If you've kept even a loose eye on our CES coverage this year, you'd know that 3D is firmly "in." But our main gripe is that the glasses requirement makes it largely impractical for in-home use. Intel had a comparison demo setup in its massive booth, and it had a top display arranged to showcase glasses-free 3D and the bottom to demonstrate the more traditional glasses-required 3D. A technician at the booth explained that the footage was all specifically shot to fit the format, and a special overlay was applied to the 3D HDTV in order to complete the magic. He confessed that the resolution was "sub-720p," and there were only eight specific places that you could stand at in order to actually get the full experience. We stood around 10 feet back, dead center, and were downright wowed by the results. You could honestly see loads of depth, and everything appeared buttery smooth. Stepping closer resulted in less-than-awesome visuals, but we're definitely stoked by the possibilities here. Take note, TV / content makers -- glasses free > glasses-required.
Yeah, that display definitely shows that autostereoscopic displays have loads of potential. Lots more work to be done, but that is the future, not the stupid glasses required tech that littered the floor.
This requires a static overlay to bend the image. In the process, half gets angle seperated just right for the left eye, and half for the right eye. Of course, it'll be more lossy than that, so your horizontal resolution is probably just cut into 1/3 of what it was pre-3d.
AND, you have to stand within a 1ft square box for this to work, or you fall out of alignment.
The only way for this to work would be a system of mems lenses covering the surface of the tv, and a good tracking mechanism to determine where the user is. Downsides: It'll only work for like two people, and it's like two decades off.
@therodt 3D won't fail. It is the natural evolution of display technology, just as high def was the natural evolution from low def and color was the natural evolution from black & white.
I do believe that it will fail in it's current, glasses required, form. "Natural" 3D will be the standard tech, but it will take a while to get there.
@nickl sooo... whats next? .... lets predict ... HERE
ok, soooo 4D is out... UV spectrum is OUT, ... telekinesis.... out .... hologram? ... are we really going there.. again? gosh darn-it what is left? I gots nuthen
@therodt I agree. Yes it's a natural step up from widescreen and HD, but HD is much better than SD. It was a huge step up in quality. 3D is different because it doesn't add anything, its not a big step up like HD was.
In Avatar I though the 3D distracted me from looking at the beautiful visuals. I haven't watched it in 2D but I'm sure it would be just as good.
@XTer I don't know what you're smoking to make a comment like that. Without 3D you wouldn't have gotten that gut churning sensation of height when he first stepped to the edge of the branch and looked down at the distant ground below, and the nauseating flight chasing scenes would have had much less punch. I used to be a big 3D skeptic myself but this movie has definitely changed that. Even some simple scenes were enhanced by the 3D, such as when he was wheeling his chair in the container and I got a very vivid feeling of just how cramped the room was. At that point I experimented a bit and viewed the scene with and without glasses. Without the room looked considerably larger and less confining. I'm not saying that everything will always benefit from 3D, but most action movies definitely do.
You are actually completely correct. I saw Avatar in 3D first. I was not all the impressed. But a week later I was still annoyed as to if I liked it or not so I went back and saw it in 2D.
I can't even begin to describe how MUCH better it was in 2D. I could actually see and focus on the visuals. It was brighter, clearer, crisper. I actually felt more immersed where as the 3D felt...I'm still not sure, but not good.
How about some footage Engadget, would the effect be picked up on camera? Not all of us can go down to Best Buy and experience 3D to identify how great or gimmicky it is, which downright sucks.
I work with glasses free Alioscopy displays and I can say the effect is mind blowing. To produce video for this particular display I work with, the footage has to be captured from 8 slightly different perspectives. I agree it's the future as well because once you see it you want all screens and content to be peripheral free 3D.
To echo similar comments, the 2D video of the 3D demo makes it hard to see how '3D' it is, but I'll take your word for it... for now. Hopefully we can get some Best Buy demo kiosks by the end of the year.
There is one thing I really don't understand: I remember that almost 20 years ago I went to a technology convention here in Brazil with my parents, and I saw a prototype for a glasses-free 3D TV from a major company like Sony or Phillips (to remember exactly which one is too much for my memory), which I recall worked just like that: great experience from specific viewpoints. But still it was something so amazing I never forgot about it.
Now... that was 17 years ago at the very least, since I know I was just a kid when I saw that (I'm 32). I know it was just a prototype back then, but are these people really telling me that the tech for 3D TVs didn't get even a little better after all this time? What happened, these companies forgot they had already developed the tech and started all over?
