Samsung Is the Next Company To Try To Popularize 3D Displays (Again) (arstechnica.com) 80
Samsung is set to debut its new Odyssey 3D monitor at CES 2025, reviving the glasses-free 3D experience that manufacturers pushed on consumers over a decade ago. While details remain limited, the monitor reportedly utilizes a lenticular lens, stereo cameras, and AI to convert 2D content into lifelike 3D visuals, with a focus on appealing to gamers for broader adoption. Ars Technica reports: According to the South Korean company's announcement, the monitor's use of a lenticular lens that is "attached to the front of the panel and its front stereo camera" means that you don't have to wear glasses to access the monitor's "customizable 3D experience." Lenticular lenses direct different images to each eye to make images look three-dimensional. This is a notable advancement from the first 3D monitor that Samsung released in 2009. That display used Nvidia software and Nvidia shutter glasses to allow users to toggle between a 2D view and a 3D view through a few button presses and supported content.
Another advancement is the Odyssey 3D's claimed ability to use artificial intelligence "to analyze and convert 2D video into 3D." We've recently seen similar technology from brands like Acer, which announced portable monitors in 2022 and then announced laptops that could convert 2D content into stereoscopic 3D in 2023. Those displays also relied on AI, as well as a specialized optical lens and a pair of eye-tracking cameras, to create the effect. But unlike Acer's portable monitors, Samsung claims that its monitor can make 2D content look like 3D even if that content doesn't officially support 3D. [...] Interestingly, Samsung's announcement today only mentioned the release of a 27-inch, 4K resolution 3D monitor, despite Samsung teasing a 37-inch version in August. It's possible that the larger version didn't work as well and/or that demand for the larger size would be too small, considering the high price and limited demand implications of a glasses-free 3D monitor aimed at gamers. Further reading: Samsung, Asus, MSI Unveil First 27-inch 4K OLED 240Hz Gaming Monitors
Another advancement is the Odyssey 3D's claimed ability to use artificial intelligence "to analyze and convert 2D video into 3D." We've recently seen similar technology from brands like Acer, which announced portable monitors in 2022 and then announced laptops that could convert 2D content into stereoscopic 3D in 2023. Those displays also relied on AI, as well as a specialized optical lens and a pair of eye-tracking cameras, to create the effect. But unlike Acer's portable monitors, Samsung claims that its monitor can make 2D content look like 3D even if that content doesn't officially support 3D. [...] Interestingly, Samsung's announcement today only mentioned the release of a 27-inch, 4K resolution 3D monitor, despite Samsung teasing a 37-inch version in August. It's possible that the larger version didn't work as well and/or that demand for the larger size would be too small, considering the high price and limited demand implications of a glasses-free 3D monitor aimed at gamers. Further reading: Samsung, Asus, MSI Unveil First 27-inch 4K OLED 240Hz Gaming Monitors
Any 2D content? So porn? (Score:2)
Maybe it'll stick this time.
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Our brain can usually figure out and implement the 3D pretty well from 2D by itself so I don't know. Maybe...
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They say it automagically guesses the 3D out of the 2D images it converts whatever you're watching without need of specific contents.
Personally I'd love 3D screens to remain available (and affordable) for CAD. FreeCAD and blender have support for stereoscopy, but we are right now ridiculously limited to cyan/magenta glasses because there are no specific monitors anymore. I don't mind using glasses (e.g. polarizing), but the two-colour solution is quite uncomfortable to me.
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For a vertically-arranged lenticular lens (yeuch, linguistically ; but you know what I mean?) system, if the view is panning L-to-R, then you could slice the image vertically (to suit the lens orientation) and delay one set of slices by, say, 1 image period then present {time-
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The lenticular is just using a handful of narrow aliased viewing zones, repeating every X pixels on a diagonal (the lenticular is slanted so the resolution reduction is equally divided). It's not like a lenticular postcard, you only ever display a left and right eye image. Every pixel visible from both eyes is turned off and the rest are divided in two sets for left/right eye. That way visible pixel count "only" drops by that smallish X factor.
