Who will be first with a "3D Ready" television?

[metalqueen]

Who will be first with a "3D Ready" television?
Will Sky's 2010 3D TV announcement see manufacturers race for consumer first?
By Amy-Mae Elliott

After various trials and demos, Sky has announced it is to launch a 3D television channel in the UK in 2010.

Although the current generation of Sky+HD set-top boxes will be able to handle the 3D signal, those that want to watch in 3D will need to upgrade their television set.

Sky's 3D offering is a glasses-based solution, and to get the effect, viewers will need to don the specs and tune in on a "3D Ready" television.

Although over the years we've seen various manufacturers showing off assorted 3D solutions at trade shows and the like, we thought it might be a good time to take stock and see which company might be closest to launch a 3D Ready TV.

We asked a handful of the biggest names in the TV industry whether they would be offering a 3D TV in the UK by 2010. Here are the responses:

Read the whole story here: http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/news.ph ... 2010.phtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[cybereality]

2010, not bad.

[UndeadD3vi1]

About time we heard something solid about this. Sky have been going on about 3D for a good while now.

I monitor Eurobird 1 and the 3 Astra Satalites on 28.5E so I'll make a post here when Sky create any 3D channels.

[Freke1]

This is from http://www.3dsession.com/3dhdtv.php" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;:

3D HDTV at Home!

With our new partner SAT-World GmbH we will be able to offer in the very near future a 3D HDTV SAT Bundle for PC's. The bundle contains a SAT Receiver Card (or USB box) and an extended version of our 3D Content Collection Player. Price up from ca. 70 Euro (incl. 3D Glasses).

[martinlandau]

I cannot BELIEVE they did not ask Mitsubishi, who as far as I am aware, are making even 80inch plus size 3d tv's. I have used a 73 inch mitsubishi from my local rental store that has 3D. Mitsubishi even has a laservue 3dtv, 65 inches I believe, but with color palette double that of HDTV broadcast standard. Why did they OMIT something so critical to the article?

[BlackShark]

DLP 3D ready televisions are not sold in europe.
DLP TVs are already extremely difficult find because they are not FLAT.

HDTVs appeared later in europe, which means that people assimilate flat screens with HDTV. If it isn't flat and hangable to a wall : it's not HD and it's not sold in major retailers. And I'm afraid the mitsubishi laservue suffers from the same fate.
Even The samsung PDP screens were not even shelved in most countries. I know a few of them were sold in the UK but it was confidential, samsung never advertized the 3D capabilities of the screen, and then they were quickly removed from the market.

In other words : there are no 3DTVs sold in europe at the moment.

[yuriythebest]

About time we heard something solid about this. Sky have been going on about 3D for a good while now.

I monitor Eurobird 1 and the 3 Astra Satalites on 28.5E so I'll make a post here when Sky create any 3D channels.

yeah but they will probably be encrypted and since encryptions are getting better nowadays it won't be possible to watch using a softcam, only perhaps using cardsharing which I am not a fan of. Still, it's very good since it's a first- I can't wait for all the free to air channels, especially news to become 3d

[martinlandau]

DLP 3D ready televisions are not sold in europe.
DLP TVs are already extremely difficult find because they are not FLAT.

It has been almost 20 years since I lived in germany, but I don't remember them being so far behind the curve, is this true in other segments of the economy and electronics - or just the hdtv arena?

In other words : there are no 3DTVs sold in europe at the moment.

Where I live now, 3d tvs can be had used in pawnshops, local cheap rental stores for rent or lease, many retailers new, even the local craigslist has many private owners selling used and new 3dtv's. The classifieds in the print newpapers. Several of the local tv repair and electronics places in flea markets even have some 3dtv's! I just cannot fathom how such a large market made up of 100's of millions of human beings does not have 1 new 3dtv product for sale anywhere - are they all socialists over there?

[BlackShark]

We're not really behind technology wise, but we are very very late in applying the technology if it's not backed by a huge corporation.
The usual story goes like european genius inventors are denied from borrowing money from local banks so they go to the USA and develop their products in the USA where it's much easier to borrow money.
I don't know if it's really true but that's the typical high-tech story.

European media corporations waited many years to even start agreeing on the idea of broadcasting HD.
Hell ! The number one french channel : TF1 is still broadcasting 4:3 SD ! And the other french cannels just switched to 16:9 SD this year.
Weirdly, the first French channel to broadcast HD (and the only one to broadcast free HD over DVB-T) is the hybrid french/german government funded cultural channel Arte.