This is from the Alioscopy website: "Alioscopy was founded in 1999 by Pierre Allio, who pioneered in glasses-free 3D displays and multiple view camera systems as early as 1986. Since then, a portfolio of patents covering all aspects of this groundbreaking technology has been registered."
4-5 years ago, Alioscopy came to the Ad agency I was working at the time and showed the equipment off, it ws running off a plasma TV with special coating as notd by Engadget - intending to flog them off to the Ad people (who can afford the $100,000+ per unit), it was amazing but like I said, it was just too expensive - even for an ad agency to recoup the cost from selling ads in a shopping mall... also all the 3D rendering (from 2D stock) has to be done by them, so there's another cost involved... I think this is nothing more than Intel having too much cash and want to show off at CES than showing a real marketable technology - it had NOTHING to do with Intel.
This demo had everything to do with Intel. Intel has been dipping into the 3D world for a short time now (http://scoop.intel.com/intru3d/). Last years Superbowl, they handed out 125 million 3D glasses for a few commercials, especially the preview for Monsters-vs-Aliens. Personally, I like the no-glasses area that they're venturing into, and yeah, it may help that a company with big pockets partner with the right companies to make this technology cheap and everywhere. My two cents...
Any manufacturer who thinks that people will pop on ridiculous-looking glasses (especially if one needs to wear normal glasses to see anything clearly) is insane.
Glasses-free 3D is what the industry should be focusing on. Skip spending the money on glasses-required 3D and pump it all into R&D for glasses-free.
I still think the answer lies somewhere in between stereographic laserdisc (ala Time Traveller from the 90's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Traveler_%28video_game%29) and this type of technology. I remember seeing Time Traveller in the arcade and just stared at it for like 30 minutes watching it endlessly repeat the demo. It was amazing and still is...
What's so special about this? I saw a 3D TV like that in a normal electronics store in Japan last year in October. I think it was made by Panasonic. Sometimes I am really surprised by what is "new" to Engadget editors.
And yes, enough with the "stoked". Makes Engaget read like a high-adrenaline infomercial sometimes.
i had a similar experience 3 years ago but i could move around and stand anywhere. i think it was philips ill-fated wowvx. don't know why they killed it off when it was so damn impressive
Higher resolution > lower resolution (a difference of a factor of 4) Filming 2 viewpoints > filming 8 (think production costs) Being able to view from any position > limited to 8
Glasses win, sorry. Deal with the MINOR inconvenience
Why they don't make a screen with 2 panels in the back (essentially 2 screens) and the left will display frame , black frame , frame and the right 2x the normal frame , isn't that how the shutter glasses were supposed to work ?
@geekyboy, they work like that, but you're missing the key component in your calculation - shutter glasses alternate between left and right eye, which is impossible to do on the screen itself - otherwise glasses-free 3D would be in every home for years...
The SEGA Hologram Time Traveler arcade machine wasn't actually a hologram. It was just a regular 2D laserdisc and a Sony Trinitron monitor that was reflected in a parabolic mirror. Nothing 3D about it at all.
Glasses-free is the only way to go for this tech. When we see it in the theatres, that's when 3D will actually hit the ground.
@Extinction: Good point. There's a lot of stereoscopic 3D content that is being produced right now and investments being made in 3D cameras based on this technology. The glasses-free 3D requires completely different equipment, which is significantly more expensive. I don't see anyone making this kind of investment now. Also, if the equipment gets too complex, it reaches a point where it immensely affects the actors and directors in doing their job. 3D will make even sucky movies interesting for a while, but it would be nice if in the year 2020, an actors in a 3D movie could also win a Best Actor Oscar.
In any case, I also don't see the glasses as such a big deal. Perhaps it's because I wear glasses every day, so I don't feel like whining about this so much. It's nothing compared to the inconvenience that we'll have to deal with when brain implants for VR movies leave the prototype stage.
@JJ for the types of screens it makes more sense if it used face tracking cameras to simulate 3D. since that sort of technology only works on 1 person and 22 inch screens are more personal than 40 inch tv's,
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posted January 10th 2010 2:08AM
Hard to tell from the video how good the glasses-free 3D looks. I wish I could be at CES :)
@nerdherd
Omg, you can TOTALLY see the difference in that video!
Everything looks so crisp and 3D!
@Erb i used my ..... shhh ... IMMAGINATION! ... shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
@Erb Right wow, it popped out
@nerdherd
This is going to do wonders for Porn.
@Eugene Action
as in imgtec?
Yeah, that display definitely shows that autostereoscopic displays have loads of potential. Lots more work to be done, but that is the future, not the stupid glasses required tech that littered the floor.
