A story on IGN seems to suggest that Sony is working with RealD on various 3D technologies, and could be working with them in regards to the Playstation 3. Here is the link:
http://ps3.ign.com/articles/943/943635p1.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
They mention RealD several times, but I couldn't find any other articles on the web that mention this at all. I'm wondering if IGN is a bit confused about this.
Is Sony working with RealD for 3D on the Playstation 3?
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Anthony1
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funkee
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Re: Is Sony working with RealD for 3D on the Playstation 3?
Wasn't it simply because of the glasses? It's a striped polarizer, likely to be RealD compatible glasses..
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koshien
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Re: Is Sony working with RealD for 3D on the Playstation 3?
It would be cool to go to the movie-theater, watch a 3D movie, keep the disposable RealD 3D glasses and then use them for 3D@Home. There wouldn't be any additional cost for the glasses... but I guess Sony Bravia polarized 3D tv would cost more than 120 Hz 3D tvs...
I'm curious if it cuts the resolution like the Zalman or it is full-res like iz3d.
It might use the cut-resolution system but with a higher resolution, so that in the end it is 1080p... would this match up with blu-ray?
Very very curious!
I'm curious if it cuts the resolution like the Zalman or it is full-res like iz3d.
It might use the cut-resolution system but with a higher resolution, so that in the end it is 1080p... would this match up with blu-ray?
Very very curious!
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skylennard
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Re: Is Sony working with RealD for 3D on the Playstation 3?
That's probably one of the worse articles I've read about the Sony CES 2009 booth and the 3D for Playstation... I have done a LOT of research about this, and there is very little legitimate information published about it yet. However, I do know that Playstation is working with RealD to integrate their CrystalEyes series 4 glasses (CE4) to the PS3 (among possibly other RealD 3D technology, like their projector products) - this was showcased at the CES 2009 Sony booth.
When this is ready to be released, Sony will put out a software update that will give the PS3 the ability to retroactively create a S-3D view for all PS3 games present and past. They'll also probably build in the ability to output an analygraph (color separated) 3D output, if you don't want to invest in the shutter glasses.
All 3-dimensional games on PS3 already use a 3D engine to generate the 2D "single camera view" to begin with, and the PS3 has enough video processing power under the hood to create the 2 separate views for any games that use a 3D engine for graphics at 60hz each - this was already demoed on a LIVE game, and appears to work perfectly with a regular PS3 that only requires a software modification (aka update). Additionally, this has been proven with the release of "Invincible Tiger", which can make use of a 3D-enabled TV's ability to put out an emitter signal from the port on the back for a legitimate 3D signal. The reason that game gets away with their 3D output and other games don't is because they specifically *built* that into the game, so the game rendering engine at runtime has 2 camera views and each frame output is alternated between each camera view, so the game itself is putting out the 3D image. The PS3 update will actually build this into the PS3 rendering engine, so games that haven't been built like this (and probably will continue not to be built specifically for 3D output), will still be able to generate a legitimate S-3D signal as if they were all programmed that way to begin with. That's good for game developers, since they get more "bang for the buck" on their development efforts, and it doesn't end up costing them anything more than they already were spending on game development.
The RealD CE4 shutter glasses are not being marketed or made publicly available either through RealD or through any other retailer online; in fact, RealD seems to have almost tried to make that series disappear altogether, with advertising both their CE3 series and their CE5 series shutter glasses with no mention or reference to the CE4 series at all. I only figured this out by very closely watching some of the few videos that were taken of the booth, and making the connection (after which I was able to find more information by searching for more PS3 and RealD information online). It's a good thing that Sony's working with RealD on this though - Sony via the PS3 will produce a volume of demand for mass producing these glasses that no other shutter glasses manufacturer, including RealD, has ever seen before... this means lower prices to the end user, as I expect that Sony is going to work out a deal where the glasses are sold at near-cost (similar to how the PS3 hardware itself is being sold at a near-cost price), and the difference and profitability for both Sony and RealD will be made up in the licensing and sale of games.
In any case, I *DO* know for a fact that Sony's plans are to release shutter glasses for the 3D gaming, not a passive polarized system, which would only work with special TVs and/or projectors and wouldn't be either very marketable or profitable for anyone involved (if that were the *only* system offered)! This would likely also make a lot of people who bought "future-proof 3D ready TV's" pretty mad about wasting their money.
