[Written by Russell Plummer, Fon du Lac,Wisconsin reporter]
Blue and red glasses have evolved to breathtaking big screens and glasses-free 3-D.
Following the popularity of 3-D theatre movie hits like “Avatar,” “Toy Story 3” and “Jackass 3-D,” video game manufacturer and publisher Nintendo has taken the first swing at glasses-free 3-D with the launch of the handheld Nintendo 3DS system.
“The movie industry has really buffered people for the idea of 3-D,” said Scott Lowe, gear editor at IGN, a popular Internet website for people seeking information on video games, technology and other entertainment. “Ultimately, 3-D is not a strange concept since it’s been around for ages. Now it is being pushed into the mainstream.”
And prices are plummeting in the television market with high-definition (HD) 3-D-ready sets priced at whatquality HD TVs cost one year ago.
“It’s getting to the point where the 3-D TVs might have a little bit brighter screen, an extra input and ‘Oh, by the way, it’s 3-D-ready,’” said Tony Doll, sales associate at Ray’s TV and Appliance, 33 S. Pioneer Road. “The cost gap has really dropped.”
Price drops
Ray’s TV offers 50-inch 3-D-capable TVs between $900 and $1,500, down in price by about $1,000 since this time last year.
Some people are getting interested in bringing the theater experience into their home, said Lowe.
“It (3-D) has become a standard feature in a lot of ways,” Lowe said. “If you look at most of the TVs currently available, they feature 3-D. The key difference between this time last year and now is that they have made the technology cheaper and a sort of innocuous feature some people don’t even know they have. They can involve themselves in the 3-D if they want to, but it is not being shoved down their throats.”
When it comes to televisions, there are two ways to view the 3-D effect: passive and active.
Passive glasses do not require a power source and cost a little over $20, said Doll.
Active glasses have recently dropped as low as $50 and require power to open and shut each lens to show each eye a different image.
“Active technology has the benefit of being smoother and less jarring to your eyes,” Lowe said. “You get a more rich and detailed 3-D effect. There are reduced issues in terms of blurring and perception.”
Doll said his customers prefer the cheaper option.
The glasses
However, there is one problem that is weighing on the bridge of everyone’s nose.
“Most people are still not really interested in 3-D,” Doll said. “We’ll get a few customers seeing more ads and 3-D movies in the theater and coming in specifically asking for it.
“It’s the glasses, to be honest,” he added. “People just don’t want to wear glasses.”
That is where Nintendo hopes to grab eyeballs and sell its $250 handheld system featuring a touch screen on the bottom and a widescreen 3-D-optional screen on top that allows for 3-D gaming, movies and photographs.
Vertical lines split an image in half, with one going to the left eye, and the other going to the right eye to create the illusion of depth and objects popping out of the screen, according to the official website of Dr. Michio Kaku.
At the most recent Consumer Electronics Show, numerous companies showed off glasses-free 3-D tech in handheld form, said Lowe. While it may look like a window into the future, there are issues that will keep glasses going for now.
Angle
“If you are not looking at it (3DS) at the most perfect angle, you’re essentially losing the 3-D effect and there is a jarring transition between different angles,” Lowe said.
Doll said if the 3DS technology is blown up to a big screen, people are going to be sitting close on the couch.
“You are limited to two or three people in front. The farther out you get, the worse the effect is,” Doll said.
Lowe added that even if a company were to develop a glasses-free 3-D TV viewable at multiple angles, switching positions would briefly distort the image.
“Glasses-free 3-D is helpful,” Lowe said. “I don’t think it will be as successful as the glasses technology because, by the very nature with glasses-free, you have to be at a specific viewing angle. If you are not, it’s, for lack of a better word, ‘terrible.’”
See the original post here: http://www.fdlreporter.com/article/20110429/FON0101/110428156/The-3D-future-here