Now we're talking. This is the future.
@Anphaser
Yeah, the future of porn.
@Scribbles
As everyone knows, the future of porn is the future of everything.
@Delta IDK about you guys... but I think that bottom 3D video was about to get a little freaky ...
@Anphaser It's an exceedingly difficult future.
This requires a static overlay to bend the image. In the process, half gets angle seperated just right for the left eye, and half for the right eye. Of course, it'll be more lossy than that, so your horizontal resolution is probably just cut into 1/3 of what it was pre-3d.
AND, you have to stand within a 1ft square box for this to work, or you fall out of alignment.
The only way for this to work would be a system of mems lenses covering the surface of the tv, and a good tracking mechanism to determine where the user is. Downsides: It'll only work for like two people, and it's like two decades off.
3d will fail. its a gimmick at best
@therodt
+1
@therodt 3D won't fail. It is the natural evolution of display technology, just as high def was the natural evolution from low def and color was the natural evolution from black & white.
I do believe that it will fail in it's current, glasses required, form. "Natural" 3D will be the standard tech, but it will take a while to get there.
@nickl sooo... whats next? .... lets predict ... HERE
ok, soooo 4D is out... UV spectrum is OUT, ... telekinesis.... out .... hologram? ... are we really going there.. again? gosh darn-it what is left? I gots nuthen
@therodt
I agree. Yes it's a natural step up from widescreen and HD, but HD is much better than SD. It was a huge step up in quality. 3D is different because it doesn't add anything, its not a big step up like HD was.
In Avatar I though the 3D distracted me from looking at the beautiful visuals. I haven't watched it in 2D but I'm sure it would be just as good.
@XTer
You would be wrong about that last part in your comment. 2D is NOT as good.
@XTer I don't know what you're smoking to make a comment like that. Without 3D you wouldn't have gotten that gut churning sensation of height when he first stepped to the edge of the branch and looked down at the distant ground below, and the nauseating flight chasing scenes would have had much less punch. I used to be a big 3D skeptic myself but this movie has definitely changed that. Even some simple scenes were enhanced by the 3D, such as when he was wheeling his chair in the container and I got a very vivid feeling of just how cramped the room was. At that point I experimented a bit and viewed the scene with and without glasses. Without the room looked considerably larger and less confining. I'm not saying that everything will always benefit from 3D, but most action movies definitely do.
@XTer:
You are actually completely correct. I saw Avatar in 3D first. I was not all the impressed. But a week later I was still annoyed as to if I liked it or not so I went back and saw it in 2D.
I can't even begin to describe how MUCH better it was in 2D. I could actually see and focus on the visuals. It was brighter, clearer, crisper. I actually felt more immersed where as the 3D felt...I'm still not sure, but not good.
@therodt agreed
the only way 3d will be popular is if its shown on holograms other than that its fail.
How about some footage Engadget, would the effect be picked up on camera? Not all of us can go down to Best Buy and experience 3D to identify how great or gimmicky it is, which downright sucks.
I work with glasses free Alioscopy displays and I can say the effect is mind blowing. To produce video for this particular display I work with, the footage has to be captured from 8 slightly different perspectives. I agree it's the future as well because once you see it you want all screens and content to be peripheral free 3D.
To echo similar comments, the 2D video of the 3D demo makes it hard to see how '3D' it is, but I'll take your word for it... for now. Hopefully we can get some Best Buy demo kiosks by the end of the year.
There is one thing I really don't understand: I remember that almost 20 years ago I went to a technology convention here in Brazil with my parents, and I saw a prototype for a glasses-free 3D TV from a major company like Sony or Phillips (to remember exactly which one is too much for my memory), which I recall worked just like that: great experience from specific viewpoints. But still it was something so amazing I never forgot about it.
Now... that was 17 years ago at the very least, since I know I was just a kid when I saw that (I'm 32). I know it was just a prototype back then, but are these people really telling me that the tech for 3D TVs didn't get even a little better after all this time? What happened, these companies forgot they had already developed the tech and started all over?
@DivinoAG
This is from the Alioscopy website: "Alioscopy was founded in 1999 by Pierre Allio, who pioneered in glasses-free 3D displays and multiple view camera systems as early as 1986. Since then, a portfolio of patents covering all aspects of this groundbreaking technology has been registered."
@SunDevil2012
4-5 years ago, Alioscopy came to the Ad agency I was working at the time and showed the equipment off, it ws running off a plasma TV with special coating as notd by Engadget - intending to flog them off to the Ad people (who can afford the $100,000+ per unit), it was amazing but like I said, it was just too expensive - even for an ad agency to recoup the cost from selling ads in a shopping mall... also all the 3D rendering (from 2D stock) has to be done by them, so there's another cost involved... I think this is nothing more than Intel having too much cash and want to show off at CES than showing a real marketable technology - it had NOTHING to do with Intel.
