, for both the left and right eye) or 120Hz. Seeing that Broadcom has already announced its chipset that is expected to be fully compatible with the specification, and recalling the usual product cycles for new player introductions its not hard to see a scenario where Samsung, Sony and Panasonic are delivering their new top of the line players with that sweet new Blu-ray 3D logo as soon as the weather gets warm.
So are 3D blu-rays all going to be 24fps? I would hope they could at least go up to 30fps for each eye. Would be pretty sick if they could do 60fps for each eye.
I hope the 3D spec for TVs at least support 60fps for each eye at least for gaming purposes.
@reallynotnick for movies it will be 24 for most movies, 30 generally some cgi films and tv shows and new sports.
video games are different
@reallynotnick
The reason Blu-ray films are 24fps is simply because films are still shot on camera at 24fps. The technology is certainly there for studios to shoot at higher framerates (and in fact some shots are shot at higher frame rates to provide smoother slow-motion effects), but for whatever reason the film industry has not moved off of that spec. Some people actually prefer the 24fps look, claiming that it provides a more authentic experience and distinguishes film from home video, for example.
But whatever the reason, Blu-ray films are going to continue to be packaged at 24fps as long as the source material is 24fps, simply because it allows for the truest representation of the original content; displaying a 24fps film at 30fps (which DVD players have done for ages) requires 3:2 pulldown, which can produce choppy pans and interlacing artifacts.
Now, that said, TVs don't display 24fps material at 24Hz because the flicker would be terrible. I don't have the definitive reason why 24fps is acceptable from a projector in a theater but not on a screen, but that's just how it is. TVs display 24fps content at either 48, 72, or 120Hz (i.e. repeating the same frame 2, 3, or 5 times), which solves the flicker problem without introducing any issues involved with converting to a frame rate that is not a clean multiple of the source content.
@John H
Thanks, but I already understand the whole frame rate thing with movies and all that jazz. I was simply asking if there was support for higher frame rates in the 3D spec because not everything is only 24fps, such as TV shows and video games.
@reallynotnick
Ah ok, well in that case I kind of doubt that 1080p120 (i.e. 60fps to each eye) will be supported since the goals of the 3D spec are to minimize the required storage premium and maximize backward compatibility by allowing 3D movies to be viewed in 2D. The current BD spec allows 720p24, 720p60, 1080i60, 1080p24, and 1080p30, but NOT 1080p60. TVs can accept a 1080p60 signal and players can output it via upscaling, but video cannot be stored in that format on the disc. I could be wrong, but I think the goals of the 3D spec would preclude 1080p120 video being allowed on the disc, even if that's what's output from the player to the TV.
But I don't think that's such a terrible thing; I haven't heard of anyone needing 1080p60 on 2D films yet; it seems people are happy with either 24 or 30, and if they're not happy with it, they just use 1080i, which can actually look almost as good if not just as good as 1080p as long as the display is 1080p-capable and has a good deinterlacer.
@reallynotnick
Correction: Blu-ray does NOT allow 1080p30 to be stored on the disc. HD-DVD does (did?), but Blu-ray does not. 1080p video can only be stored at 24fps.
Avatar 3D on BD?
@PeterFnet Q4 2010 - releasing the 2D version sometime in Q1 or Q2 of 2010, then the 3D version towards the end of the year. They're going to milk Avatar, and I'm going to wait.
Will this work with existing sets?
@mtkupp
No.
@FORDY
Excuse me for being blunt.. it is possible, but it'd be really, really bad.
What I'm wondering is if we'll now start seeing Blu-rays released with a 2D disc along with a 3D disc, or if they will be able to put both on the same disc, or sold separately?
I don't think the current BD players can play 3D discs, can they?
@LarryL
Same disc. Technically it'll only be the 3D version of the movies, but if you want to watch 2D it'll only go with either the left or the right field.
Why do we have to wait till Q2 2010 when the years old PS3 is already forward compatible?
@FORDY Because, to my knowledge, the PS3 is the only blu-ray player on the market with the hardware (sans spec 1.4 for 1080p 3D games at 60FPS, but no other player will play games). While there are plenty that can have updates, none of them happen to sport the Cell. Again it could also be an HDMI Spec 1.4 thing, 48/60Hz 1080p 3D. Which is fairly useless as about all movies are 1080p/24Hz.