While RealD is currently marketing their shutter glasses on their own for upward of $600/pair (yikes!), I expect that once they're actively selling PS3 glasses, they will probably be sold somewhere around a $100-150/ea price point (but will most likely be marketed through Sony's channels, not RealD's channels... so it'll be the "Sony PS3 3D glasses, powered by RealD", LOL). Personally, I would love to see them sold at a ~$50-75/ea price point, since that would allow me to get 4-5 pairs (a "family" pack) for about the same investment as my initial PS3 cost, but I bet they're probably expecting to sell these in singles or double packs, and if a double pack were $200-300, that feels about right for what I expect to be charged as a gamer for new technology, especially something this cool!
For now, It's very likely that a LOT of the "slow to release"/R&D time is being spent to take advantage of this technology without needing to have a "3D ready" television, which would mean that the end user would only need to be connected via HDMI to their set, and there will be an emitter that will plug into a USB port on the PS3. I think they're trying to find the happy medium between reliability and ease of setup, because the TV signal that's going out of the PS3 will need to be sync'd up with the glasses somehow, and if they can get this to work with any 120HZ TV by using the muscle in the PS3, it'll likely be a much more marketable technology, since that will work for a *lot* more people than just us "3D ready" DLP adopters.
A couple of other things I found interesting... based on their website, RealD's CE5 glasses are the first ones that apparently don't require an emitter (unlike every other pair of shutter glasses I've seen) to synch with the frame scans on DLP TV's - apparently there's a chip in these sets that will broadcast this signal and they pick it up. That's a good thing IMHO, since the line-of-sight restrictions are a *little* bit annoying and/or restrictive with shutter glasses, however the CES 2009 booth with the CE4 glasses did have an emitter, so I'm guessing that this might be a technology only available to those willing to invest in the CE5 series and TVs to match (oh well!). It's also possible that they could use these glasses (either initially or in a future release) with an emitter for those who don't have the DLP TVs, the emitter would just put out the signal the same as the TV would. That would be nice for me, since I have a DLP and I'd like to save the extra money on buying an emitter that I wouldn't necessarily need.
The demo to which this article is referring was set up on a typical polarized glasses projector setup (like IMAX or your local 3D movie theater), and is in no way indicative of the actual "in home" setup that you can expect from the PS3 (which is probably why they were so careful to say "this is just a demo, don't expect this at home" so much!). However, since the heavy lifting is being done by the PS3 and all the monitor (or projector) is going to do is display the 120hz signal (60hz to each eye, alternating frames between left and right eyes - you know, typical stereoscopic 3D), I expect that there will be options for people who have projectors and want to use passive glasses. RealD sells a 3D projector that uses passive glasses already (http://www.reald.com/Content/hd-3d-dept ... ector.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - $6000-$7500) if you're rich... and a filter to go with your "regular" projector if you're "not so rich" (http://www.reald.com/Content/RealD-LP.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) to produce a S-3D signal. These actually would use passive glasses, be in the home, and likely would work just fine with the PS3 3D gaming and BluRay movies. The difference is in the cost to get the display equipment.
For now, I'll just anxiously await the day that the PS3 shutter glasses hit the shelf and my PS3 can be updated with the software to generate the S-3D signal. Then, I'll feel like my $1200 investment on my 60" Mitsubishi ED60-737 TV will have been all worth the while!
When this is ready to be released, Sony will put out a software update that will give the PS3 the ability to retroactively create a S-3D view for all PS3 games present and past. They'll also probably build in the ability to output an analygraph (color separated) 3D output, if you don't want to invest in the shutter glasses.
