Price on S-3D? Crucial?

[Jadentheman]

I ddon't know about you guys but once that standards out and the tvs are out I can help but wonder if the extra 3d will be overcharged. I wouldn't mind if it's $1000 more but if you go up further especially now people won't buy and 3D could possibily fail. And this is crucial. Since many companies are touting their tvs and all this specs but no price or estimate. Will it be geared toward the average family or the superich and business?

I especially don't like Panasonic and thier 103 inch tv. Why not 60 or 70 or heck even 50 but 103? Remember it the same tv that costs $50,000 and they was before they put in 3D

[cybereality]

Yeah I think price is pretty important. I expect the 3D TVs to fetch a premium for sure, I just hope they don't gouge. The big problem with the high price is that it greatly effects the reviews. I find so often that when 3D is concerned all of a sudden it only about price and they just disregard the specs. The same reviewers that seem to have no problem recommending the newest $600 video card (which is a marginal benefit compared to the model from a few months ago) yet paying the same $600 for a 3D monitor is overpriced. Then take the Zalman Trimon, for example. It debuted at over $700 (which I gladly paid) and pretty much all the reviews said it wasn't worth it. Fast forward to today, the Zalman is selling for around $250 but I don't see any site updating their review. So while the price naturally drops by that time is not news anymore and the reviews still stand. So this is a big problem for sure. Especially if the 3D-HDTV is marked-up and you have to pay an additional $100-200 per pair of glasses for each person. Even with an equal price its still going to be a hard-sale to get mainstream buyers to go 3D but if the TVs cost twice as much, forget about it. And, yeah, 103" is overkill. I hope Panasonic brings out some reasonable sized versions (60" would be nice). Hopefully it won't cost a whole year's salary either.

[Jadentheman]

Another thing is the problem with shutter glasses. No one wants to pay $100-200 for a pair of glasses. then they need 4 of them and then what about gatherings and parties? Polarized should have been the way to go. Even if they include the glasses with the tv it won't matter. Pricing is always the important factor. Blu-ray would have done better with $20-30 movies when just released the same should apply for true 3D movies when they get released maybe no more than $50 (Same price as a PS3 game).

I wonder if Neil would say anything about this?

[cybereality]

I'm still rather skeptical to the reason shutter-glasses are still so expensive. I mean, they are basically just simple monochrome LCD screens like they have been using in digital watches since like the 80's. I mean, I can buy a 1080P 22" full-color computer monitor for $150 bucks yet some dinky glasses with basically 2 black pixels costs $200? I don't know about that.

[Jadentheman]

lol shutter glasses=fail

Polarized/Real-D method=WTF

[yuriythebest]

I'm still rather skeptical to the reason shutter-glasses are still so expensive. I mean, they are basically just simple monochrome LCD screens like they have been using in digital watches since like the 80's. I mean, I can buy a 1080P 22" full-color computer monitor for $150 bucks yet some dinky glasses with basically 2 black pixels costs $200? I don't know about that.

technology should become cheaper as time goes by, not more expensive. why are the old edimensionals 70$? plus yeah the eyestrain....
For the edimensional glasses, I can't imagine the manufacturing cost being over 10-20$, it's just some plastic, and as you said, 2 pixels, and a few wires and a cd and box.

[Jadentheman]

Well I'm worried becuase these company never ever mentioned a price tag yet. And I just hope it comes out a resonable one because if it doesn't 3D may never or might be harder to take off at home

[Jadentheman]

bump for more discussion

[ssiu]

Yes, price is a big concern for me. I didn't even think about this until recently -- I just assumed the S3D premium will be reasonable, which to me means maybe $200-$300. (Plus $50-$100 per pair of 3D glasses.) I thought that way because I assumed only some electronics need to be updated to handle/process 120Hz 1080p input signals (and that's the $200-$300 premium to me -- electronics can't cost that much). I assumed the existing plasma panels and 120Hz/240Hz LCD panels are already fast enough to handle the 60Hz-per-eye S3D output and do not need improvement (so no extra cost from that). The existing S3D HDTVs (Mitsubishi and Samsung DLP; Samsung plasma PN42B450/PN50B450) basically do not cost any extra for the 3D functionality, and I am used to thinking along that line. Talk of "I wouldn't mind if it's $1000 more but if you go up further especially now people won't buy and 3D could possibily fail." scares me -- you can buy the whole PN50B450 TV + 1 pair of S3D glasses for ~$1000!


