Reader Sam emailed me with a very interesting question:<\/p>\n
Your review of a 3D TV on Monday was very interesting. I have an LCD HD TV which handles 1080p 50Hz inputs,\u00a0 as would most, if not all, HD TVs. It would be a simple matter to synchronise polarising glasses to alternate frames with a simple set top box, which should be a lot cheaper than a full HD compatible unit. Why can’t\u00a03D TV be presented in such a manner?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Actually, I was reporting on the Panasonic 3DTV launch, rather than doing a formal review. But back to the question.<\/p>\n
The problem is that in order to synchronise the shutters in the glasses to the display of frames on the TV, information from inside the TV<\/em> is required. The device suggested would only know about the signal being fed into the TV.<\/p>\n
The various TV technologies are quite variable in how long they take to organise and process the signals prior to displaying them. Some manage it in a few tens of milliseconds. High end Philips TVs take about 200 milliseconds, or one fifth of a second. There’s no way an external device could know this.<\/p>\n
Both Sony and Panasonic at their respective launches made bit of a thing about how their technology reduced ‘cross talk’ between the eyes by switching more cleanly and precisely than competing technologies. Whose is better I don’t know. What I do know is that it is clearly an issue if they both felt compelled to talk about it. Given that with a 50 hertz system each eye is receiving its picture for just 20 milliseconds, even a drift of a millisecond or two would probably be fatal to the effect.<\/p>\n
I suppose one could have some kind of delay knob on the device, but that’s a level of complexity I’m sure everyone is keen to avoid.<\/p>\n
Oh, one more thing: there are differences between the plasma and LCD versions of the 3D shutter glasses, due to the fact that LCD displays are polarised while plasma ones aren’t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reader Sam emailed me with a very interesting question: Your review of a 3D TV on Monday was very interesting. I have an LCD HD TV which handles 1080p 50Hz inputs,\u00a0 as would most, if not all, HD TVs. It … Continue reading