Panasonic 3D TV Does Not Disappoint 143
Engadget recently had a chance to try out Panasonic's 3D demo rig, and, aside from the goofy glasses, report some impressive results. "Active shutter 3D technology once again did not fail to impress, though large format action content like the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony and action sports footage was far more impressive than the movie trailer. The benefit of a picture where everything, regardless of distance from the camera, is in focus is one of the biggest benefits 3D has going for it and nothing makes that more apparent than video from a large stadium. Aside from a few glitches from a pair of the glasses being low on battery and flickering annoyingly throughout, the framerate was smooth and the picture sharp, a marked difference from the jittery motion we witnessed during JVC's 3D demo earlier in the day."
3D (Score:5, Informative)
This all 3D-to-the-eyes is an old trick, but over the past year I've started to think that now theres actually good technology available for it.
I purchased myself the NVIDIA 3D Vision [nvidia.com] and played with it on various games. My favourite game for the past year has been left4dead and the 3D effect on it is really outstanding - everything looks so much scarier and you actually feel like being there.
The old cheap tricks are quite obsolote now as tech has improvent. But the future of gaming and movies surely is in this 3D and "be there" experience. Even MS and Sony have admitted that just pushing megapixels and polygony amount isn't the best thing, as they're at their maximum already anyway. We always see these things in movies, but the technology isn't really far from there now.
Now the only thing is about making it convenient for end users.
Re:Glasses breaks the deal for me (Score:4, Informative)
Whatever became of those autostereoscopy displays?
The most mature non-glassed 3D technology is lenticular lenses (same as the post cards), but unfortunately you get a resolution reduction for every additional "view" you provide, and you need to provide about 45 views before it starts to look really good and not have very large "un-sweet spots" where you get an image with the wrong parallax in your eyes.
I saw a nice autostereo display based on a Quad-HD 2D LCD screen with a lenticular lens array, but these are not really commercially viable yet.
Acousto-optical wave computer-generated holography is advancing as well, but still needs a few years.