Well good try Neil, I could see you took multiple passes to get him to answer the driver question, but he kept dodging it. For those who don't want to sit through the video, here's the condensed version:

Q. Will there be driver support from AMD or Nvidia for your glasses?
A. We really hope so.

Good point. Looks like there is a lot of "let's re-invent the wheel" lately in S-3D.

VESA Stereo is a very simple protocol. Just like other USB and analog VGA solutions, it essentially privides the way to physically syncronize shutters with each frame of seqiential stereo, describing the sync protocol and the connector plug. It does not specify any underlying application model that can be used to work with the sequential stereo.


If you are a developer who needs to support stereo in his/her application, you face many complex questions. How to detect the type of stereo display and transmission method (line-interleaved, side-by-side, dual video interface, frame sequential etc)? How many different devices and formats to support? Where can you get the source code for pre-processing the images for all these devices and formats? How to ensure a proper sync with shutter glasses for sequential stereo? What internal stereo format to use and how to transcode your internal format to the native display format?

At this time, none of these points are adressed by industry standards. The current effort is only about making ATI/AMD hardware compatible with 3rd party shutters and 3rd party stereo drivers. Software developers will still have to code explicit support for many different solutions and formats right in their applications, and the users will still have the burden of configuring up each different application to work with the stereoscopic solution they use.


But in orfer for stereoscopic gaming and home video to become more popular, everyting should be far more easier for both developers and users, so we need to have standard programming interfaces. At a minimum, these should include:

1) a OS-level device driver model (or a 3rd-party plug-in model) which lets hardware vendors provide a standard driver/plug-in for their specific display and/or shutter glasses solutions, and
2) a 3rd-party or OS component which will provide a standard programming interface, abstracting the underlying hardware for application developers.

So the user would only have to plug-in the glasses and install the drivers, and the application developer would use a standard API to pass the picture in device-independent stereo format. The middleware component will directly talk with the vendor-provided driver and provide format conversion, image processing and frame syncronisation.

What else could he say? We all know Nvidia is not currently interested in supporting anything other than their own 3D Vision glasses, and Bit Cauldron are not in charge of the whole industry, unlike Microsoft and Khronos, they are only trying to ensure their product will at least work with AMD hardware.

This guy is a very good, fast-talking salesman, but I'll reserve my judgement until I see some of this tech being demo-ed in stores.

Of course, but even that wasn't assured in the interview. AMD/ATI has never taken a stance of offering stereoscopic driver support. So either they need to have their own drivers like iz3d does, or else they have to work with AMD to make sure they produce drivers. It doesn't matter if the hardware is compatible if nobody is developing the drivers. Until he confirms anything, these may as well be treated like edimensional's fantastic S-3D solution.

You really should have more confidence in our interview choices.

He said in the interview that they are working with DDD, iZ3D, and AMD for driver support. Bit Cauldron's exhibit was part of the AMD booth.

Regards,
Neil

Besides there are more than just hints on the iz3d forums about iz3d teamship with amd. The next driver release for instance is delayed partly because of shuttersupport for amd. I have no clue if it's about shutters in general or only glasses from Bit Cauldron. I'm quite sure it's not about an interlaced solution though since it's already existent since a while back in iz3d drivers.

This is correct.



http://www.behardware.com/news/10636/ca ... r-way.html

+ Wireless sync rather than IR seems like a good thing, though tbh IR is perfectly adequate for most PC setups (I don't run a drive-through movie theatre)

+ Some interesting claims about improved sync reducing crosstalk and increasing brightness

+ Claim to work with any 3d tv

+ Their attitude to standards seems positive


- The stuff he said about standards is exactly what you'd expect anyone who hasn't invested anything in their own drivers to say

-No word on price (and if neither AMD or Bit Cauldron are making their own drivers, presumably you'd need to buy IZ3D or DDD drivers on top of the cost of the glasses)

- Didn't mention anything about working with other PC display tech like CRTs, <120Hz DLP projectors etc (though I can't see any reason they wouldn't work)

-Not out for at least half a year


Overall, however, my reaction is positive -nVidia's lacklustre support for 3D Vision is exactly what you'd expect from a company which is effectively the only game in town shutterglass-wise. Hopefully the prospect of more competition will finally get them to actively support their product. And if they don't, well if looks like 3D Vision users might eventually have alternatives (that aren't tied to tiny monitors or restricted to games that have to maintain 60fps constantly to avoid losing sync).
Cheers,
DD

Was reading the PDF about XpanD's new X103s. DLP-Link built-in, and works with all displays also. Supposedly works with several different IR emitters (XpanD, VESA, and two others). No word on price, but they look nice.

Will the Monster Vision “Max 3D” glasses be the first bit cauldron glasses on the market?

I can't believe it's taking so long for amd to have a pair of glasses out in stores.

im waiting for MEMS (micromechanical) shutterglasses with high transmittance ,

no mems = obsolete

are we 2010 or what, who wants 80's lc glasses with zigbee or whatever sync. Not intrested. Let's see who brings us MEMS shutter first.
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost ... stcount=12
my post over AVS
kthxxbai