Had a few minutes to kill the other day and took a look @ 3DTV which was I must say very good. Asked the sales kid; or is my age... how long the batteries last in the special glasses you need; he said about 5 movies.. what I said... 5 movies... thinking I need to invest in a company making batteries, or indeed companies mining the raw materials....

Anybody else seen 3DTV and indeed asked the same question, surely these things last longer, and why aren't they using the same technology as the movie theaters, their glasses don't need batteries at all...

Why do the glasses need batteries? I thought each lens could just be polarised in different directions.

The way in which 3D Theater/TV works is to display two slightly different images, one intended for each eye, and then ensure that only one of the images is displayed to the relevant eye. There are a number of ways to achieve this, and the manufactures have chosen different routes for home and commercial theaters.


In the commercial theater they will use a pair of projectors, one displaying the image for the left and one for the right eye. Then in the case of a polarizing system each projector has a filter in front of it to polarize the light clockwise or anti clockwise. Your glasses then contain polarizing filters which block out the light from one projector, ensuring that each eye sees a different image.


With your home TV, you are not able to project two images on top of each other as was done in the Theater. So instead the TV displays alternating images for the left and right eye, flicking very quickly between them. You then wear a pair of shutter glasses which will flicker in time with the TV, making sure that the left images if blocked from the right eye and vice-versa. As your glasses are now doing the work this is the reason they require batteries.


The other problem you will find with the shutter glasses is that they need to flicker in time with your TV. To ensure that they stay synchronized the TV sends out an infrared timing signal. There is no standard for signal, so each manufacture has done their own thing. This means that the glasses you bought for your Sony TV will not work when you go to see a film on your friend's Samsung TV.


Basically the TV manufactures have put the technology for 3D into the glasses which keeps the cost of the TV down to that of a standard one, but you are hit when it comes to buying enough glasses for you and all your friends. Just the cost of being an early adopter I suppose.


On the upside, the current set of 3D TVs do make very good standard HD TVs.

Based on the low percentage of households having HD, I don't see 3D making a huge impact. Wish they'd left this just in the Cinema's and maybe for some 'special' sporting events held at venues setup specially for this.

Anyhow, if you want to go the 3D route, I'd wait till the Glasses free solutions are out (and then wait till the technology is proven).

Don't forget you need 3D sources which are limited at the moment. PS3 is 3D, so will some Bluray players, Sky HD. Not sure what other services have the necessary bandwidth.....

Will sets be coming out with passive glasses too? I think they're also working on sets that don't need any glasses at all.

It would be very annoying to sit down to watch a film for the evening only to find the batteries have run out.

Glasses-free 3D TVs are a few years away. I saw a prototype of one at an invention expo a few months ago. It's kind of hard to justify the purchase of one of the current 3D TVs, seeing how expensive they are and knowing that they're a transitional product at best. By the time there's enough 3D films and programming to justify the purchase, glasses-free TVs set will be right around the corner.

If not already, then I imagine that a lot of these 3D glasses will come with some sort of recharging station, just like you have for the Wii, Ipods and what not.

Regarding TV sets, then I have seen some very promising reviews of the Panasonic VT25, ought to be great. But if it was me, then I would wait, the 3D movies on the market atm are far between, and the prices on sets as well as glasses will drop in the future as the market and competition grows.

Unless you have money to burn, I would not buy a 3D set.

The technology is still in it's infancy, and the content (movies and other programmes) is limited and also still exploring the format.

I would wait at least a year if not two or three.

Enclosure?

i checked out two rival 3dtvs recently.

i think the tech is not there yet. while it produced a nice image sometimes, there was a lot of ghosting around certain images that was anything but special.

SONY has just released HX900 series with Full LED and 3D. quite thin.

Does anyone know what kind of media will be available for these sets? The available HD cable/sat channels are still in their infancy, with DVD and Blu-ray seem dead now that streaming HD is available (iTunes, netflix).

Is 3D tv taking off anywhere, or is this just a ploy to extend dvd sales a few more years?

I do like the portable 3D gaming console coming soon from Nintendo, though...

I had a look at a Sony set in Media Markt the other day. It was demo-ing and American Football game.

There was some ghosting, but that wasn't really my main concern . . . I can't really see that 3D is much better to watch.

Do you need to watch 3D output straight on?

If you're lounging and watching at an angle does it still work?

Although there isn't a standard for the way in which 3D TVs should work, there is now a standard for 3D Blu-ray. So we should see some 3D blu-rays coming soon.

The problem with the new 3D blu-rays disks is that they will not be compatible with the current set of hardware, so to make use of them you will need to buy a new blu-ray player too. It sounds like people with a PS3 might get lucky, but purely because of the huge processing power that it has for gaming.

The next issue would be that to transfer images from the player to TV requires the latest HDMI 1.4a standard (March 2010). So if you have a home theater system between the player and TV, there is a strong possibility that this will also not work.

For me I still don't see the benefit of having 3D at home for films. I think it makes a nice outing to a Kino, but sitting about with friends at home, all wearing glasses, no thanks. On the other hand, gaming in 3d, now that could be quite cool...

Nintendo just showed at the E3 a new 3D portable game device, the 3DS. It works without any sort of glasses, it should be available for sales next year. I hope this technology could/will be applied to TV screens.

For the moment I don't even think about buying a 3d tv, I already wear glasses, I don't want to wear another one just to watch tv

I'm wondering... is it really good for our eyes/our sight ???

I wear glasses too... Do you think I have to wear 3 pairs of glasses if I watch movies in 3D and which take place in a very sunny place (my glasses - 3D glasses and sunglasses) ???

Was in the UK last week and checked out the 3D experience. Quite good I thought however the drawback is the thought of sitting there with your mates all with glasses on looking like a bunch of right prats.

3D TV will go the way of all mayor home-theater type technologies:
it will become the standard once the adult industry takes an interest.