@tallfella
This demo had everything to do with Intel. Intel has been dipping into the 3D world for a short time now (http://scoop.intel.com/intru3d/). Last years Superbowl, they handed out 125 million 3D glasses for a few commercials, especially the preview for Monsters-vs-Aliens. Personally, I like the no-glasses area that they're venturing into, and yeah, it may help that a company with big pockets partner with the right companies to make this technology cheap and everywhere. My two cents...
Glasses free is absolutely the way to go, there has never been a doubt in my mind.
It's all about patience and development.
@epheterson
Agreed. 3D will never reach mainstream acceptance until there are no glasses required.
Just like all the other times 3D was poised to be the next big thing, it's DOA!
Any manufacturer who thinks that people will pop on ridiculous-looking glasses (especially if one needs to wear normal glasses to see anything clearly) is insane.
Glasses-free 3D is what the industry should be focusing on. Skip spending the money on glasses-required 3D and pump it all into R&D for glasses-free.
Enough with the 'stoked' already.
I still think the answer lies somewhere in between stereographic laserdisc (ala Time Traveller from the 90's http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Traveler_%28video_game%29) and this type of technology. I remember seeing Time Traveller in the arcade and just stared at it for like 30 minutes watching it endlessly repeat the demo. It was amazing and still is...
@Chaosdivine
+1 Time Traveller
@Chaosdivine '
Ditto.
What's so special about this? I saw a 3D TV like that in a normal electronics store in Japan last year in October. I think it was made by Panasonic. Sometimes I am really surprised by what is "new" to Engadget editors.
And yes, enough with the "stoked". Makes Engaget read like a high-adrenaline infomercial sometimes.
I want 3D....
but god save us from those glasses! So please intel, free us from this sin!
More like what? I don't understand.
i had a similar experience 3 years ago but i could move around and stand anywhere. i think it was philips ill-fated wowvx. don't know why they killed it off when it was so damn impressive
Higher resolution > lower resolution (a difference of a factor of 4)
Filming 2 viewpoints > filming 8 (think production costs)
Being able to view from any position > limited to 8
Glasses win, sorry. Deal with the MINOR inconvenience
@Extinction
The way I'll deal with it is by not buying a TV that requires 3D glasses, so yeah, we all win.
@Extinction
I'll take 2D high res over pseudo depth any day. Maybe once my eyesight becomes blurrier, I'll warm to the fuzzier 3D emulation?
Take note, Engadget writers, -- is not a hyphen or a dash, and putting it in an equation with ">" is especially confusing.
Why they don't make a screen with 2 panels in the back (essentially 2 screens) and the left will display frame , black frame , frame and the right 2x the normal frame , isn't that how the shutter glasses were supposed to work ?
@geekyboy, they work like that, but you're missing the key component in your calculation - shutter glasses alternate between left and right eye, which is impossible to do on the screen itself - otherwise glasses-free 3D would be in every home for years...
The SEGA Hologram Time Traveler arcade machine wasn't actually a hologram. It was just a regular 2D laserdisc and a Sony Trinitron monitor that was reflected in a parabolic mirror. Nothing 3D about it at all.
Glasses-free is the only way to go for this tech. When we see it in the theatres, that's when 3D will actually hit the ground.
@Extinction: Good point. There's a lot of stereoscopic 3D content that is being produced right now and investments being made in 3D cameras based on this technology. The glasses-free 3D requires completely different equipment, which is significantly more expensive. I don't see anyone making this kind of investment now. Also, if the equipment gets too complex, it reaches a point where it immensely affects the actors and directors in doing their job. 3D will make even sucky movies interesting for a while, but it would be nice if in the year 2020, an actors in a 3D movie could also win a Best Actor Oscar.
In any case, I also don't see the glasses as such a big deal. Perhaps it's because I wear glasses every day, so I don't feel like whining about this so much. It's nothing compared to the inconvenience that we'll have to deal with when brain implants for VR movies leave the prototype stage.
Who cares about expensive large screen t.v's, lets see this type of screen in a cheaper smaller 22 inch puppy as a monitor or a notebook.
Gimmie some 3D gaming love....
@JJ for the types of screens it makes more sense if it used face tracking cameras to simulate 3D. since that sort of technology only works on 1 person and 22 inch screens are more personal than 40 inch tv's,