Copying from another thread http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... 496#p30496 :

Many existing LCD HDTVs already have fast panels (120Hz; some are 240Hz), and plasma panels are inherently >= 120Hz. So it is only the electronics that need to be upgraded to deal with 120Hz input signals.

"Only electronics" means considerably different pixel driving schemes which can orient crystals faster with better precision, and probably improved liquid crystal material as well.

Still, I'm skeptical these 240 Hz monitors feature any of the above. Whatever internal digital processing feature this "240 Hz" figure represents, it's probaly just an interpolator that can make 24 Hz material look somewhat more natural (but blurry) on a 60p screeen.

Now I just hope that the companies will not be too greedy with the "3D premium" they charge. The existing 3D TVs (DLP, and Samsung plasmas) don't cost any more than their 2D counterparts.

Plasma, DLP and LCD monitors use very different physics behind them. The first two employ pulse-width modulation to control the brightness of pixels, which have very low reaction time by design. LCD monitors employ rotation of clrystalline particlees with magnetic field and have long been prone to very slow pixel reaction times, in excess of 100ms for earlier models. Even current so-called 2ms screens still featuire maximum reaction time of several dozen milliseconds.

Samsung 120Hz LCD monitor costs 2 times as much as similar 22" monitors. Also, 200/240 Hz TV sets costs twice as much as their regular 60 Hz counterparts. I'd expect a 3D-capable TV to be a top model in the range and have a similar substantial price premium, at least for the initial series and a few following generations.

60Hz LCD TVs are low end, and 120Hz LCD TVs are almost mainstream now (certainly will be by end of 2010). I just assumed the 120Hz LCD TV panels are fast enough (just like the Samsung/Viewsonic 120Hz LCD monitors), but I guess you are right, there are many differences (e.g. the monitor are 6-bit TN panels which are different and faster than 8-bit panels that TVs use). If 240Hz TV panels are necessary for 3D LCD TVs, then certainly it will be at a premium price range for a while.

But plasma panels have no such technical problems if I understand correctly (i.e. they are inherently fast enough to switch left-eye/right-eye 120 times per second with no ghosting etc.), so an "affordable" 3D plasma TV from Panasonic / LG is technically possible, no?

But the plasma companies may still choose to only enable 3D on the high-end products for non-technical reasons. Which will greatly slow down 3D TV adoption, and will be a mistake IMHO ...

[DmitryKo]

the monitor are 6-bit TN panels which are different and faster than 8-bit panels that TVs use.

S-LCD, a Sony-Samsung joint venture, does not disclose their technical specs to general public, but both Samsung and LG Display do offer 5 ms TV display panels
http://www.lgdisplay.com/homeContain/js ... 01_j_e.jsp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/ ... mly_id=607" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Actual pixel response times can still be far greater than this.

plasma panels have no such technical problems if I understand correctly (i.e. they are inherently fast enough to switch left-eye/right-eye 120 times per second with no ghosting etc.), so an "affordable" 3D plasma TV from Panasonic / LG is technically possible, no?

Yes. In short, plasma panels generate photons by inducing a plasma arc, and digital micromirrors simply reflect light from a lamp. But as the brightness of both the plasma arc and the lamp is constant, only "On" and "Off" states would be possible for each pixel, effectively zero brightness and full brightness. So in order to produce intermediate levels, the control logic blinks each pixel several hundred times a second, and the duration of the blink varies as well. And of course to make this even possible, the pixel reaction time is much less than that, actually in order of nanonseconds for plasma and dozens of nanoseconds for Digital Micromirror Devices.

More at the links below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_dis ... plays_work" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Li ... ror_device" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-width_modulation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But the plasma companies may still choose to only enable 3D on the high-end products for non-technical reasons.

But DLP manufacturers chose not to set a substantial premium. Plasma market is shrinking as well, so IMHO those few companies still remaining should jump at every opportunity to sell their products.

[Jadentheman]

If you look at the first comment he's pretty much dead on!

Code: Select all

3D is a nice idea that in reality requires way too much capital investment to make sense for the average consumer, especially TODAY's average consumer, who has been burned by the recession and thinks a LOT harder now about what they throw money at. That mentality will continue for a long time after the economy starts recovering

Edited his quote because he was full of anti-3D

[DmitryKo]

People never stop buying new cars, kitchen appliances and TV sets, though the sales rate will probably slow down for a time. With increased availability of high-quality stereoscopic content, Consumers will have more and more incentive to buy S3D TVs, just like they were driven to buy HDTV sets by ever increasing percentage of HD broadcasts.

[ssiu]

I want to know whether the majority think the upcoming 3D HDTVs will be high-end models only, so I started a poll here http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4364