The "TV Eyes 3-D Glasses" have finally arrived. Shipped quickly, packed in a small box with some newspaper comics.
I open it up to find a pair of glasses and a pamphlet in some clear wrapping:
Sweet, at least its not a bag of pebbles!
I went into this knowing it was some sort of rip-off, so I wasn't expecting much. In fact, I kept checking my bank account balance, just to make sure I didn't get scammed for real (it happens). So when I realized these "TV Eyes 3-D Glasses" had a metal frame, I was pretty impressed. I figured they'd be plastic, at best. They felt really heavy and solid. So even if this is a hoax, at least the dude makes it look good. The part where the lens goes just has a hard plastic shell with a horizontal slit of pin-holes (8 holes each). So its not just a run of the mill pair of pin-hole glasses. So this has me interested now. As you can see below the glasses look bogus, but still appear high-quality:
TV_Eyes_01.jpg
The frame is surprisingly thick and heavy:
TV_Eyes_02.jpg
The best part is the "manual" that comes with it. Honestly, reading this this was so funny that it was worth the $20 alone. If you thought stereo-3d was complex, wait until you hear about this new tv eyes 3d. I'm going to have to scan this in, cause its just too funny. It just sounds like a bunch of BS really, but at least it does make the distinction that it is not true stereoscopic 3d. Here is a crappy photo:
At this point I just had to try the glasses out. I mean, you never know. When I put them on I experienced what the manual refers to as "bug-eyes", this sort of doubling of the image. The tops and bottoms of my vision were blocked off like when wearing an HMD. I could see a horizontal sliver of vision. So far this seems like a novelty item, but I thought I'd give it a chance. So I tried them out on my PC with a few movies. First I tried that T2 1080p trailer that someone else had linked. Didn't work. Wasn't seeing anything. Figured I'd try a DVD, so I threw on the Matrix Revolutions. Lots of special effects and action, I thought it might work. At first it didn't seem like it was doing anything really, except making it harder to see. I was wearing glasses and they didn't fit right because the the heavy frames on these so-called 3-d glasses. So I tried them just without my glasses, what the hell. Now this is interesting, they do actually make the image more clear. In fact, I could use them instead of my prescriptions. It was still difficult to see (because of the black bars and double-images) but it was pretty clear. So the glasses do something, and are indeed based on the pin-hole effect. But I'm not seeing any sort of 3D, but I keep on going...
I tried a bunch of different scenes from the movie, so far there was no sort of 3-D effect at all. It did make the image clear, and also the contrast better (because of the immersion of the black shields). So there was something going on, but it was giving me a headache. It makes your eye muscles focus differently. Like the strain you might get from an HMD but like times two. The interesting thing is that the image doubling appears similar to when you look at a real stereo-3d movie on page-flipping without glasses. So I almost see where the guy is going with this. You see like 3 or 4 overlapping ghost images that randomly offset from eye to eye. Its a sort of parallax effect, an optical illusion I think. Not that it necessarily works, but that I can see there is some science put behind this. Its not just a total gag. Finally on one scene I saw something. It was only for a second, but it was something. I paused it to look closer. The scene was a parking lot with 3 rows of lights on the ceiling. If I would shift my head to the left or right, I could see that weird pseudoscopic effect. Like when you move your head around when wearing real 3d glasses. So it was tricking the eye into something, but it just felt random for the most part. But I can almost see how it could sort of work. So I keep trying.
Now on the final scene in Matrix Revolutions, I started to get some effect. I'm not sure if it was 3d, actually, I know it wasn't 3d. But the scene did feel more "realistic" somehow. Now I think I understand what they were saying with the seeing the atmosphere thing. I kept taking them off and putting them back on. It made a difference. Mind you I am sitting 10 feet from my tv and see it somewhat clearly without my prescription glasses. Now on this one final part with all the sentinels flying around, it did look 3d! I thought maybe I was just bugging, so I rewinded and played it again. Yep, with fast horizontal motion there is a 3d effect. I played this scene over a few times, with the glasses and without. Honestly, it did almost appear to be 3d. The colors looked richer, picture more clear, and had that psuedoscopic effect. After that scene, again no 3d effects. I tried some different movies, some animation, nothing else seemed to work. So while this should still be considered a "novelty" item, its not a straight scam.
Then just to humor myself I tried out some games. I tried HL2, GRID, a few others. No dice. But somehow Devil May Cry 4 (DMC4) demo had some 3d effects. Not as much on the game, but just on the title screen. It really did appear that the text and logo were at screen-depth and the background behind it. Even when moving my head around, the text would shift slightly in the opposite vector. It was an absolute minimal amount, but it was in the correct direction. Like if the text were 1cm in front of the screen. I have no way to explain this, it may actually be worth further investigation. However it was nowhere even close to what the game looks like in real stereo-3d. It was a 3d-like effect, but it was clearly there. The first benchmark demo appeared somewhat 3d. I would put it at 2.2D if that were possible. I could take the glasses off for a second and then it would just look flat. So again, the glasses had some sort of effect but nothing worth actually paying for.
Overall, its a crap product not worth your time (unless just for lolz like I did). The vendor is spreading mis-information regarding stereo-3d and taking advantage of clueless buyers. However it is not a scam, so I guess the seller has a right to sell his product. Although it is falsely marketed, the product does have some merit. Its a novelty effect, yes, but it is something. I'd put it in the same category as those "x-ray specs" from old comics or the hoverboard plans you find in the back pages of popular science. I could see how someone gullible could be fooled. Especially since they do indeed enhance clarity of vision. The way I see it, there are probably a bunch of people out there without perfect 20/20 vision. Some see eye doctors, others do not. I wouldn't be surprised if those people (that don't realize their vision sucks) are the same people uninformed enough to order these "tv eyes 3d glasses". Its a bit low, but there are many products just like this that are perfectly legal (herbal supplements, etc.). So I guess I just discovered what everyone else just assumed from the start: the glasses are bogus. But honestly, I'm actually going to keep them just for fun. Wait until you guys see the "instruction manual", its comedy gold!
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