Consumer 3D Television Moving Forward 127
TheSync writes "Hollywood Reporter claims that SMPTE (the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) will 'establish an industry task force to define the parameters of a mastering standard for 3D content distributed via broadcast, cable, satellite, packaged media and the Internet, and played-out on televisions, computer screens and other tethered displays.' Already, Japanese Nippon BS viewers with Hyundai 3D LCD sets can watch an hour of 3D programming daily. Even your existing DLP TV set might be 3D capable today with the addition of LCD shutter glasses."
Reader DaMan1970 makes note of another developing television technology; telescopic pixel displays. "Each pixel consists of 2 opposing mirrors where the primary mirror can change shape under an applied voltage. When the pixel is off, the primary & secondary mirrors are parallel & reflect all of the incoming light back into the light source."
Format Wars and Standards (Score:4, Interesting)
TV used to be so relaxing (Score:3, Interesting)
And just when we got rid of flicker (Score:4, Interesting)
After decades of annoying flicker, strobing, and bad pans at 24FPS, we finally got LCD panels that don't flicker at all. Some monitors even time-interpolate to get the frame rate up, and framefree compression [framefree.com] is just starting to work. Now people want to crud it up with alternating-frame stereo. Bleah.
Stereo vision doesn't really do much beyond about 4m or so, and it scales badly for anything that isn't its real size.
There are some very cute 3D systems that are sensitive to head position, so you can move your head and have the scene adjust accordingly. But that doesn't work in theaters.
why? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't get why people want this. Most real-world 3D perception (the kind of scenes you see in movies) derives from motion parallax, not binocular stereo. Trying to use stereo for those scenes is completely unrealistic and visually disturbing.
Also, flat images are kind of scale free, but 3D scenes are not. If you watch Jurassic Park in 3D on your television, you really do see a bunch of 8 inch toy dinosaurs fighting in a little box. Ooh, scary.
Re:Unfortunately hard to take-off (Score:5, Interesting)
Well if you use a compatible DLP projector (such as those listed here: "http://www.stereo3d.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?3177/3347") instead of a pc screen with the shutter glasses, and make the screen very large, the 3d effect is just as if you are looking just as you would normally. Space faring games such as Eve or X3 look the most impressive since it appears that you are floating in infinite space and very massive objects are in your neighbourhood. The cave exploration scenes from Half Life 2 episode 2 were also quite gobsmackingly fantastic; if you put the room light on it appears as though there is a cave system adjunct to the room! And the imposing obsidian combine walls do cause claustrophobia. Stalker had the most detailed 3d models I've seen however, I stood walking around the busted old bus shelter for hours in amazement at it's realism. So did my friends and even my mother, so I think it does help to have a very large screen.
Simple, cheap and high quality 3D home theater (Score:3, Interesting)
You need:
1. A PC with support for two monitors (most)
2. Two projectors
3. Polarizing filters for the projectors (standard from photography store)
4. Polaroid sunglasses (lightweight and cheap)
I suggest circular right and left polarizes. Now set the two projectors next to each other, and superimpose the two images, put on glasses, and voila, you have a great 3D movie theater.
It it great that video standards are emerging, but it you can also DIY.
Still:You could use two cameras, but one camera in "rapid shoot" from a moving vehicle works beautifully; just take two sequential pictures on the two monitors.
Video: More of a hassle, but basically shoot the scenes with two cameras separated like your eyes, and play them. You will have to use special effect to merge the two videos together to get one that spans both monitors, or use video editing tools to synchronize two separate video signals.
Have fun
The new video 3D video standards will help making this easier.
Re:why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Current trends... (Score:3, Interesting)
several issues will keep 3d from mainstream:
{...}
The fact some people just can't plain see it despite having 2 eyes
Colour blindness hasn't stopped the introduction of colour TV. (BTW: Are people lacking stereo vision legally allowed to drive in the USA ?)
Astigmatism
This is a problem of using correct prescription glasses/contact lenses. In short, nothing to do with a stereo screen.
Battery life of wireless shutter glasses
Looking like a nerd
Well, if you have followed the trend on /. recently, it seems that most hardware maker are working toward cheap auto-stereo display (things that look 3D without glasses, just like the lenticular holograms on some DVD boxes). Which just look like plain simple LCD screens.
Motion sickness
Eye strain
{...}
When what your looking at is far away (like a movie screen), its a lot easier.
And the current trend with the recent introduction of HD TV is to have as big screens as possible. I now the average /. geek like to look movies in the privacy of his laptop. But the average joe 6-pack want to look at movies on the biggest possible honking LCD in his living room.
So to sum up, there aren't as much barriers to the introduction of stereo 3D TV.
And with the current trends in hardware it will be the easiest moment to introduce the technologie (unlike for example after several years, once DVB-T and other handheld TV reaches critical market share. Much hard to implement decent, simple and non nerdy stereo 3d on those devices).
Given the market potential for Porn (obvious reasons) and Sports (given the popularities of tech hacks to help joe 6 pack follow the match, or even systems like Hawk Eye - putting the viewer *inside* the match in 3D would probably be very much enjoyable) the demand for this kind of technology could be good enough to justify considering it.
Speaking of the obvious thought of porn, I'm surprised magazines haven't tried using stereoscopic pictures.
...I've seen Japanese hentai comic book featuring all sort of exotic "bonus artwork". Including even random-dot stereograms. I can ask the friend who owns the books if you want some references.
Re:Theaters must win on features, not performance. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think theaters will just die.
What, you don't like sticky floors, being locked in with hypercaffeinated brats who yap on their cell phones all the way through the picture, and the chance of acquiring whatever airborne maladies the sickest of your fellow theatergoers might be suffering from? Man up - what kind of consumer are you? (j/k)
The idea of using a central location to display entertainment content won't die out entirely until one or more of the following happens:
1. The viewing experience can be convincingly replicated at home (minus the negatives I outlined above of course). As home monitors get larger and more technologically advanced, this day is coming.
2. The producers of content (i.e. the studios) stop artificially propping up the horse-and-buggy system of central theaters and make their content directly available to the consumer on a zero-day basis. Again, this is already happening on a small scale. And consumers are starting to force the issue by utilizing P2P to download 1-day movies (invariably with crappy video and sound). So the lesson learned here is make your product available directly to the consumer on zero day the way you want to present it, and you get the twofer of having a new revenue stream as well as destroying the pirate's raison d'etre.
3. The idea of premiering movies at a central location will probably never die out completely because of the promotional value involved in staging premieres. Superfans in costume make great eye candy for the 10 o'clock news. There has to be some way of transferring the paradigm of the world premiere to everybody's living room. I just wish I had the answer to that.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Current trends... (Score:3, Interesting)
Astigmatism
This is a problem of using correct prescription glasses/contact lenses. In short, nothing to do with a stereo screen.
No no no, the glasses can GIVE you astigmatism. I've very much noticed this phenomena after using the shutter glasses for extended periods of time. Its temporary but noticeable. It makes me worry if there are any long term effects that may occur if I used this significantly more often than I did.