This is a great interview; thank you! Questions to Samsung:

During 2008 CES, Samsung announced 2 series of PDP HDTV. It seems to me that only the lower-end 720p series are S-3D compatible, not the 1080p series. Is that correct or not? (The press release seems to be deliberately vague.) If yes, why? Will there be 1080p S-3D compatible PDP HDTVs from Samsung?

What is the PDP 3DTV display technique? (I personally doubt that it is the same "checkerboard" used by DLP HDTVs.)

How much more does being S-3D compatible add to the cost of the PDP HDTV?

What about the Samsung S-3D DLP HDTVs, are they being neglected / phased out? Even though the majority of consumers seem to buy into the "flat-panel" pitch, many/most don't actually hang their HDTVs onto walls, and many consumers will deal with the 18-inch depth of DLP in return for biggest size / best-bang-for-the-buck. Will Samsung continue to make sure any S-3D contents work equally well on both their S-3D DLP HDTV and S-3D PDP HDTV, or are DLP HDTVs being orphaned?


More general question to all -- suppose I want to buy a big HDTV. Mabe it costs $2000 or more. That is a lot of money, and so I expect it to last many years. I want to make sure it will work on all S-3D contents coming out in the next few years, i.e. S-3D Blu-Ray videos, S-3D PS3 console games, S-3D PC games. But it seems like the different S-3D HDTVs (DLP, PDP, Spectron IQ LCD -- not to mention S-3D desktop monitors like IZ3D and Zalman) all use different display techniques. My fear is that I pick the "wrong one" and it won't be supported in the future (e.g. maybe I pick DLP, and then the technology got phased out in 3 years just like CRT monitors, and by the time PS3 supports S-3D games it does not support "checkboard" S-3D). This is stopping me from spending the big $$$$. How would companies like Samsung help convince me to buy the "right S-3D HDTV"? (Of course, the best case is to have a universal S-3D driver from DDD or other companies that support all S-3D display techniques. But being burned by NVIDIA, I am no longer naive enough to assume that.)

Good deal Neil. Those extra details do put it into a better perspective. I had that thought as well, the indirect benefit related to the nature of how Stereo games are rendered. We know having options to turn post processing off isn't in the future of S-3D and I doubt it would be good selling point. I could see some custom PDP chipset related post-processing effects being written very easily. I could pick things apart and guess but really in the end it is only a good thing for the progression of 3D to the masses.
3DTV is huge and after this is mass market the next gen of 3D consoles can't not follow, I give it less than 3 years.
I guess I want to know more about the technology behind the TV, 3D PDP chipset and if and how they will break the post processing issue. Is 1080p going to become the new standard of 3D viewing? I am glad Samsung is involved, there huge. I have two of their TVs and two of their monitors up right now. I would also like to allot more about how Nvidia is involved and if Samsungs 3D is dependant on their Stereo support.

This is great news that there is another "team" working to bring S3D to the masses.

Q1) EA, will there be more issues with the propietary S3D solution you are working on like there have been
with widescreen support from the first launch of a popular title such has BF2 that I purchased?

The widescreen thing seemed to fall on deaf ears for a long time even with the fact that widescreen monitors
were the new favorite but there was little to no support for these.
More recently there was an ultra-wide or "surround gaming" piece of hardware from Matrox released known as
triple head to go. This made the gaming experience that much wider and thus immersive and more enjoyable to
see and play...if it was supported correctly. This has been a new, to most gamers, addition to PC gaming and
is even possible with multiple consoles now. This technology is similar to the leap that S3D will add to
gaming.

I feel that Ea needs to understand why either supporting or allowing the publicly made mods/patches which
correct a problem such as a games field of view(FOV) along with a MATCHING aspect ratio are so important to
the end user. A game needs to display correctly for the monitor it's viewed on but is officially blocked by
Punkbuster and flagged as cheating. Zoom and crop is not a solution.

Things like this are not acceptable and the same type of things needs to be figured out with all the various
S3D solutions in the works. If they can't or dont want to address the problem in house then there needs to
be a way to allow third party solutions put in place. I hate game cheaters in MP as much as the next guy but
at least figure out how to diffrentiate between the two.

I have a triple head solution but am only using 3 older work hand-me-down sony flat CRTs. They still give me
a very nice looking image and I enjoy what it adds to gaming but the most annoying support issue from EA was
that it was an unfair advantage. Is that what we will hear that about EA's S3D solution? Not from EA at
least I would think. There is no real gaming advantage other than it just looks cooler and more immersive.
Single to triple head gaming was 100x better than traditional and now S3D will be 100x better than that. You
realy need to put them together for the ultimate gaming setup which I can do now but only in anaglyph with
certain games and sacrifices thanks to IZ3d for the anaglyph driver support.