All 3-dimensional games on PS3 already use a 3D engine to generate the 2D "single camera view" to begin with, and the PS3 has enough video processing power under the hood to create the 2 separate views for any games that use a 3D engine for graphics at 60hz each - this was already demoed on a LIVE game, and appears to work perfectly with a regular PS3 that only requires a software modification (aka update). Additionally, this has been proven with the release of "Invincible Tiger", which can make use of a 3D-enabled TV's ability to put out an emitter signal from the port on the back for a legitimate 3D signal. The reason that game gets away with their 3D output and other games don't is because they specifically *built* that into the game, so the game rendering engine at runtime has 2 camera views and each frame output is alternated between each camera view, so the game itself is putting out the 3D image. The PS3 update will actually build this into the PS3 rendering engine, so games that haven't been built like this (and probably will continue not to be built specifically for 3D output), will still be able to generate a legitimate S-3D signal as if they were all programmed that way to begin with. That's good for game developers, since they get more "bang for the buck" on their development efforts, and it doesn't end up costing them anything more than they already were spending on game development.
The RealD CE4 shutter glasses are not being marketed or made publicly available either through RealD or through any other retailer online; in fact, RealD seems to have almost tried to make that series disappear altogether, with advertising both their CE3 series and their CE5 series shutter glasses with no mention or reference to the CE4 series at all. I only figured this out by very closely watching some of the few videos that were taken of the booth, and making the connection (after which I was able to find more information by searching for more PS3 and RealD information online). It's a good thing that Sony's working with RealD on this though - Sony via the PS3 will produce a volume of demand for mass producing these glasses that no other shutter glasses manufacturer, including RealD, has ever seen before... this means lower prices to the end user, as I expect that Sony is going to work out a deal where the glasses are sold at near-cost (similar to how the PS3 hardware itself is being sold at a near-cost price), and the difference and profitability for both Sony and RealD will be made up in the licensing and sale of games.
In any case, I *DO* know for a fact that Sony's plans are to release shutter glasses for the 3D gaming, not a passive polarized system, which would only work with special TVs and/or projectors and wouldn't be either very marketable or profitable for anyone involved (if that were the *only* system offered)! This would likely also make a lot of people who bought "future-proof 3D ready TV's" pretty mad about wasting their money.
While RealD is currently marketing their shutter glasses on their own for upward of $600/pair (yikes!), I expect that once they're actively selling PS3 glasses, they will probably be sold somewhere around a $100-150/ea price point (but will most likely be marketed through Sony's channels, not RealD's channels... so it'll be the "Sony PS3 3D glasses, powered by RealD", LOL). Personally, I would love to see them sold at a ~$50-75/ea price point, since that would allow me to get 4-5 pairs (a "family" pack) for about the same investment as my initial PS3 cost, but I bet they're probably expecting to sell these in singles or double packs, and if a double pack were $200-300, that feels about right for what I expect to be charged as a gamer for new technology, especially something this cool!
For now, It's very likely that a LOT of the "slow to release"/R&D time is being spent to take advantage of this technology without needing to have a "3D ready" television, which would mean that the end user would only need to be connected via HDMI to their set, and there will be an emitter that will plug into a USB port on the PS3. I think they're trying to find the happy medium between reliability and ease of setup, because the TV signal that's going out of the PS3 will need to be sync'd up with the glasses somehow, and if they can get this to work with any 120HZ TV by using the muscle in the PS3, it'll likely be a much more marketable technology, since that will work for a *lot* more people than just us "3D ready" DLP adopters.
A couple of other things I found interesting... based on their website, RealD's CE5 glasses are the first ones that apparently don't require an emitter (unlike every other pair of shutter glasses I've seen) to synch with the frame scans on DLP TV's - apparently there's a chip in these sets that will broadcast this signal and they pick it up. That's a good thing IMHO, since the line-of-sight restrictions are a *little* bit annoying and/or restrictive with shutter glasses, however the CES 2009 booth with the CE4 glasses did have an emitter, so I'm guessing that this might be a technology only available to those willing to invest in the CE5 series and TVs to match (oh well!). It's also possible that they could use these glasses (either initially or in a future release) with an emitter for those who don't have the DLP TVs, the emitter would just put out the signal the same as the TV would. That would be nice for me, since I have a DLP and I'd like to save the extra money on buying an emitter that I wouldn't necessarily need.
