3dtv

[CoreyB]

Anyone set up with it yet ? Thinking about it? I want it soo bad but there isnt a lot of content yet. I was in Best Buy and checked one out they had setup, it was amazing. Supposedly the PS3 can provide 3D, anybody know anything about that ?

[Polygon]

I seriously believe that it's a fad and I have no interest. Until it works without the glasses I don't think it will ever catch on.

[CoreyB]

Have you looked at a nice setup ? I would definitely deal with the glasses to watch certain things like, movies, sports, and play video games. COD would be nuts.

[stealthee]

I seriously believe that it's a fad and I have no interest. Until it works without the glasses I don't think it will ever catch on.

I agree 100%. 3d is a definite fad. I'm not going to sit in my home wearing ridiculous glasses just to see 3d. I wont even go to a theater and do it.

[Blurr]

The technology needs to be better. I wish it was something you could do without glasses. It's novel in it's own way but I don't think it's as practical as it should be. I do want to try the Nintendo 3DS thought. 3D without the glasses.

[Polygon]

Have you looked at a nice setup ? I would definitely deal with the glasses to watch certain things like, movies, sports, and play video games. COD would be nuts.

Yep, I've demoed various systems. Like Brian said, it's a novelty. It's kind of neat at first but it's NOT as dramatic as you're thinking. Mostly it's adds a slight amount of depth. I firmly believe that it will play itself out just like it has countless times before. I would say save your money and wait for the technology to mature and the price to come down if you JUST have to have it. However, I would say to spend the extra money on a better and bigger T.V. than something with 3D. You're money will go to better use.


I agree 100%. 3d is a definite fad. I'm not going to sit in my home wearing ridiculous glasses just to see 3d. I wont even go to a theater and do it.

I went and saw Avatar in 3D and it was interesting to see the technology in action but the glasses kill the experience. I won't bother with it again.

[Kagato]

I seriously believe that it's a fad and I have no interest. Until it works without the glasses I don't think it will ever catch on.

I agree 100%. 3d is a definite fad. I'm not going to sit in my home wearing ridiculous glasses just to see 3d. I wont even go to a theater and do it.
Same here - sure there's a ton more technology behind in than the last any of the other times that the fad had come back around (ala Jaws 3D, etc.) but to me it's a pure Hollywood gimmick used to drum up ticket sells for an otherwise lackluster movie. My dislike of it only grows when I see movies that weren't even filmed using 3D cameras which are then bastardized to achieve the effect (Alice in Wonderland for example). They just don't seem quite the same - and I don't think it's a placebo effect as I didn't even know 3D camera's hadn't been used to film AiW until after the fact. Compared to Avatar, it just felt flat.

Personally I hope it's stays a fad - I'm just not sold on the idea. I'll take a good story and characters over carnival tricks any day of the week. :p

[Polygon]

Personally I hope it's stays a fad - I'm just not sold on the idea. I'll take a good story and characters over carnival tricks any day of the week. :p

And that's exactly how I felt about Avatar. It was a horrible movie and it's perfect example of why I hate awards shows. It won how many awards? And it was not a good movie at all. Then again, the public are usually lemmings and they eat the fluff up. I hope that 3D stays a fad as well.

[CoreyB]

I guess I am in the minority then, I thought Avatar was a good movie.

[Polygon]

It was entertaining, but I wouldn't call it a good movie. I love Tremors, but that doesn't mean it's a good movie.

[UTRacerX9]

The problem with 3D is that you have a lot of content out there now that is being converted to 3D, when it wasn't DESIGNED for it. Avatar looks amazing with 3D because it was designed for it from the get go. Toy Story 3 however, sucked. Didn't add anything to the movie experience, except a higher ticket price.

It's the crap 3D conversion jobs that are giving 3D a bad name. When done right, it can look amazing. The PS3 was supposed to have an update to be able to play 3D content, but you still need to buy a 3D converter for a 3D ready tv. Mitsubishi came out with one for their tv's, but if you have a Samsung 3D ready tv, you need to also buy a simulator to fool the converter into thinking you have a Mitsu tv. There's a pretty good thread on avsforums about it.

