Looking For Our Shows? Visit The Brand New RAGE Works Podcast Network

Slick’s Quick Hits: The state of 3D home viewing.

It seems that fans of the new “Real” 3D effect really will need to slap down the extra coin for a 3DTV. I was on one of my Best Buy excursions yesterday and who do I bump into but Mr. My Take Radio himself, Rich. Being the tech junkies that we are, we look at all the new home theater equipment and notice that the Magnolia section had a 3D setup. We wanted to compare this one to our experience at the Sony store, especially since the setup here was Panasonic (2009’s top 5 rated televisions were from Panasonic or Samsung, no Sony models). The picture itself was of course beautiful but the 3D was severely lacking compared to what we had experienced with the Sony model. First and foremost, the Panasonic glasses felt cheap. The 3D lenses sit off of your face and they look and feel like a clip on. Worse than that, a lot of the 3D effects seemed to not come off the screen while others did. To Panasonic’s credit, the perspective effect was awesome even when the 3D was not. If you move to a different viewing angle, the 3D effect adjusts to your position. The mistake we made was that we thought the TV was a 3D TV; it was not. It was a Panasonic Plasma hooked to a Panasonic 3D Blu-Ray player. What we concluded this will mean is that people who for example have a PS3 and get the 3D firmware upgrade will have what I am calling a gimped 3D experience if they choose to not buy a 3D TV. I have said on the show that the TV in the Sony store was playing LittleBigPlanet, a game not designed for 3D and the effect was quite pronounced. So as of right now, if you have a 3D player, but a 2D TV, you will not get as vivid an experience as someone who has a 3DTV and a standard player. Of course the optimal situation would be to have both if you want to enjoy 3D, but I hope that future upgrades will make it so that anyone can truly enjoy 3D (if they want to) with any combination.

Editor
  1. It’s gonna take a while to get it to the caliber of cinema 3D. Jussayin’.

  2. It’s gonna take a while to get it to the caliber of cinema 3D. Jussayin’.

  3. This is a mirror of the HDTV transition. A lot of people bought HDTVs thinking everything would be in High Def. They thought their old DVD players would be in High Def, that all TV channels would be in High Def, everything would be in High Def because it was on a High Def TV. Problem was, that wasn’t the case. For TV, you need the program to be filmed in high def, the channel to be a high def channel, the cable/satellite receiver to be a high def tuner, the cable to be a high def capable cable (anything other than RCA/composite), and the TV to be a HDTV. Without all these things, you’re not seeing real HD. You’re seeing “Gimped HD”. With movies, you need Blu Ray/HD-DVD, the appropriate cable, and an HDTV to see the HD disc content. You need the whole setup to be uniform from bottom to top in order for HD to work.

    The same is the case with 3D. 3D cable programming will not be 3D just because you have a 3DTV and some glasses. The show will need to be filmed in 3D, broadcast in 3D, and played through a 3DTV while you’re viewing with 3D glasses. This is the only true 3D TV Programming experience. Just watching any regular old show on a 3DTV with glasses will be Gimped 3D. Playing disc movies that aren’t specifically 3D-filmed and using the 3D transfer played through a 3D-enabled Blu Ray player will NOT get the true experience.

    Just a little something everyone needs to know. Posting this on the forum as well.

  4. This is a mirror of the HDTV transition. A lot of people bought HDTVs thinking everything would be in High Def. They thought their old DVD players would be in High Def, that all TV channels would be in High Def, everything would be in High Def because it was on a High Def TV. Problem was, that wasn’t the case. For TV, you need the program to be filmed in high def, the channel to be a high def channel, the cable/satellite receiver to be a high def tuner, the cable to be a high def capable cable (anything other than RCA/composite), and the TV to be a HDTV. Without all these things, you’re not seeing real HD. You’re seeing “Gimped HD”. With movies, you need Blu Ray/HD-DVD, the appropriate cable, and an HDTV to see the HD disc content. You need the whole setup to be uniform from bottom to top in order for HD to work.

    The same is the case with 3D. 3D cable programming will not be 3D just because you have a 3DTV and some glasses. The show will need to be filmed in 3D, broadcast in 3D, and played through a 3DTV while you’re viewing with 3D glasses. This is the only true 3D TV Programming experience. Just watching any regular old show on a 3DTV with glasses will be Gimped 3D. Playing disc movies that aren’t specifically 3D-filmed and using the 3D transfer played through a 3D-enabled Blu Ray player will NOT get the true experience.

    Just a little something everyone needs to know. Posting this on the forum as well.

Comments are closed.