3D A few words about...™ 3D -- in Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

Many interesting views on 3D. Seems a little outdated. My opinion is that the new LG LM series is currently one of the best systems out there and highly recommended.

My experience of 3D on Blu-ray has been largely positive. Just after Christmas, I realised my old LG LCD was starting to look a little worse for wear. The picture was starting to look a little dim at the very edges of the picture. It was, after all, over two years old. I had the money saved up for a new tv somewhere along the line and I decided to do a bit of research on a replacement.
I happened to visit my local Tesco superstore on a completely different errand and they had a number of 3D television sets on display. I hadn't actually been thinking about 3D, but I thought I'd give it a try. The first I looked at was a Samsung with Active glasses (actually viewed through a rig like an inverted periscope crossed with a What The Butler Saw machine). The image on the screen was, sure enough, 3D. It was also quite dark and looking around I couldn't help noticing how dark it made the surrounding room. It also made fluorescent lights and other sets on display flicker quite badly. At a later date I tried out another pair of Active glasses and they flickered even worse. I could easily imagine getting a headache watching anything for too long, and of course the set only came with a single pair and subsequent pairs at around £80 a pop.
On the other wall was an LG 42" LCD-LED and in a pencil jar at the side of the set was a pair of bright orange sunglasses. I tried them on, and I was instantly sold on 3DTV and Passive glasses. The LG set was running a 3D demo which included footage of dancers, aircraft in flight, skateboarders and a number of other comin'-at-ya clips. They all rendered beautifully - a shower of confetti actually causing me to take a step back. I collared a passerby who'd been looking at the Active setup and asked him if he thought the Passive glasses worked better. He agreed with me, but from the wary look he shot me I think he might have thought I was dangerous.
A week later I'd ordered my own 42" LG from Amazon. It came with seven pairs of viewing glasses in total. I also picked up Monsters vs. Aliens, and since then I've amassed six titles in 3D - Hugo, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, The Three Musketeers, Puss In Boots and Spy Kids 4. The movies that were specifically made in 3D are quite amazing. The ones that were post-processed into 3D as an afterthought not so. I'm delighted that my new television is 3D, but that's actually just the icing on the cake. The tv is a huge improvement on my old 32" fluorescent display. As well as 3D, it has a great many neat tricks up its sleeve which made the upgrade a no-brainer.
If 3D dies a death in the next couple of years, my feeling will be that at least I was there. I gave it a go. I have a tv that works beautifully as an ordinary set as well as a 3D one. By the next Big Thing in televisions, this one will probably be ready for replacement, just as my old tv saw me through the introduction of high definition tv sources and Blu-ray.

I am by no means being judgemental, but I'm the type of guy who has no desire to replace my TV every two or three years. I like to get things that I'm gonna get quite a few years out of before having to "upgrade". True, my original flat screen TV is only 3 years old, but I only replaced it for 3D and only because a)DIAL M FOR MURDER is coming in 3D Blu Ray and b)I can convert all my field sequential titles to Over/Under and watch them on the new set. If those two things weren't true, I'd be just as happy with my 3 year old 32" Vizio. Again, I upgraded to Blu Ray only because of the 3D and the fact that it will still play my DVD collection. And if that wasn't true, I might not have made the switch after all. I'm frankly not interested in the Next Big Thing in TVs (CinemaScope TVs? Absurd!). I still have in my bedroom a 20 year old 20" CRT TV that works just fine and up until recently, I have used it to watch my field sequential DVDs. I'd ideally like to go an entire decade before considering getting another TV, thank you very much. If I can go even longer, fantastic.
As for my experiences, I have a passive glasses 42" Vizio with a Vizio 3D Blu Ray player. The effect is good and I enjoy watching it, which is another reason I'm hoping to go quite a few years before upgrading again.

That's your prerogative. I'd be inclined to do the same, if the technology was not changing and improving constantly. My older tvs are still operational in the bedrooms upstairs - I still try to get decent longevity out of my sets, and if any of them last twenty years I will be highly delighted and consider I got my money's worth out of them. I just wouldn't want to be watching a geriatric set when I could be watching a much better picture on a new display.
Why do I feel like I'm justifying myself when all I have is a measly 42" LG LCD and some folk hereabouts have Home Theaters valued in the $tens of thousands?

And don't feel like you have to justify yourself. You're free to spend your money as you see fit.I mean, hey, I only have a 42" myself.
I guess I just get annoyed with the way new technology is shoved down our throats constantly. I've read about the CinemaScope TVs being developed and think it's an absurd idea. Seriously, does anyone need a TV that has huge black bars on the side for anything not in CinemaScope just so they can watch something like JAWS with no black bars on the top and bottom? I think the current TV configuration is just fine, thank you very much. And 3D TVs got introduced just after HDTVs came into being. This is actually why I got out of video game systems. You'd buy one system and two years later it would be obsolete and you'd need the Next Big Game System. Bah! I'm annoyed at the prospect that if I want THE MAD MAGICIAN in 3D, I may need to buy a PS3. I don't want a PS3, I have absolutely no need of such a device, but I would like THE MAD MAGICIAN. I'm hoping to wait Sony out and see if they put it on 3D Blu. But of course, putting it out on 3D Blu would make a little too much sense I suppose which means it probably won't happen. Now, if Mike Schlessinger or Grover Crisp would prove me wrong about that, I'd be delighted.