For a while, the only HD content you could get on an HDTV was plugging an Xbox 360 ! (even french satellite broadcasters weren't selling HD decoders)
So no wonder the HDTV market was late. When HDTV finally arrived, all sets were flat screens : we had plasmas or LCDs.
HD CRTs never happened and DLP retro-projectors TVs disappeared.
I had a chat with the head of the central Audio-Video equipment orders of FNAC shops : a major french home-entertainment reseller, the market analysis is very tough but not surprising (especially in Paris) : Heavy and fat assed Displays are perceived as old outdated, Light flat an wall hangable displays are perceived as new high tech stuff on which you can make more money. Size doesn't matter, especially in tiny Parisian flats where every single cm² is worth gold. People do not want huge fatty assed TVs anymore.

The result of this is very simple :
if you go to a french TV store : the only choice you get is LCD LCD LCD LCD LCD LCD or.... LCD. Ah yes there's also one overpriced plasma in the corner of the expo wall.
Now since almost every 3DTV currently on the market is a retro-projector (except the two discontinued less-than-hdready samsung pdp plasmas) this means that no 3D-ready display made it across the atlantic.

[Tril]

It's mostly the same here in my part of Canada, as far as I saw. Big electronics stores don't have DLP HDTV on the floor because they are not thin. You can still buy DLP HDTVs from them but you have to ask and they don't advertise that they sell them anywhere.

I saw a LED HDTV in store the other day. I was impressed by how thin it was. It was about half an inch thin. I don't want an HDTV that thin, I would be afraid of breaking it in half.

[Freke1]

No 3D ready TV's in Denmark - it's all 32" - 42" LCD, allthough some 56" LED TV's are starting to appear.
We haven't switched to HD yet on national television.

[craylon]

my main question about sky and 3dtv would be: "what do they show on that tv ?"

apart from running the handfull of good stereoscopic movies in a loop they would have to produce alot of content on their own if they want to have an attractive programm listing by 2010

[v3n]

Samsung brought one of there 3D plasma's out in 2008 in the UK, the 50" PS50A476 and its now discounted @ £500 at the UK's high street HiFi specialists.

The 3D mode is not present on this years models from Samsung.

Its going to take a while as I think we need the next generation of HDMI to intice the general public.

[Likay]

Sweden is in the middle of a "HD" revolution i think. HD-tv's are starting to be relativel cheap and i recently upgraded my tv and cablebox for hd (about 10 channels so far in hd or something, mostly discovery and animalplanet type channels which i usually watch anyway ). 3D on commercial level is quite a bit far off yet. No media on consumerlevel and knowledge about 3d-gaming is poor. We have a few real 3d-cinemas though. A bit far off from the forest i'm living in but i'm surely going to visit one of those once i pass by.

[dreamingawake]

I just bought a Samsung PN50B450 50" Plasma t.v from Best Buy in Canada for 1100

It supports 3d vision, and while I've only tried a select few games but it's the coolest
thing I've ever seen in my life. (so far..)

I can't believe there are not more 3d capable displays at the moment.. but there
is one thing I'm a little confused about maybe someone could help clarify..

My t.v is not 120hz, it's 60hz I believe, and yet it supports 3d vision and looks
better than my 22" Samsung.. -is that because of the way it does 3d? Like
the checkboard pattern or whatever.. I'm confused on that one.

Anyway, there is a tad bit more ghosting on the t.v than the 22" lcd but it's
negligable.. some games are worse than other and I believe the ghosting
is entirely based on framerates more than anything else. Street fight 4 for
example runs at a solid 60 fps all the time and there's 0 ghosting on that title.
(Not to mention it's pretty rad seeing the fighters duke it out half way into
your living room)

Anyway, if anyone is looking for a quick large screen solution I'd suggest
the 450 series from Samsung if you can find it..

[DmitryKo]

It's important step forward that Sky will be launching a 3DTV service, but IMHO requiring subscribers to buy Samsung plasmas is unrealistic at best. They most likely will have employ to 24 or 25-frame stereo coded in a sequential frame-interleaved 720p50 or 1080p50 stream, so every 1080p50 television could be turned into a stereo rig with just a pair of stutter glasses.