Problem with lenticular is that there's no way to turn it off, y
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PS. maybe I'm not doing it justice, the display they demo'd last year was 2D/3D. It could be that the lenticular array is below the LCD and has LED stripes aiming the light at eyes at alternating refresh. That would just cut refresh per eye in half, but leave resolution alone.
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That would be very difficult to achieve with LEDs. At least, by conventional lithography, on the oven-size wafer scale.
You might do better with LED-lasers pumping phosphors to diffuse the lased light. You should be able to control their direction to the necessary angle difference more easily.
How big an angle difference would you need? Human eyes are, on average, 70 mm apart (having calibrated hundreds of microscopes, I know I'm 73mm, which
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How I was imagining it was a blue LED array, with an anisotropic fly eye lens on top to project the LEDs as lines on a Quantum Dot conversion layer (common in QD-LCDs) to make white line segments. With the beams being semi-collimated to around 10mm at viewing distance.
The beams would slightly overlap, you would always have a couple aimed right. If everything is rigidly bonded, maybe you could correct alignment errors with software calibration at the factory? If mere vibrations could knock the alignment off
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Well, yes. That's part of the problem. You can achieve stereoscopic effects quite easily if you can hold the viewer's head aligned within a few mm in the apparatus (remember the range of pupil [eyeball optical centre] separations I mentioned ; they indicate the accuracy with which commercial stereos
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LED array -> fly eye -> QD layer -> lenticular -> LCD -> eye.
The fly eye lens is to avoid the need to make striped LEDs, you can just use the flip chip blue LEDs they are using for miniled displays now. They just need to be small enough to be able to focus well enough on the QD layer with the fly eye.
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PS. Samsung actually has a patent for your switchable lenticular idea. The patent also uses it behind the LCD.
https://patents.google.com/pat... [google.com]
My suggestion of LED->flye-eye->QD-layer would replace the "first display" in their patent, it's a cheaper and much more light efficient way to create vertical lines AFAICS.
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"lenticular" is an adjective, describing the shape of a lentil (half-)seed. "Lens" is the corresponding noun, also derived from the shape of the lentil (half-)seed. The so-called "lenticular screens" used on, e.g. novelty post cards have a lens shaped as parallel-axis prisms with the approximate profile of a lentil. Linguistically horrible, but comprehensible enough.
Putting the lens structure on a slant to the axis (either axis) of
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I'm too lazy to add lens array every time I say lenticular or fly eye :)
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There is very few "VR" porn around. More like tech-demos. Hence likely not a killer-app.
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I will. My wife doesn't care.
Wow, this is like 80% off now and with AI can make all the VR videos into AR content https://www.sexlikereal.com/pa... [sexlikereal.com]. Ho ho hoes.
And you definitely shouldn't admit to knowing about these stroker robots that they have AI generating scripts for:
https://discuss.eroscripts.com... [eroscripts.com]
https://www.aliexpress.us/item... [aliexpress.us]
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Is there are sarcasm tag here somewhere? Because if not I take it you didn't tell these guys?
https://www.sexlikereal.com/al... [sexlikereal.com]
Because it looks like they've got more than 32k videos [most 45min+] which not only support VR but also either explicitly or using AI support AR AND sync to stroker robots.
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There is very few "VR" porn around. More like tech-demos. Hence likely not a killer-app.
Not entirely sure what you're talking about but a quick google will show over 40 dedicated VR porn studios including many catering to particular fetishes (like girls with men's junk? I'm sure this will tickle you in your special place: https://www.groobyvr.com/ [groobyvr.com])
A quick torrent search will show most major current porn stars along with plenty of amateurs have VR content too. There's more and enough out there to keep even the most depraved porn addict's spank bank full.
Bullshit (Score:2)
Same as before. Same as a lot of other bad ideas that will not die.
The problem is not that the tech cannot work. The problem is no real mainstream applications. Same for VR. I guess when we get full sensory immersion, the porn industry will make this tech mature (pun intended) and profitable. But before? No chance. 2D is far too good and quite sufficient for immersion.
