Archive for category Television

From all the gadget expos it is obvious that TV manufacturers are going to start pushing 3D television to all our homes. Right now I am not sure if any of these 3D sets have been imported to Malta though for some reason I highly doubt it. The prices of these 3D televisions seem to start from 2500 US dollars (about 1800 Euro).

However, this will not be the last of your expenses if you want to use your newly purchased 3D television to watch something in 3D. The owe so powerful manufacturers make you buy an infrared emitter to synchronize the expensive standalone active shutter glasses. If you are buying a Sony 3D LCD set you can buy the emitter for around $55 and one set of active shutter glasses will put you back $133.

That means that if you have a family of four you are going to need four sets glasses that means you have to add $532 to the price of your new television set. These glasses would require batteries which means more charging and more batteries around the house. Well at least wireless electricity because mainstream.

So now do you have all the equipment? Nope. You are going to need some kind of 3D source to connect to your TV. Your TV won’t make normal television 3D for you. At least I haven’t heard of that tech and I doubt it would work well. You will need to buy a 3D capable bluray player. However there aren’t many 3D movies on bluray are rare.

3D broadcasts are also starting up in Europe (SKY UK). However, it is illegal to receive Sky UK in Malta so that destroys that little glimmer of hope. Even if you do receive Sky UK you would need the HD package and maybe a special set box made by Sky. I haven’t heard of any other 3D channels starting up.

So what’s left? A computer set up with the right equipment to send a 3D signal to a LCD. This was option is my favourite out of them all (however watching football live in 3D does sound interesting). Using a computer you can download 3D movies, play games in 3D and YouTube have already started testing streaming 3D videos online. The possibilities are endless with computers. This 3D technology has been around for a while for computers but the tech never really caught on.

NVidia now released some hardware that will allow your computer to be connected to any 3D set. This makes owning a 3D television set more plausible but still I wouldn’t recommend someone purchasing one of these new television sets.

They are working on a television which would work with passive shutter glasses (the glasses you get at the cinema). These glasses are much cheaper to purchase and require no batteries. However, in the near future they will create a television that would require no glasses.

WARNING SCIENCE!

We wear glasses to watch movies/games in 3D because each lens blocks a certain image. These glasses would make each eye see a slightly different image. These different images allow our brain to see the 2D image as a 3D wonder world. Here is a picture which better explains this concept.

The televisions they are working on use the a technology which we use to play with when we were young. You would have an image and by looking at it at a different angle the image would change. By making this angle smaller they are managing to allow the eyes to see different images. However at the moment the television only has a small view angle making it not ideal for living rooms. There are other advancements in 3D televisions but I won’t go into them all.

SCIENCE OVER!

Now image combining these television sets, with head tracking like the video below and with other technology such as project Natal. Quickly some get me a patent office.

If you really want 3D television the tech is available but be prepared for an expensive trip and lack of content. If you do get a 3D set I suggest you get a computer attached to the TV with the approiate hardware so that you will have more content and be able to play some games in 3D.

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