3D has been a gimmick for years in comics, movies, postcards and, now, flatscreen displays. I first saw liquid crystal shutter (active glasses today) 3D in the mid-80s as a proof of concept than a workable product.

And that’s where 3D has stayed until Avatar. Even after that I’ve remained skeptical that 3D would have a mass market.

2 demos
But that opinion changed at NAB 2012.

First up was the 200 inch 3D display from Japan’s NICT (National Institute of Information and Communications Technology). The still images had an excellent 3D “pop” that showed what the system could do.

Make no mistake, this was clearly a prototype, not a product.

There was visible banding on the screen, probably due to poor calibration of some of the 64 rear projectors that produce the 3d images. And there weren’t any moving images either, but a spokesman said they expected to show those next year.

As an advertising display it will have few equals once the bugs are worked out. And there don’t seem to be any major issues keeping the technology from scaling to much larger and engrossing sizes.

Even more impressive was the Dolby Labs and Phillips demo of Dolby 3D. Embodied in a 4k 54 inch display, the demo delivered bright, clear and detailed moving images. Very watchable!

The 3d effect wasn’t as pronounced as in the NICT demo, but that may not be a bad thing. After all, 3D isn’t the first thing we perceive when we walk into a room, and it shouldn’t be the first thing we see on a home display either. …

See the full story here: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/naked-eye-3d-tv-that-works/1661