[mythtv-users] "Generational" TV, was: OT: 3D TV

Shawn Rutledge shawn.t.rutledge at gmail.com
Wed Jan 13 03:44:21 UTC 2010


On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 8:01 PM, Johnny <jarpublic at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I don't buy it.  True 3D displays requiring no head mounted hardware,
>> that works for multiple viewers from multiple viewpoints (and is
>> economically viable) is a very long way out.  I fully expect to be
>> dead by then.
>
> A company at CES demoed a no glasses required 3D display that works
> for 9 people. The quality wasn't great and you had to stand in the
> right place, but it certainly seems like it isn't a 50+ years out
> technology to get it right. But we are getting off topic in this
> branch of the other off topic thread.

I think the first time I saw a glasses-free autostereoscopic 3D demo
at a show was at Comdex in 1998 or so.  It had its limits.  Oh well.
With glasses, we could have actually had 3D at home 15 years ago as
well, quite cheaply; I even have some LCD "toggle goggles" from that
era: a wired pair from about 1994 and a couple of wireless ones from
1998 or so.  At that time the easiest method was to use an interlaced
video mode, and show the image for each eye on alternating lines, then
the LCD glasses alternatingly blanked one eye and then the other in
sync with the retrace.  The wireless ones include a 3D VHS tape, and
with my old CRT projector it indeed gave a 3D experience.  (It was an
animation showing a primitive gouraud-shaded "band" playing some
music.)  There was an IR emitter to send out the retrace pulses from
your VCR, and another type of adapter to use the same emitter with
VGA.  With that projector it was quite low-res and dim, of course.
But I guess the interlacing trick can only work that way with a CRT;
nowadays it seems you need an LCD with 120 Hz refresh rate, and a
special video card which can provide the alternating frames and a
signal to drive the glasses, right?

I'd still like to have a really great HMD too, but the reasonably
decent ones are unjustifiably expensive and the cheap ones are crap,
and there is nothing really great (like full HD resolution or better).
 I think when it becomes possible to make HMDs as stylish as typical
sunglasses, and they can be wirelessly linked to our cell phones, and
can go from opaque to "augmented reality" instantly, maybe a few years
after that the other shoe will drop.

It's just funny that suddenly out of nowhere the industry decided to
"just do" 3D movies and TV, after it had already been possible for so
long.


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