3-D for Blu-ray Is Just Around the Corner

Yes, I watched my first ever 3D movie in a theater recently (Final Destination, yes, I know...) and it was weird at first, but once i got used to it, well... I'm hooked! 

From Digital Bits:

According to the Blu-ray Disc Association, the final spec for 3D Blu-ray (possibly called 3D-BD or something like it) will be announced by the end of the year, likely in December. The spec WILL REQUIRE that all 3D capable displays (regardless of how they process the 3D-BD signal) will use the same signal. The spec will be DISPLAY FORMAT AGNOSTIC, meaning whether the display is Plasma or LCD based (or whether it uses active or passive glasses) won't matter. So if you buy a 3D-BD player, it will work will all properly marked 3D display technologies. What's more, all 3D-BD discs will be backwards compatible with current Blu-ray players, so the disc will include both a 3D version in the new spec AND a standard 2D version for current players - all in full 1080p. The 3D-BD spec will require full 1080p signal delivery for each eye - left and right. The intent is that there's only one shot to get it right, so make sure it's a standard that will work for a long time to come.

An important point to make: THERE IS NO 3D-BD spec format war. Every company in the industry is cooperating on the final spec. The only difference is that the DISPLAY technology each company uses may be different, but the 3D-BD spec will be used by ALL of them.

Manufacturers will introduce a variety of 3D signal processing technologies, some based on plasma and some on LCD. Some will use active shutter glasses and some will use passive or polarized glasses. These technologies will be on display at CES in January and the first gear (and 3D-BD movie titles) will start arriving by mid-2010. Some product announcements MAY be made at CES. The glasses needed will be sold with the DISPLAYS, not the players, because the type of glasses needed will be dependent on the display.

All of the CE manufacturers stressed that 3D display is here to stay. It's not just about Blu-ray - you'll see cable and satellite offerings, live sports broadcasts and even gaming in 3D. The next round of gaming consoles are likely to support 3D gaming.

There WILL be a premium for the 3D capability in terms of display/player pricing, but as with all new technologies, this will drop over time.

This is particularly interesting: Multiple sources at the event - including one Sony source - informed me that there's a possibility that the PS3 can be firmware-updated to make full 3D gaming and (possibly even) 3D Blu-ray playback possible. All you'd need to do is to buy the glasses as an accessory. This may be possible because of the power of the PS3's Cell processor.

Best guess, what's the time period and price range for a 3D home system?

I like 3D movies. I bought a 50"  Pioneer Kuro this year. I'll probably buy a $150 Blu Ray player for the holidays. If I want 3D Blu Ray, next year, would I have to spend thousands to replace all my equipment? Or would this stuff work with curent gear?

I had these for my Sega Master System back in the 80's and they worked really well.  The games they made for them weren't the best, but the 3D effect was really cool.  I remember wondering back then why the red/blue glasses were still being used after using Sega's shutter system.  And if I thought the effect was impressive back then, I can only imagine what advances have occured in the past 20+ years. 

 Well, I've seen several 3-D movies in the theater over the last few years. Most recently it was the "Toy Story" films. About the time Part 2 started, I had a slight headache. And although the 3D was very good, I stopped noticing it after awhile (until the headache showed up). Honestly, Pixar images are so good that in 2D they look 3D, and without any tricks to remind you about it from time to time, it just looks like the 2D version. So much so, I don't even think I'm going to go out of my way to see "Avatar" in 3D. 

IMO, 3-D is for the movie theater screen. You need the the picture to go past your peripheral vision to really appreciate it. Maybe if you had a PJ and a 95" or greater screen, if might look okay. Anything smaller just wouldn't give you that "WOW" experience.

I have an HD projector and a 120 inch screen. New ones can be had for less than $1,000 in 1080p. I'm guessing the 3-D projectors for the new 3-D Blu-ray format will be $2,000 to $3,000.

this is what i've been waiting for as well =).

MEANWHILE, anaglyph 3-D (journey to center of the earth and to a lesser extent polar express) is pretty nifty (as a gimmick) on 100" =). just my 2cents. i've had a few kidz sit through journey using the glasses, they were wowed =). it'd rock w/polarized 3-D.

i think if they are going to be format agnostic i'd go the route of passive glasses, active shutter sounds stupid. i already have a ton of passive glasses from the 3-D cinema movies i watch. i plan to reuse all of them =P.
-JF

The effect was cool, but supposedly you had to sacrifice frame rate within the game so that a seperate Left/Right image was possible. Some of the 3-D games came off rather choppy.