[Maximal]

I was pretty impressed with the one I saw (high end Sharp setup). The glasses are annoying but in my mind worth it. However, with the limited programming I doubt I'll be picking one up anytime soon.

[CoreyB]

Yeah HD is the same way, half of the content on HD cable is really just upconverted. Shows on Discovery and History or most sports channels are far superior in the quality. 3D will have the same issues but when you have things really in quality 3D it will be amazing. The TV I demoed was playing a special 3D promoting 3D disk and was mind blowing, I was in love.

[Hammer]

Hmm I saw a 3d tv at Sams club that did not need 3d glasses. But it took a while for the image to get that 3d effect and it hurt my eyes to watch it too long.

[CoreyB]

Really, I am interested to know what you were looking at.

[Hammer]

It was a Samsung 8000 series 3d tv. But when I looked it up on the web it shows you are supposed to use 3d glasses with it. So now I know why my eyes hurt to look at it. But I could see the 3d effect without the glasses. It did not look like the movie avatar did when I took off the 3d glasses. It was a clear picture. Oh well I just walked by and saw it on display with the ad 3d TV and it was next to some without the 3d effect. It was running the same program (video) as the other TV's. And the stuff did have a 3d effect for me even without the glasses but it made my eyes hurt. I had to stare at the screen for a while until the objects began to shift to 3d.

[CoreyB]

LOL, like those posters you have to cross your eyes at to see the picture ?

[am385]

I don't think 3D is a fad by any means, 3D with shutter lenses have been around for years now on PC and its just moving to the TV now. Yes the technology needs to be improved and perfected but the idea of Z depth is simply stunning when done correctly not in a gimmicky way where stuff flies at you but instead where there is a true depth to the project. Also as a side note. They can do 3D without glasses for one person who doesn't move and the image can be focused on the individuals eyes. That is just in its infancy but will probably migrate to laptops first where there is usually only 1 viewer. Also the shutter lenses are more comfortable then the mass produced polarized cinema lenses used in theaters. Other side note, they have also made true 3D small projection, a cylinder spinning at high speed projecting the image in a true 3D space, these units are very small right now. There is also 3d using voxels instead of pixels so on a flat screen if you look at it from different angles you can see other parts of it. Image trying to see the other side of something by looking at a shallow angle of the monitor or TV, Holovizio is one of these. I think 3D now has a real foothold and is here to stay. Also being that right now is the age of TV features. wifi connected TVs, apps, games are now also being supported by TVs. Just my 2 cents.

Also someone mentioned something about gaming in 3D. Games are one of the easiest mediums to take o 3D because all 3D games have a Z scale already built in to show depth on a screen. Nvision has been doing this for years and now we can hopefully move on to the consoles which have support for it but at a lower resolution so that the Hz required can be processed by the GPU.

[OBXBoost]

Personally I'm going to hold out doing anything home theater based until the HDMI fad goes away and is replaced with ethernet connectivity (coming soon) between all devices. HDMI is so overrated compared to the simplicity, cost savings and advantages of ethernet. I would hate to be the guy that spends all of this money on a home theater based on fading out technology and then the new devices start rolling out lol.

[Kevin83]

Well, I am in the minority too I guess, I think 3D is awesome, just saw Piranha3D last week in Korea, and I thought it was pretty cool, it was nothing extrordinary, but in my eyes, it was awesome even though you had to wear glasses. Now, for the insanely awesome thing I saw while I was in Japan 3 days ago on a subway!! PANASONIC 3D CAMCORDER! This is going to bring new light to everything we do, think of the car videos we're gonna have now, and not to mention, think of the new era of porn... this is gonna be awesome! Ok, I couldn't find the camera for sale, but didn't look too much b/c I'm more than broke spending a month in asia. But the model is Panasonic 3D TM750, even though I don't own one, and I doubt I can get one soon, it is exciting to me to see stuff like that.

[reallyxxxxxxloud]

Well at Movie world on the Gold Coast they have Shrek 4D... Its in 3D and Shrek sneezes and you get sprayed in his snot and the chairs move... mmmm I wouldn't want to watch porn with the same tech lol....