And that is not getting us any close to TV sets capable of quality stereocsopic 3D gaming. The biggest problem with current 3D televisions is they still can't consume high-quality stereo, such as two-view 1080p50/p60, without the use of proprietary, non standard techniques like checkerboard pattern "compression". IMHO the HDMI 1.4 came as a big disappointment because even with all this "3D video" talk, the bandwidth is the same as in HDMI 1.3 and that is not enough for transmitting full-resolution 1080p stereo at 120 Hz. This leaves the upcoming DisplayPort 1.2 is the only video interface with a proper support for stereoscopic 3D gaming at 120 Hz, but the chances for every 3DTV to have a DisplayPort connect are indeed very slim, because CE industry has long endorsed HDMI.

If Microsoft is really planning the next Xbox to feature stereoscopic gaming support, it would be a real incentive for TV makers to consider a quality 3D stereo support. Until that, 3D broadcasing news are of limited interest to 3D gamers.

[Nobsi]

Please have a look at this thread for more information about the Samsung 50" 3D-ready Plasma TV. It's as far as I know the only 3D ready TV which is buyable in Europe, that's why I own one . It's currently sold for about 800€ and "nobody" knows about it's 3d feature and uniqueness.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?show ... ntry573748

[AWoods]

there are no 3DTVs sold in europe at the moment.

Samsung brought one of there 3D plasma's out in 2008 in the UK, the 50" PS50A476 and its now discounted @ £500 at the UK's high street HiFi specialists.
The 3D mode is not present on this years models from Samsung.

Not true. I just checked the Samsung UK website and _four_ 3D-Ready Plasma (PDP) HDTVs are still listed as current models:
http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/subt ... ype=plasma" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Samsung PS50B450 (50" plasma 1360x768)
Samsung PS50B451 (50" plasma 1360x768) (not sure how this is different from the PS50B450)
Samsung PS42B450 (42" plasma 1024x768)
Samsung PS42B451 (42" plasma 1024x768) (again, not sure how this is different from the PS42B450)

You need to check the user manual for mention of the 3D-Sync connector.
e.g. this manual apparently applies to all of the above models:
http://org.downloadcenter.samsung.com/d ... g_0630.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(5.9MB PDF - see page 25)

The 3D feature isn't listed in the specifications website.
e.g. http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/deta ... fullspec=F" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But do note that ghosting/crosstalk was noticeable with the older Samsung PS50A450 Plasma models. I'm not sure whether the newer PS50B450 (and similar) models are any better in this regard.

[Okta]

I checked a samsung out at Retravision yesterday and the ps50b450 models no longer have the 3d ready logo like the previous A model did. This is strange that samsung choose to keep this feature quiet now but also in line with their decision to stop selling the 3d glasses bundle. This is great because i have been scouting for a second hand A model but now will most likely get this one and some edim wireless specs.

[martinlandau]

Andrew Oliver at siggraph said only certain models of 3dtv's will work with invincible tiger and s3d , some s3d tv's don't do things right and won't work, even though they will work with other s3d applications. He said there will be a list of working tv's very soon.

http://invincibletiger.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I am waiting on his list before I buy anymore TV's.

[BlackShark]

there are no 3DTVs sold in europe at the moment.

Samsung brought one of there 3D plasma's out in 2008 in the UK, the 50" PS50A476 and its now discounted @ £500 at the UK's high street HiFi specialists.
The 3D mode is not present on this years models from Samsung.

Not true. I just checked the Samsung UK website and _four_ 3D-Ready Plasma (PDP) HDTVs are still listed as current models:
http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/subt ... ype=plasma" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The UK is not "in Europe"
That was my tribute to the traditionnal useless rant between the two sides of the English Channel

I mean these screens are not really sold, they are more hidden from the public behind big fancy 60" LCD and other plasmas so that people don't buy them. They're not even fullHD, so no wonder they don't want to promote them anymore.

[AWoods]

The UK is not "in Europe"
That was my tribute to the traditionnal useless rant between the two sides of the English Channel

You had me there for a moment (just a nanosecond).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europe" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[DmitryKo]

Arguably, the fact that a product is available "somewhere in Europe" (the United Kingdom, in this case) doesn't imply that it is generably available "in Europe", at least in marketing terms - that should constitute general availability "anywhere in Europe" (the European Union, for that matter).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_(mathematics)


AFAIK, even UK customers have very hard time shopping for a 3D DLP, 3D plasma, or compatible shutter glasses, and 3D TV sets and accessories are just simply impossible to find outside the UK.

[v3n]

Ive been reading up about Sky's 3D channel at DigitalSpy http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/show ... ?t=1087056

Seems they are going with the polarised horizonatal interlace format (Hyundai)