If I understand correctly, in order for a shutter glasses system to work properly, they need to be in exact sync with the alternating L/R image. This requires a hardware element to control it which the Sega Master System was and it able to take advantage of its card slot. Other systems of the time did not have that capability.

Still you would think that the PS3 or XBOX 360 could easilly handle that kind of perhipheral using USB if Sega could do it, but again it would probably come at some kind of game performance compromise.

Most definitely.  The system would have to render each frame twice.  That shouldn't mean half the frame rate though.  A lot of the computation for games is essentially creating and modifying the 3D data for the next frame. (physics, creating or accessing models at the right level of detail, shadows, etc.)  A lot of that does not have to be done separately for each eye, it is just rendering that calculated 3D data from slightly different viewpoints.  Done properly, the performance compromise is probably not as bad as one might imagine for games.

I wish I could say the same for movies, where you are essentially doubling your video data.  I really hope they are able to do some clever tricks with the compression for 3D, like maybe only a "difference" stream for the second eye.  Otherwise, I really fear there is going to be a lot more DNR to enable all of these streams to fit within the same bit rate.

In a modern system, it probably is that bad; the computation and rendering are handled by two separate chips in the machine, and most recent games are renderer-bound (aka GPU-bound) instead of CPU-bound.

Give me your thanks.  I finally decide to spring for a projector and screen and this comes out. Oh well, I don't expect this to be affordable in a good quality projector for the foreseeable future. The image quality of the one I bought and the going price being asked was too good to turn down. I believe I will be more than satisfied watching regular 2D films with the PJ, until the 3D stuff gets affordable. It will also allow me to see whether the mainstream consumer will adopt yet another new technology when a good chunk of them don't even see the value of Hi-Def.

With more and more happening on the GPU as more tasks (many, like physics, not view dependent) are being reworked to fit its data parallel nature, I don't think render bound and GPU bound are really the same thing.  That being said, with all the view dependent effects I see in games, I would not be surprised if that, or some current realities of hardware like fill rates, etc. prevent something appreciably better than 2x time on current architectures. 

Actually, this is probably really going beyond the scope of the thread.  I think this would be fun to discuss further through PM though.

When you have to wear visors, they should offer a double LCD-vision system instead, light enough to wear during the whole movie as glasses. It would be the "perfect" 3-D system, because each eye would exactly get its own picture. And while they were at it, they could easily add the perfect audio system as well (a plug in each ear).


Cees

The Luxor in Las Vegas use to have an Imax theatre with 3-D field sequential glasses that also have small speakers in them. I hated them as they were way to heavy. 

I really like the Real D system, which unfortunately would have to be projector based (rapidly alternating frames polarised clockwise and counterclockwise for each eye). By deviating from horizontal/vertical polarisation, the system reduces the headaches typically associated with polarised 3-D films. That being said, plasmas with 240Hz subfield drive have the potential to create virtually flicker-free images with LCD glasses (image would repeat 5x per eye per frame). I wonder if anyone has given thought to USB "glasses" with dedicated LCD displays for each eye for 3-D. No flicker, and the image position could be adjusted for optimal convergence of the two images.

That would probably be ideal (as ideal as can be anyway perhaps short of requiring some surgical procedures  ).  And then, I probably wouldn't need to upgrade my regular HT display so soon again just to enjoy a few new films (and maybe a video game on occasion) in 3D.

But how will the economies of scale work out for such tiny, high quality, 1080p LCDs (or perhaps, OLEDs), if they are even technologically doable at this point?  Are they gonna cost somewhere closer to a flagship pro digital SLR camera like the Nikon D3x or more like a cheap little Nikon coolpix (multiplied by however many pairs you'll want)?

_Man_

Quote:
Polarization per se does not cause eyestrain; not that I've ever heard. Most eyestrain in 3D movies seems to be from the physical convergence issues. Though using circular over linear polarization I think would help reduce cross-eye image bleedthrough that could cause some eyestrain. Is that what you're getting at?

this is what we need:
http://www.engadgethd.com/2009/09/17/hdi-concocts-100-inch-laser-based-3d-hdtv-calls-rivaling-techno/

even if it's two projectors, you can get a 1080p for around $1,000 nowadays. so for two of them it's $2,000, not2shabby for 3-D front screen projection! =).