The demo to which this article is referring was set up on a typical polarized glasses projector setup (like IMAX or your local 3D movie theater), and is in no way indicative of the actual "in home" setup that you can expect from the PS3 (which is probably why they were so careful to say "this is just a demo, don't expect this at home" so much!). However, since the heavy lifting is being done by the PS3 and all the monitor (or projector) is going to do is display the 120hz signal (60hz to each eye, alternating frames between left and right eyes - you know, typical stereoscopic 3D), I expect that there will be options for people who have projectors and want to use passive glasses. RealD sells a 3D projector that uses passive glasses already (http://www.reald.com/Content/hd-3d-dept ... ector.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - $6000-$7500) if you're rich... and a filter to go with your "regular" projector if you're "not so rich" (http://www.reald.com/Content/RealD-LP.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;) to produce a S-3D signal. These actually would use passive glasses, be in the home, and likely would work just fine with the PS3 3D gaming and BluRay movies. The difference is in the cost to get the display equipment.
For now, I'll just anxiously await the day that the PS3 shutter glasses hit the shelf and my PS3 can be updated with the software to generate the S-3D signal. Then, I'll feel like my $1200 investment on my 60" Mitsubishi ED60-737 TV will have been all worth the while!
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Neil
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Re: Is Sony working with RealD for 3D on the Playstation 3?
Hi Skylennard,
I applaud your analysis and enthusiasm!
I'm not at liberty to comment on much of what you are saying. However, the information I do have puts serious doubt into the logic that PS3 games will be supported retrospectively. Yes, Sony has been very public about patching PS3 to support S-3D gaming. Yes, Sony's new line of Bravia 3D HDTVs due out in 2010 are shutter glasses based. However, I think it is more likely that PS3 will be patched in such a way that will allow S-3D game creation and modification to be easier - not an instant all your games will suddenly be in 3D update. Look at PC drivers! If PS3 can come up with a magical anomaly free driver for all their games, surely the PC market could have done the same ten years ago?
The comparison to Blitz Games Studios' Invincible Tiger is also in error. There are trade-offs to get the performance. DOF and film grain are turned off for example. This makes sense because S-3D experiences no longer require these add-ons, but it was equally an effort to compensate for the drop in available horsepower.
Best wishes,
Neil
I applaud your analysis and enthusiasm!
I'm not at liberty to comment on much of what you are saying. However, the information I do have puts serious doubt into the logic that PS3 games will be supported retrospectively. Yes, Sony has been very public about patching PS3 to support S-3D gaming. Yes, Sony's new line of Bravia 3D HDTVs due out in 2010 are shutter glasses based. However, I think it is more likely that PS3 will be patched in such a way that will allow S-3D game creation and modification to be easier - not an instant all your games will suddenly be in 3D update. Look at PC drivers! If PS3 can come up with a magical anomaly free driver for all their games, surely the PC market could have done the same ten years ago?
The comparison to Blitz Games Studios' Invincible Tiger is also in error. There are trade-offs to get the performance. DOF and film grain are turned off for example. This makes sense because S-3D experiences no longer require these add-ons, but it was equally an effort to compensate for the drop in available horsepower.
Best wishes,
Neil
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Taldiira
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Re: Is Sony working with RealD for 3D on the Playstation 3?
First, let me preface (hope thats right lol) this post by saying that I have no first-hand experience with either S3d at home, or programming in any real way shape or form.
That being said, wouldn't it be easier to do that "magic solution" on the PS3 than the PC? I know all the time devs and people talk about how it's much harder to code for the PC vs consoles because of the wide variety of software/hardware combos. However, on the consoles, everything is all unform, you don't have to worry about software problems as much, etc. That doesn't mean I expect all PS3 games to suddenly go 3d (as nice as that would be) but since (I believe) you're developing for a more specific set of things, I'd be surprised if SOME didn't go that way. Especially PS3 only games that have come out recently like Uncharted 2, RAC: Crack in Time, etc.
That being said, wouldn't it be easier to do that "magic solution" on the PS3 than the PC? I know all the time devs and people talk about how it's much harder to code for the PC vs consoles because of the wide variety of software/hardware combos. However, on the consoles, everything is all unform, you don't have to worry about software problems as much, etc. That doesn't mean I expect all PS3 games to suddenly go 3d (as nice as that would be) but since (I believe) you're developing for a more specific set of things, I'd be surprised if SOME didn't go that way. Especially PS3 only games that have come out recently like Uncharted 2, RAC: Crack in Time, etc.