I guess I just get annoyed with the way new technology is shoved down our throats constantly.

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You and me both, Todd. And it's not just entertainment tech trying to empty your wallet. There's an old Chinese curse - "May you live in interesting times" - and I reckon things are too damn interesting. You could easily run yourself into a pauper's grave buying the latest gadgets, because there's always something just round the corner that does that little bit more than the thing you bought last year.
What really annoys me about modern technology is the speed of obsolescence of this stuff. Or worse, the things start acting up. Five years ago I was running a 28" widescreen Sony CRT that had lasted me five years. Before that a standard 21" Sony that gave me about eight years service. Since moving to flat-screens I've done one absolutely purely for-the-sake-of-it upgrade from the first 720p capable set to a full 1080p set after two years, and the latest upgrade from that 32" set to the current 42" 3D job was mainly because the image was starting to look patchy round the edges. Fortunately my "tech fund" bank account was healthy enough to support the purchase otherwise I'd be stuck watching the old tv yet. I'm hoping beyond hope I get more than a couple of years out of this set but I'll take the precaution of making savings provisions for future hardware just in case.

I have spent too darn much on this hobby in the last decade and a half. I now have a 3D projector. I am done with equipment upgrades for a long while. 4K doesn't interest me unless there is an affordable path for native content.

Originally Posted by Craig W /t/311035/a-few-words-about-3d-in-blu-ray/90#post_3932724
I have spent too darn much on this hobby in the last decade and a half. I now have a 3D projector. I am done with equipment upgrades for a long while. 4K doesn't interest me unless there is an affordable path for native content.

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What PJ did you get? I would love one, but I am pushing the brightness on my PJ in 2D

Adam Gregorich said:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Craig W /t/311035/a-few-words-about-3d-in-blu-ray/90#post_3932724
I have spent too darn much on this hobby in the last decade and a half. I now have a 3D projector. I am done with equipment upgrades for a long while. 4K doesn't interest me unless there is an affordable path for native content.

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What PJ did you get? I would love one, but I am pushing the brightness on my PJ in 2D

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I went with the Sony HW30ES. It's the current jack of all trades projector. I upgraded from an Epson ProCinema 1080UB. Pretty happy with it. I use it primarily with the Monster/Optoma RF glasses because you can tune some of the ghosting out compared to the Sony glasses.

Craig W said:

I went with the Sony HW30ES. It's the current jack of all trades projector. I upgraded from an Epson ProCinema 1080UB. Pretty happy with it. I use it primarily with the Monster/Optoma RF glasses because you can tune some of the ghosting out compared to the Sony glasses.

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What made you decide on the Sony HW30ES? Did you look at other projectors? Projector Central puts that model on the bottom of their top ten 3D projectors.

I don't really care what Projector Central thinks. I had an Epson unit prior and I wanted something other than LCD. I had a Sharp DLP with a 5x color wheel that I could see rainbows with so I didn't want to go back to that technology. The Sony had a good reputation among its owner base and the price was right. I heard the JVCs had a lot of problems with 3D ghosting among their owners. The Benq unit I was looking at was plague with firmware issues at the time I was buying.

Craig W said:

I don't really care what Projector Central thinks. I had an Epson unit prior and I wanted something other than LCD. I had a Sharp DLP with a 5x color wheel that I could see rainbows with so I didn't want to go back to that technology. The Sony had a good reputation among its owner base and the price was right. I heard the JVCs had a lot of problems with 3D ghosting among their owners. The Benq unit I was looking at was plague with firmware issues at the time I was buying.

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The Sony does look good compared to other 3D projectors shown here

Sorry if I came off a little harshly regarding PC. They didn't rip the projector apart in their review. I just don't like how they rate them all together. The Epsons are brighter but every LCD unit I have seen has a uniformity issue. My old 1080UB had it. I wanted to try an SXRD model and so far I am thoroughly satisfied. The fact is that nothing is perfect but for my cave room the HW30 exceeds what I expected. The 3D is better than the what I have experienced at the local theater and the 2D performance is very good also. I didn't tweak anything other than setting the colorspace to Normal, color temp to Low1 and setting Motionflow to Low. The Sony is pretty good right out of the box. Also the Sony bulb has so far been reliable. While I was looking at the JVC's, it appears they have been having a high bulb failure rate compared to other manufacturers. So the Sony looked better there also.