Re: Bullshit (Score:2)
Bring on the hate (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a 3D enthusiast. Iâ(TM)ve spent way more than most people on 3D hardware and was one of the 5 people who lamented the death of 3D TVs.
That being said, this is the wrong approach. 3D content is hard to produce, and bad 3D is WAY worse than no 3D. I would love native 3D output from game consoles. I think light field displays will take off some day. But you should not make 3D content out of thin air. Every single incorrect guess by AI in any frame will ruin the experience.
I hope I get proven wrong. And I want the ability to author my own 3D content for this thing.
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Lightfield display need to render too much, autostereoscopic (such as this display) makes more sense.
Re:Bring on the hate (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a collection of k-pop videos that were converted to 3d with AI and while there's loads of odd artifacts it can at times also look impressive (some content works better than others). That said these were converted in many hours of processing per minute of video. Also amusing is when people are using screens (phones, televisions) in those AI conversions they are also 3d, sadly in a way that current display tech can't do without sacrifices. There are some people in this thread saying 3d is pointless and lacking in consumer demand but I think it's largely just a technical problem with how the display tech has worked and how the content is produced. It would just be normal if you could do it without sacrifices.
Previous 3d Blu-Ray conversions don't have visual anomalies like AI conversions but they required a lot of work and often looked like they only had a few layers of depth just like bad AI conversion but I think this will incrementally get better with AI that can segment objects, infer a depth map, adjust for motion, fill in missing data, etc. And what takes hours of processing now will likely also be possible in real time with better models. It's a slow incremental march.
Re:Bring on the hate (Score:4, Funny)
Iâ(TM)ve spent way more than most people on 3D hardware
Well, that just means you've spent way more than $0.00.
Re: that just means you've spent way more than $0. (Score:2)
Oh, ouch, you nailed it.
My investment in 3D cameras, 3D capable TV, 3D capable Blue-ray, 3D capable laptop, 3D capable photo frame and so on did not deter me.
It was frickin sony/disney/etc charging double the price for 3D media and even delaying distribution of 3D media.
Just like VHS vs Beta, available media wins, not technical superiority.
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3D was supposed to be a cheap and easy upgrade for the TV content producers. You double the number of cameras, but beyond that it's basically the same workflow as 2D content for the most part. Only really high end movies get any special treatment.
Because consumers didn't want to watch sports or random TV shows and old movies in 3D, it failed. Using AI, or using a game engine, at least fixes the focus issues and makes it less fatiguing, but I still doubt most people will really care.
Re: Bring on the hate (Score:2)
Like the McRib sandwich (Score:4, Insightful)
There are a few people who really, really like the McRib, and wait for the "next time" it will come out again. Then when it does, they buy as many as they can, knowing it's going to be discontinued soon. The rest of us have no interest whatsoever in that blob of non-rib meat.
3D TVs are the same. A few love it, and anxiously wait for the new models. Maybe, just *maybe*, the next 3D TV will be *the* amazing one that fixes the underwhelming experience with the last model that came out. The rest of us just yawn and save ourselves a lot of money not going for the hype.
Just as the McRib marketing strategy works for McDonald's, the 3D TV marketing strategy works for the manufacturers. They are running to the bank happy.
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And nobody wanted video phones no matter how much AT&T pushed the concept, until suddenly everybody uses FaceTime and zoom.
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I'm pretty sure this will never, ever happy to the McRib. Or 3-D TVs, without some kind of revolutionary concept that lets every viewer see the 3-D effect, without glasses, whatever their position and orientation to the TV.
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It seems far more likely that VR/AR capable devices become always worn clothing that provides the display for your 'cellphone' which will no longer have a display of its own and contains the processing hardware.
Because you'll always be wearing these you'll be able to see not only be able to see 3D content without putting anything on but see and interact with mixed reality holograms in the room. There might even come a day where houses are filled with blank walls and white furniture and you dynamically load
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That, my friend, is as likely to happen as the year of the Linux desktop.