[bluemax_1]

Now, for the insanely awesome thing I saw while I was in Japan 3 days ago on a subway!! PANASONIC 3D CAMCORDER! This is going to bring new light to everything we do, think of the car videos we're gonna have now, and not to mention, think of the new era of porn... this is gonna be awesome! Ok, I couldn't find the camera for sale, but didn't look too much b/c I'm more than broke spending a month in asia. But the model is Panasonic 3D TM750, even though I don't own one, and I doubt I can get one soon, it is exciting to me to see stuff like that.
There are already a few 3D cameras available that shoot 3D video as well (albeit not in high-res). Fuji has one. It's been available for some time. The industry is beginning to try 3D HD though and THAT will be incredible. For those of you who HAVEN'T seen the currently available 3D, check out your local Best Buy and go watch the Panasonic Viera 3D demo. It's an eye opener. Yes, you need to wear glasses, but check it out for yourself before you knock it. The only thing to warn you about is that the demo may cause you to feel an urge to buy a 3D system right there and then.

BTW, if you go to AVSforums, you'll see examples of a guy who's used to regular camcorders to produce 3D home video. It's pretty cool. In fact, if you go to youtube, there are more than a few examples of 3D home video although you're going to need the ability to focus your eyes using either the cross eyed or parallel viewing methods to see the 3D effect. Having been a fan of 3D photography and video for quite a long time now, I've taught myself to be able to focus for parallel viewing in just a couple of seconds.

If you have access to anaglyph glasses (the old school red-blue glasses) I found THIS little vid to be really cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pkGVbz75fg

Most 3D material creates 'through the window' depth, i.e. you have depth perception, but it's like viewing things through a window with your display being the window. You have depth perception but the closest thing to you is your window/display. The video on the other hand is the 'out the window' type where the object appears to pop out past the plane of your display. Of course, it uses the old school anaglyph tech which kind of sucks as there are inherent color issues, but the shutter glasses are a whole different animal.

With the advent of high def 3D camcorders, I'm guessing the porn industry is going to be up to some new tricks.

As with the thread on the other forum, I'm going to have to say that 3D is NOT a fad and it isn't going to die out. It may stagnate for a while due to the stupid lack of content and 'exclusive release' content wars going on, (eg. Panasonic has bought the rights for the initial release of Avatar in 3D to be released as a starter pack bundle exclusively to folks buying THEIR new 3D displays, Samsung has bought the initial release rights for a couple of other 3D movies to bundle exclusively with THEIR 3D displays etc.).

I understand these companies are trying to fight for market share but they don't seem to realize that it's making folks even more hesitant to be early adopters due to lack of available content AND who wants to risk buying a 3D display NOW and then find out, "Oh you already bought your 3DTV so you don't qualify to receive the bonus promo pack with the XXX 3D movies as those are being bundled with NEW purchases of the 3DTV's".

That said though, as I mentioned before, 3D is the next logical step in the immersive experience. While there are old movies that used 3D in the old-fashioned 'jump out of the screen at you to shock the audience' tricks, Avatar 3D for instance is one of the first 3D movies that added 3D simply to increase immersion in it's environment to really make you feel like you were actually there IN the scene. I didn't see Toy Story 3 3D so I don't know how well they handled that but I can imagine how much more amazing and immersive it 'could' be if they take you down to the perspective of something the size of a toy where even a bed looms large WITH the depth perception of stereoscopic 3D.

Imagine seeing 'Honey I Shrunk The Kids' with true depth perception, where a blade of grass looks the size of a tree and a half eaten Oreo is about the size of a house.

I've heard that they intend t rerelease Toy Story 1&2 in 3D and these are some of the only potential titles where they could potentially do this right because the movies are computer animation and already have the Z-vector built-in.

To me though, the next step I'm waiting for will be 3D goggles. Ever since the days of the video game Dactyl Nightmare, I've dreamed about high definition stereoscopic 3D using goggles and 2 separate high definition displays/screens, one for each eye to provide the stereoscopic image. Using 2-2.5" displays, it's potentially possible to create a field of view akin to sitting 10 feet away from a 150+" wide screen. And with Dactyl Nightmare, I could actually choose to look wherever I wanted (although I don't really see how they could implement that feature in anything other than computer animation).


Max