FrameCompatible
Latest
Follow the money; the real reason why your AVR doesn't support DirecTV's 3D
Follow this industry and you learn to accept that manufacturers are only motivated to add new features to new products, but when we first heard that DirecTV's 3D signal wouldn't let you pass frame compatible 3D through older AV receivers, we were scratching our heads. Sure the receiver never claimed to be 3D compatible, but the entire point of using frame compatible 3D instead of doubling the HD signal for 3D like Blu-ray is so the signal can be transmitted via existing HD equipment. So while DirecTV gets away with making minimal changes to its infrastructure, you have to replace just about everything you own. What was a mystery, is now crystal clear and of course its always about money, it isn't necessarily about DirecTV's money, this time. You see RealD owns the patent on frame compatible 3D formats like side by side, and if a display or receiver manufacturer wants its EDID on the list of supported devices, they have to pay for that right. So it isn't that DirecTV wants to prevent you from using your old receiver as much as it is about preventing those who don't license RealD's patents from being able to display 3D. Nice huh, but no one ever said it was about the customer.
The Masters in 3D will require you to manually select side by side
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.