Re:Like the McRib sandwich (Score:4, Funny)
Oh my sweet summer child... you won't be singing that song in another 5-10yrs and within 20 we'll be there.
As for the year of the linux desktop, that too is pretty much inevitable at this point. People might not realize that Linux is running everything else but it is, including those Android phone and chromebook desktops and Microsoft has begun making everything in their ecosystem run anywhere you've got a browser. The death of the single purpose windows desktop is inevitable at this point and it is highly likely that whatever replaces it will really be linux under the hood.
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You will notice that the successful "Linux" OSes (Chrome, Android, iOS) are all driven by major corporations. That is *not* what the proponents of Linux on the desktop are looking/hoping for.
Yes, Linux has conquered the server world, but that a very different use case and customer base.
It will be interesting to see how your predictions play out.
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In no way is iOS a "Linux" OS. It does not use the Linux kernel, instead using the XNU kernel which is derived from Mach 2.5 and "userland" binaries that trace their lineage back to BSD 5.5 - also not "Linux."
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Sorry, Mac OSX, not iOS.
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Mac OS X, or to use its modern name, "macOS", is also XNU based. There are some GNU tools in the userland, but otherwise it's completely unrelated to GNU/Linux. It's mostly BSD based on the command line side userland, custom Apple/NEXT code for the GUI, and XNU itself is an open source project built upon a heavily modified version of Mach (a microkernel, though XNU's modified version isn't a microkernel) coupled with code cribbed from the *BSDs.
Basically the only thing Debian (to name a standard GNU/Linux b
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That's fair.
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Agreed. Mach is a distinct OS from Linux though I think they were both inspired by the same work https://www.amazon.com/dp/0131... [amazon.com].
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That is called "moving the goalposts."
As a linux proponent since the late 90's and the former owner of linuxcrusader.com I'm going to have disagree with you.
The companies come and go but their contributions remain. None of those companies control Linux and whatever control they do have can be taken away if they act in bad faith. That IS what proponents of Linux [on the desktop and otherwise] are looking/hoping for.
Even if the distribution [they are all distributions of one OS, linux, not separate OSes] is f
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I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with, because I agree with you. Except, perhaps, the notion that one day Linux will conquer the desktop.
Linux is like a project car. Those who have project cars, love them a lot, and constantly tinker with them. Those who just want transportation, buy something from a dealer, and when it needs attention, they take it back to the dealer, or to a mechanic.
People who just want to browse the web--they don't want a project computer, they want something that just works. If it
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"You will notice that the successful "Linux" OSes (Chrome, Android, iOS) are all driven by major corporations. That is *not* what the proponents of Linux on the desktop are looking/hoping for." --- This is what I'm disagreeing with. The free as in freedom software movement is not anti-profit or anti-corporation.
"Linux is like a project car. Those who have project cars, love them a lot, and constantly tinker with them."
The year 2000 called and wants your limited view of Linux back. My phone runs linux, my sm
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I understand our disagreement now, thank you for clarifying.
I find it interesting that most of the places you listed that run Linux (your phone, smart TV, thermostat, smoke alarm, SUV) are backed by...major corporations.
The time and weather display...you built (just like the car guy). Your grandma would never do that.
"Changing something" (cameras, scanners, printers, monitors, etc.) happens a lot, so discounting these kinds of changes makes no sense to me. This is *the* big reason Windows and Mac OS are so
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As for the year of the linux desktop, that too is pretty much inevitable at this point.
Oh man you're making me nostalgic for flared jeans and watching Buffy on my CRT TV. You're playing all the hits.
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And there were many articles written over decades about how dumb an idea video phones were, and how they would never work.
3D displays and VR are the same. When technology advances sufficiently to make it work really well, there will be lots of 3D displays. You can always use it for 2D if you want, just like you can make an audio only call on your smartphone. Until then, people will keep working on it, and when they think they've got something they'll release it to see how it does, and it will find some nich
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I'm not sure that's true. I think everyone did want video calls, but telcos saw it as an opportunity to charge through the nose for it. And the equipment was generally clumsy and expensive, rather than a part of whatever device you were buying anyway.
