The Masters in 3D will require you to manually select side by side
By Ben Drawbaugh 
posted April 7th 2010 6:34PM
posted April 7th 2010 6:34PM
So you have Comcast's HD service, love golf, and have already picked up one of the latest 3DTVs from Samsung or Panasonic. Everything you need to enjoy The Masters this week in 3D, right? Well actually there is one little detail you need to know -- otherwise it'll look like the image above. This 3D presentation came about pretty fast and Comcast, Time Warner Cable and others have yet to update set-top boxes with 3D aware firmware. The good news is that frame compatible side by side 3D doesn't actually require the box to know what's going on. The bad news is that the set-top box won't tell your fancy new 3DTV what format the 3D is in. Luckily the fix is simple, you simply need to tell your TV what type of signal it's receiving. Exactly how to do it will depend on your TV, but it shouldn't take too much digging around in the interface to figure it out.
I don't know about you, but I just plan to watch it that way on my non-3D TV and cross my eyes. ;)
But no, it sort of sucks that it's this way, since that'll obviously cut the horizontal resolution in half, but hey, better than nothing.
@jhoff80 As long as you can watch it on a screen that's a few inches wide, you can diverge your eyes to see 3D. I saw these images on engadget in 3D that way. Sucks as a way to watch TV tho.
They should just do what Colbert did and flicker between 2 cameras.
Unfortunately these images aren't formatted for cross-eyed viewing, but rather parallel viewing, which I am having the hardest time to get myself to snap into 3D. (I tried it on the online webcast), either I need to figure out how to do Parallel viewing or someone needs to release a cross-eyed version.
@shorties
I can not get the cross-eye thingy going, at all. But I have no problem at all with the parallel method. Just gaze at the picture, relax your eyes and let them drift like you're falling asleep. Then, when the two images overlap, focus.
The problem I have with the cross-eyes storage is that it puts the left image on the right, and the right image on the left. How illogical.
I wonder how poor the resolution of the 3-D broadcast will look in actuality. (We already know it's cut in half horizontally, but how will that translate?)
@Biggiesized
I saw the demo of DirecTV's side by side and it looked great. It look so good that most came away wondering why all DirecTV's HD didn't look that good.
Face the facts, 3D at home sucks. Who exactly wants to give up widescreen viewing and resolution for this trash? What a waste of time. Pass the one pair of glasses around!
How about we try to get every channel in HD first? Luckily consumers are stupid.
@Gorgula My sentiments exactly. There's still way too much SD programming out there to be talking about a new technology that requires the purchase of a new television.
3d is about the only way you would ever catch me watching golf on tv. i want a green/cup cam thou where the ball is coming right at the camera.