CES 3D TVs Make Slash
The idea of 3D cinema has been around a long time and the occasional movies have been used as oddities to scare the viewing public with larger than life monsters and out-reached hands.
But things have moved on and now 3D televisions have received rave reviews from the latest techno shindig at Las Vegas, CES 2010.
Indeed, Best in Show gong was awarded to the Panasonic VT25 television. Now LG, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba were all showing off 3D TVs, but Panasonic got the accolade, mainly because it not only does the business, but it’s about to ship, meaning it could be in a home near you (if you live in America of course), by the spring. And as such, it will be one of the first 3D, flat-panel HDTV’s available in the US market.
Now, once it reaches across the pond, don’t go expecting Phil’s next fight at the Queen Vic to be in glorious 3D, because as with all such technologies, the device is only part of the story. There isn’t much 3D content around at the moment and as happened with HD television, the availability of 3D programming could be on the low side for a bit.
The other downside of course is that watching 3D television requires you to look like Mr Magoo wearing his best set of lenses. Special glasses have to be worn if you don’t want to be sick watching a fuzzy image and although the Panasonic comes with a complimentary pair, other members of the family will either have to ask for the sick bag, or buy their own.
Now, in case you’re interested, the Panasonic glasses use an active LC shutter system which means that the two lenses darken and lighten very quickly – not discernable with the human eye - whilst the TV picture synchronously displays the corresponding left and right eye specific images. This results in what Panasonic call the Full Monty (or Full HD 3D to be precise). In techno blurb, it’s full-resolution 3D content, which preserves all 1,920 x 1,080 pixels for the left and right eye. Bingo.
Okay clever, but how long before you can view such 3D images on your mobile phone? And how long before those phones end up in the hands of the mobile recycling fraternity? The answer, on both counts, is quite some time.