3D movies.. I'm honestly not sure if it'll take off or not. I can't stand the things, but my experience has always been with the glasses variety. Maybe it works better now? And who knows what technology improvements we might have in the future, especially in th
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That would be the same except the 3D content would be REAL ribs because it has depth and the 2D content is the crappy McRib that people are used to and therefore consider good enough. Why would anyone WANT to view content missing an entire dimension of viewing? If that is really good enough then you won't mind wearing an eyepatch and living in flatland.
The reality is that 3D tech was released at a point of immaturity where it gave half the viewers nausea and headaches. Toward the end of the ride this was fi
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What I don't get is why they don't just make McRib sandwich from actual ribs instead of whatever fake shit they are making? It will cost more, but it would be a hit. I know cause I fix myself actual rib sandwiches and they taste great.
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If they made McRib out of real ribs, they would immediately lose all the current McRib fans, who want it to be exactly what it is.
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"The rest of us have no interest whatsoever in that blob of non-rib meat."
False. The whole point of this is to claim extreme polarization that doesn't exist. It's just a sandwich, most people don't spend a moment thinking about it.
"The rest of us just yawn and save ourselves a lot of money not going for the hype."
False. For the same reasons.
"Just as the McRib marketing strategy works for McDonald's, the 3D TV marketing strategy works for the manufacturers. They are running to the bank happy."
And you thin
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Clearly, you haven't actually tried the McRib. If you had, you too would have an opinion about it.
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Interesting but I don't think it is exactly the same..
The McRib is the same strategy as the 'Disney Vault' it is about creating an artificial sense of urgency for you to procure something before you think critically about if you need or even really want it. In fact anytime you see the strategy it should probably tell you the seller does not really even believe in the product much. After all if its good and they can make more of them, they'd keep selling them and keep the revenue coming. In the case of Di
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People forget that this has been the white whale for hardware manufacturers for a really long time now. Here is a history of all the attempts [wikipedia.org] to make this into a commercial product that anyone actually cared about, and every one of them has been a spectacular failure.
This has been tried for 50 years now, and still nobody cares. Give up already.
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If success is defined as everybody wanting to buy 3D TVs, then yes, these past endeavors have all been failures.
If success is defined as making a surge of money intermittently by bringing back a feature that people have largely forgotten about, and enticing them to again fork out money for a new TV that they don't really otherwise need, then I suspect it's been a huge commercial success.
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We do this not because it is easy, but because we can do it in less than 50 years, otherwise we will give up!
I'd like a really good 3D display. I'd also like cheap fusion power, affordable vacations to space, a flying car, and cures for all cancers.
If people want to try and make those things happen, they have my thanks.
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There are a few people who really, really like the McRib, and wait for the "next time" it will come out again. Then when it does, they buy as many as they can, knowing it's going to be discontinued soon. The rest of us have no interest whatsoever in that blob of non-rib meat.
3D TVs are the same.
Comparing the McRib to technology is just incredibly dumb. 3D TVs didn't die because people don't want 3D (they are still a big success in the cinema). They died because of the technical limitations presented at the time including the dark displays, the uncomfortable glasses, and the lack of content.
Technology evolves. In other news Nintendo's VirtualBoy sold 770000 units over its life. Technology evolved and now 3D VR headsets are selling that many units monthly.
The story about 3D TVs are the same. It's no
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I see your debate skills are a bit limited, since you went for the personal attack first, and since you assume that comparing two things in one way, means they must be alike in all ways. Of course, there are many ways that the McRib is different from 3D TVs. What's the same, is that they keep coming back, accompanied by new marketing blitzes.
Sounds similar to multichannel audio to me. (Score:3)
You can have a good 3D image as long as you stay in the centre position and have very good content created for it, otherwise you'll notice distortions you can't ignore after a while, and also can't experience it fully when you watch with the whole family on the couch.