Q2) EA and Samsung, do you forsee the "have not's" cry of "unfair advantage" with S3D gaming?

I only recently started playing my driving sims in S3D with Nvidia drivers on a 6800gt in anaglyph. This was
all on my my triple head sytem and wow what a difference the depth adds to sim driving. I then went out of
town for work and came back a couple months later and never fired up the system again until I tore it down
and started over with more power and an 8800gt. I ordered the shutter glasses for it ready for the best S3D
there was now...wrong no more support on the new GPU. Too bad since thats why I went with Nvidia with the
6800gt in the first place over all previous years of using ATI. On that note it was very hard to go back to
regular non S3D for the driving sims...it's really that much better.

IMHO as far as unfair advantage is concerned, just play with the hardware you have or can afford and live
with it or make more money to buy better toys...but with that said, please try to keep the S3D solution from
being so elite that not too many gamers can jump right in on an average gamers paycheck to get it going.
The big advantage of S3D and or surround gaming is that it just looks better and a games looks is what pulls
you into the game as long as it is fun to play. There really is no more advantage than having a better {name
your other traditional hardware here}

Q3) How do you deal with the issue of the hardware solution being too niche and too costly?

I think Samsung and EA may need to take a look at MS with the xbox360's losses on the hardware side to pave
the way for getting S3D out of the niche it's in now which is similar to surround gaming. You hear alot
of"yea it's cool but how much is it or will it give me a headache?" The industry needs to keep costs as low
as possible to get more people hooked on the fun of S3D. For example, the Matrox price point should have
started at least 100 usd lower to win over more gamers or have offered some type of monitor package deal with
a monitor maker. Samsung comes to mind since they offer very nice monitors with very slim bezels.

It will be very hard to catch on no matter how cool it is if the price is out of reach. How many TH2g owners
do I know? Just my brother of all my gamer friends who do happen to think it looks great but still not quite
great enough to put down the extra cash for it. Will they see how cool the new S3D is and be tempted? Yes,
since I love this stuff so as soon as I know what I'm getting figured out they will be able to try it on my
system.

We need a simple S3D solution/product offering with system requirments etc as to what the options are.
Overcomplicate things and people stay away in frustration. I want what I have now but with a bigger single
unified screen that can run 3.75/4:1 aspect ratio capable all in S3D...What are my options again?

Question to Samsung:

- Why partner with a single editor, be it the number 1, over going straight to nVidia or developping their own universal drivers ?
I mean, if content is king -sarcasm- are they really going to limit their displays to the only 20 % of gaming tittles published by EA ?

In my opinion spending 2000$ on a device only good at displaying 20% of the content is only acceptable by people who had never heard about stereo gaming and only as long as there is no real competiton on the mass market.

- in other words : how long is this partnership going to last until the exclusivety given to EA is "re-examined" ?

Not necessarily a question towards EA or Samsung. But does relate to both companies. I am planning on buy a Samsung 3D ready DLP HDTV in the next couple days. And from reading the interview they were talking a lot about future 3D games becoming compatible with the new PDP tv's. My question is, if i get the 3D ready DLP HDTV, will i still be able to play those same 3d games coming in the future like Crysis for example on my tv? Or is it only viewable/playable on the PDP screens?

Thank you for your help.

-ignatius

Hey you could Play any 3D game on it. It will be the new all inclusive device. It transforms every information about rotation, shifting and so on in 3D

1) are they going to support tracking
2) what are they going to do with all my all time favorite bullfrog games, make a part 2?

Hi Guys!

I got the interview back from EA and Samsung, and there are some interesting responses to your questions. I'll put it up in the next day or two - I just want to confirm some details first.

Regards,
Neil

Answers to your questions were posted today!

Regards,
Neil

Well, then I have another question - could be answered by the companies or by owners of a 3D-TV.

How well can those screens handle the ghosting problem? Because a game with high contrasts like Doom 3 looks quite disturbing (in an unwanted way)

Also the Zalman technique sounds a bit healthier to the eyes - ghosting not possible, and no flickering. I wonder if Samsung would also sell TVs based on polarisation and not only based on shutter glasses.

Unless I missed it sorry if I did but is DDD the only way to get 3d? Because shutter glasses are like the past and the prices are just crazy. Until someone else comes along that cares and wont charge PER game lmao its cheaper to just go with Iz3d and Zalman. I have nothing against DDD just I tried a few times to ask hard questions and they just didnt answer and dodged the rest.

I asked this question myself and seems they offer some kind of single driver soultion, also proprietary. not sure though.