3D TV questions

hi dungassin,
alough i cant coment on all of your questions i can tell you about the glasses.
i have been led to believe it is the tv screen that determines the type of glasses you require.some are only a couple of pound some alot more expensive.
so say you buy a sony 3d(other makes available) with 2 pair of glasses,your friends buy a samsung 3d(other makes available)with 2 pair of glasses.you invite your friends round to watch a film.they bring their glasses they may work but they may not.
personally i think 3d in the home has a very long way to go before they get it right.i dont think its a case of vhs vs betamax but certainly a few things to iron out.i have seen 3d in the pictures and in the home.i think the problem in house lies in the fact alough when watching the tv your efforts are concentrated on the tv you cant help but look at the surrounding objects.to me this throws the supposed 3d experience.all the best.kind regards scott

not even going to waste our money on 3D tv. I think its got a long way to go before it gets top notch. Then it will be the usual thing you buy the telly and two months later it will be updated by a better TV which is better and cheaper than the one you just bought. I see it all as a rip off....well thats my thoughts. git stung with an LG telly.

After watching some 3D TVs in John Lewis recently, Id say don't bother with it.Oh and the fun of wearing a second pair of glasses.
A good HD picture is stunning and without the 3D artificial "special" effects. A bit like watching a DVD with a good 2 channel system, all that's required really.
Once there is a reasonable amount of 3D TVs in the market place, then the super HD can be introduced, followed by super 3D etc etc and infinitum.

The only reason I mentioned 3D as I was thinking of a certain amount of future-proofing. The odds are that 3D would probably only be used for Kids films. Me? I wear glasses and the thought of putting another pair on top of them is appalling! I've no plans to replace the Sony 40W2000 in my study AV system with a new 3D model. Anyway, my Oppo83SE doesn't do 3D!

Anybody know the answer re special "High speed HDMI" being necessary or not? Bear in mind that the living room TV will by default use its own speakers etc - SWMBO not being in the least interested in "all that home cinema nonsense".

quote:

Anybody know the answer re special "High speed HDMI" being necessary or not? Bear in mind that the living room TV will by default use its own speakers etc - SWMBO not being in the least interested in "all that home cinema nonsense".

I've just bought a new Sony TV (40NX713)that can be used for 3D which requires the purchase a 3D sync transmitter (and yes the dreaded glasses!) The transmitter has its own unique terminal. (The addition of these items is NOT compulsory!!) All other HDMI connections (for DVD, BluRay players etc) are exactly the same as on every other TV we have. Those redundant leads that you have in your "bits" box will work perfectly,

The hdmi cables need to be hdmi version 1.3 or above to pass through the high bandwidth 3d signal. Quite often the 2d picture on the 3d sets is actually better as a consequence of the extra horsepower in the picture processor that is required for 3d, so it's not really a bad investment. The new 3d Tv's are typically similar priced to the models they replace(usually higher end though)so you are getting 3d for nothing effectively so why not?
However 40" is way to small for an effective 3d experience In my opinion.

hi jaseamondo,
i can truly see where you are coming from with regards to tv size for 3d experience.if you skip over my earlier post you will notice i have said"seeing what is around the tv makes for a odd overall picture).but isnt there a formula for working out the best tv size from your listening position.i think you measure width and x by a certain figure.this gives furthest optimum viewing position,same for closest position but measure height of screen.
i think what i am trying to say is if you buy a 50in tv for a 10ftx10ft room,no matter how much it cost or if it is top spec the picture will look s**t.kind regards scott

3d kind of needs to fill your whole field of vision to be really effective, which means sitting very very close to a 40" Tv , actually you'd still need to be very close to even a 65" Tv to achieve this. Your right about there being a formula for working out the correct distance but I'm sure that it is different for 3d and is a lot closer.

there are also universal 3d glasses from xpand just around the corner,there already available in America so hopefully that at least solves one issue.

The glasses aren't the polarised type you buy in the cinema. They're much more complex and therefore much more expensive. About a hundred quid a pair the last I heard.
To be honest 3D TV is the last thing I'd buy at the moment. Spend the money on a decent HD TV.

I agree that 3D tv has some way to go - the shutter glasses are the most expensive and are battery powered I believe.

I read thay Toshiba are bringing out a 3d tv where you do not need glasses, but current size is 20 inch. They are working on bigger models.

If it were my money, I would wait for the technology to mature and see what material is available, you don't want to be an early adopter an lose a shedload of money.

Sounds sensible. Anyway, she's not speaking to me ATM after I suggested she should come and look at new TVs for her use. Perhaps I'll stop trying to persuade her and wait the 20 years for the current set to fail.

In the meantime I'll just have to put up with the grandkids taking over my study to watch "their" bluray discs.

Screen size will depend on how close you are to it. I've seen 3D TV in a domestic situation on a LG 47" and it was quite stunning. It was an incerdibly sharp picture and the 3D-ness was very good and not artificial-looking. I was particularly impressed by football, and I've heard that golf is pretty good too.

The immersive effect that you get in the cinema was there too. And that's the big thing for me with 3D - it's not things landied in your lap or aiming straight for your face, it's the effect you can get where you forget the 3D and just get even more immersed in what's happening.

It was a passive set (only LG are making them at the moment) and so I watched it on a pair of cinema polarised glasses (sat rather preposterously on my normal pair).

I know that Sky have done a large number of consumer tests on different TVs, and despite being largely technology agnostic (they don't care what you watch it on as long as you watch it) and the overwhelming feedback is that the passive system is much more comfortable to watch than the active ones.

As above, LG are the only manufacturer to make a passive set, so everything else is active. Passive works just like the cinema in that you get two versions of the picture displayed and the polarised glasses sorts the 3D out. They are much more fiddly to make as it requires a filter screen in front of the regular one and the pixels have to be aligned perfectly. The theoretical downside of passive is that, as the bandwidth is halved to transmit both images is is, in strict terms not HD, though the end result is identical once the brain has sorted right from left. LG are lobbying the technical standards people to get passive 3D classified as officially 3D.

Active sets are cheaper to make because they utilise half the set's frame rate to show the two sets of pictures. The down side is that, to interpret the pictures the glasses need to synchronise with the TV and shutter in time to the picture. Hence the batteries and the expense.

What has been found from trials is that overwhelmingly people find that the active screens have a tendency to flicker, that they can induce headaches and that they really only work best in a darkened room (so those of you who've been unimpressed by displays in-store from a non-LG set, take note). There are also cases where the glasses lose sync when the viewer turns their head away from the screen momentarily.

I understand that all of the major manufacturers are bringing out passive screens (except Panasonic who've sunk so much in to plasma).

As a result of the above, I'm lusting after a 3D set-up, but will be waiting. I currently have a 50" Pioneer Kuro screen that is the best I've seen in HD and I won't compromise that for 3D, which for the foreseeable future is going to be for events (a football match, a movie or a special documentary).

So I'm waiting a while for the technology to sort itself out a bit, though I anticipate going for passive over active.

Thanks Gary. This is one of the most useful posts I've read on this topic.

Hi Guys
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