Just give me a good (dumb) 2D screen without the bullshit limiting DRM junk so I can hook it up to any Linux PC.
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well yeah, that's why this is a computer monitor. there are also a variety of ways to hack regular flat games to display in 3d. some aren't too impressive like using a reshade plugin to infer 3d from the depth buffer but thanks to VR the most popular engines (Unreal and Unity) have been hacked with generic tools to output 3d for thousands of games. there's probably minimal changes required to make those tools output flat 3d video for a monitor. I was watching some 3d videos of Mortal Kombat 1 made through U
Good 3D TV is impossible (Score:2)
With a 2D image, a good director can do all sorts of things with a camera to tell a story more effectively. Your brain takes some cues to treat it as 3D, but not so many as to accept it as actually real.
'Good' 3D means that it fools your brain entirely... which means a director has to be extraordinarily careful about how the camera moves (and mostly it shouldn't). The last 100 years of camera tricks are suddenly mostly worthless. No forced perspective, focus is a nightmare, motion makes people ill.
Withou
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3D realistic content is more immersive. There is a reason most of those techniques and garbage never make it past industry circle jerks like sundance, they rarely improve the experience.
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More immersive isn't better though. It's a buzzword with little actual meaning.
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I disagree, more immersive is everything.
Immersion is the amount of time spent absorbed in the material with a tunnel vision focus as well as the degree of tunnel vision focus. You are selling my brain something fake, with proper immersion we go beyond suspension of disbelief to a level of engagement that leaves no room for thoughts, including doubt. We are transported to another land where we are a captive observer. At the end of the experience reality might come right back but if the content is genuinely
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> There is a reason most of those techniques and garbage never make it past industry circle jerks like sundance
They're in literally every show and movie you watch, and you can absolutely tell the difference between a student production, a low-budget, and a professional one because of them even if you don't recognize why.
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Obviously there are techniques used in every show and movie. There are techniques used in the production of every everything.
Some are practical and applied lightly make for a professional looking production [though in some cases that is only because we are used to the 'look' of a professional production, not because that look would be better to someone who isn't conditioned to it]. The majority of modern professional 3D content utilizes such techniques and looks professional. Little is lost in the translati
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well it just changes the type of story telling you have to do and the artistic choices you make. Good 3d would be like witnessing the events live. So a director will be needing to decide which perspective will we observe the scene from, for how long before we shift to some other, how near to the action are we, first person, etc.
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Or you could "focus on appealing to gamers" where the content is already 3D and there is no director or camera tricks except for the cutscenes, which have a convenient skip button.
YES! (Score:2)
I think that the main problem with 3D is the lack of content. The _only_ way to get 3D movies is to buy physical Blue-Ray disks. And who the hell wants to do that?!?
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Especially as most studios want to charge 3x the cos for 3D blu-ray..
Where's 8K in the right form factors? (Score:2)
I need 8K in three form factors:
- 55 inch for my desktop. Yes I wrote 55" desktop monitor. And no I am not blind, that's why I need it in 8K. Fuck off.
- And 8K in 135 inch for home theater.
- 8K per-eye in a VR headset.
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"And no I am not blind, that's why I need it in 8K. Fuck off."
No you don't. Fuck off.
I use a 55" desktop monitor in 4K and it displays more resolution than I can see. And no I am not blind.
You don't need it (Score:2)
You just want to show off to visitors. A 55 inch monitor is cretinous , i use a 32 inch TV as my monitor and even with that I can't look at it all at the same time when sitting at the computer. You're an idiot.
3D TV⦠(Score:2)
â¦the nuclear fusion of entertainment. This life-changing tech is just around the cornerâ¦
Too bad it is Samsung (Score:2)
Problem was Pricing (greed) (Score:2)
Last time they rarely ever applied promotions to 3D content. So the regular blu-ray would be $12- $20. But then they would want $35-$60 for the 3D version. It is very hard to justify paying 2x-4x the cost of the 2D.
Headache (Score:2)