GREAT news! 3D BluRay spec finalized, PS3 is good to go! - Page 3

Wow, that guy has me convinced. After that stunning endorsement I'm going to run out and by one as soon as they hit the market.

Let's see, his "convincing" argument includes:

Mostly unwatchable content.
A one off, and rather snide comment, about rewatching an "Avatar" special edition Blu-ray.
3D is a joke @ 50" and under. 50" and under probably makes up the majority of sales right now.
OLED and LCD tech strobes and flickers. (That certainly makes me want to buy in.)
A 72" plasma set sounds like the bare minimum that he would even consider buying. (So what are we looking @ for a tier 1 set? 5000+?)
Watching 3D is tiring.
Watching 3D continuously doesn't interest him.
He wouldn't be willing to pay any large premium for a 3D set (which defeats the purpose for manufacturers to offer it in the first place).
In his mind, the tech is dated in a couple of years.
He wouldn't get rid of his 2D set. (This one didn't even make sense.   )

With endorsers like that who needs skeptics? Everything the guy says is silently screaming, "Wait! Don't jump into this pool right now".
Frankly, considering the continuous hard-sell that occurs at events like that, I would have been more surprised if he had said he wasn't convinced to buy one of the things.

Anyone know if the PS3 3-D is designed to work with only Sony Bravia 3-D sets?

Help me out here gang. 

I am very confused.  I simply do not understand what people are talking about when they talk about a "3D TV"  I have a 60" Plasma that, to my knowledge and experience, is very capable of showing 3D using glasses.  I have "Coraline" on Blu Ray and it looks great in 3D.

What is it that these new "3D" units are able to do that mine cannot?  I mean, 3D was available on old tube TVs and VHS. 

Please educate me.

The stuff you are watching uses anaglyph (one red lense and one green) to produce the 3D effect. Pure and simple, anaglyph is garbage. It causes people to get headaches, because for all intents and purposes it causes a "crosseyed" effect. Colours are wiped out as well, depending on what colours were used to create the anaglyph master. 3D TVs are going to use a system where the glasses act like shutters. The glasses will be synced to the TV so that each lense will alternately open and close in a rapid "blinking" effect. 3D films will be encoded so that each lense will sync to film frames that are shot at slightly different angles. The "shuttering" is so fast that a person effectively sees the combined frames as "3D".

In order to do this properly the TV is going to have be capable of accepting a very high frequency signal and will have to have a high refresh rate, probably at minimum 120hz; however, the higher the refresh rate the better the effect will probably be.  The sets will also require circuitry for syncing the glasses to the inpu signal. Presently, most sets out there will be incapable of taking advantage of the coming 3D encodings. If one wants to watch 3D flicks then one will have to purchase a new set with the capability to accept and process the new 3D encodes.

Headaches will still be an issue, because your brain is still given the conflicted task of focusing near for the true image while pivoting the eyes for the apparent stereoscopic image. It may well be reduced, but the alternate technologies don't eliminate it per se.

I also find that anaglyph 3-D works best in a completely dark room, save for the light coming from the display. With no external cues to distract you, the colour even looks better if not accurate on releases such as Coraline and Bob's Big Break on the Monsters vs. Aliens which use the Magenta/Green glasses. Red/blue is always a dicey proposition and I haven't seen ColorCode in action (yellow/blue used for the Monsters vs. Aliens Super Bowl ad and the 3D episode of Chuck). That being said, I'm really hoping that Real D gets into the game with a polarizing filter for projectors similar to what is used in theatres. I have had zero headaches from Real D presentations.

The yellow/blue, broadcast in HD, was the best Anaglyph 3D I've seen. But I haven't tried my Coraline Blu Ray yet.

Hey guys, quick question.

Been hearing confilcting info. heard for 3D you NEED HDMI 1.4 yet I hear PS3 will work. I am pretty sure PS3 is HDMI 1.3 no?

Initially, everything was pointing to the requirement of HDMI 1.4 certification to ensure that the higher bandwidth demands of 3D would be met.  HDMI 1.4 is a hardware specification, not a software specification, so any HDMI 1.3 devices (including the PS3) could not be updated to 1.4 via a firmware update.

HOWEVER.  About a month ago, Sony made this announcement.

According to Sony, their HDMI 1.3 devices DO have enough bandwidth to support full 1080p video to each eye for 3D movies.  Due to the lack of other features unique to HDMI 1.4 (such as return audio, and some other networking capabilities) the devices can't be branded HDMI 1.4, but at least on the video side of things, 1.3 should be OK.

While I will upgrade my PS3 to the firmware for 3D.
I still would like to have a stand alone 3D blu-ray player.
I think the only thing I will be using my PS3 3D upgrade is for their 3D games they have planned.

Just like I do now for my regular blu-ray movies, I use a stand alone player and not my PS3.

With me going 3D this spring/summer, I also plan on upgrading my receiver so it's 1.4 HDMI
The new Onkyo ones look good.(Which I already have preordered)

Curious to hear more of your thoughts Sam.

I've seen the Samsung demo at Sears where I work and last night saw the Panasonic demo at BB. 

I'm old enough to remember demos of just about every new tv tech that's come down the pike, starting with color in the mid-50s thru dvd and HD in the late 90s and HD-DVD and BD in 06.  While 3D isn't exactly perfect yet it's a lot more "ready for prime time" than any of the other big advances were as far as stability and backwards compatibility go.

Standard HD looks just as good if not better on the new 3D sets as on high end 2D sets.  The Samsung 3D player has run flawlessly for 12 hours a day without a hiccup, something that could not have been said about 1st gen (or even 2nd gen in some cases) BD players.  The glasses synch reliably and so far nobody's managed to break them.  Some minor ghosting occurs from time to time, largely dependent on viewing angle and distance.

My major issue is that there just isn't any content to speak of.  In order to get one of the two available movies one must purchase either the Panasonic or Samsung "starter pack".  The latter is free with purchase of the tv and 3D bd player.  Both available movies are CGI animation.  Strong rumor is that Avatar will not see a release this year.  It's going to be up to the cable/satelllite sports channels to provide any actual 3D content for some time to come.

Samsung sets have a feature that they claim does 2D to 3D conversion "on the fly" but I've read very mixed reviews of it's effectiveness, and haven't had a chance to try it on our demo setup.

For those willing to bear the expense I think the purchase can be made with a good degree of confidence from the technical standpoint--it works and works pretty well and there's no sacrifice in 2D performance.  The occasional ghosting might just disappear with future improvements in mastering and maybe a firmware update or two--the latter was and still is certainly the case with BD.

Content wise there's really nothing very encouraging on the horizon right this minute if one isn't a sports fan.  Technicolor says reproduction costs for 3D BD aren't any higher than for 2d, but mastering and encoding are something else entirely and studios have to consider the cost effectiveness of producing 3D BD.  Perhaps the PS3 factor will have as positive an effect in this regard as it did for BD as a whole.