Posts Tagged 3d
A lot has happened since the last time I posted
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Electronics, Future, Gadgets, Games, General, Smart Phones, Technology on August 8, 2010
It’s been around 2 months since I last posted a post on this site.
So the world is still around. Nothing much has changed. I am officially a 23 year old and having back problems. That has more to do with the horrible chairs at work than my age but I am still going strong. My half life 3 announcement was completely wrong but hopefully it will still happen since its one of my favourite FPS games of all time.
The buzz word in technology is 3D has I predicted in a post some time ago. It seems that one in every 4 or 5 movies can be seen in 3D at the cinemas. So far the only good 3D movie I have seen is Avatar. It was obvious that for Clash of the Titans the 3D version was just added to try encourage people go to the cinema. Right now I will always prefer HD over 3D.
Though the next 3D movie I will watch will be Piranha 3D. It will probably be a stupid movie with a very bad story line but I expect it to be full of funny scary scenes so it might be worth watching it in 3D. The nudity and all the bikinis are just an extra positive (Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT1XUWMqQq0).
When the porn industry backs a technology that is when the technology becomes mainstream. Happened recently with Bluray disks and now 3D has their backing. This is bad news for Flash because they are embracing HTML5 but that is a whole other story. Probably right now I seem like a porn addict.
3D is also popping out in the wild. Samsung and Panasonic pushing their very expensive 3D home solutions which require glasses. Nintendo releasing their new DS which is 3D, requires no glasses and most importantly affordable. You do not need to sell and organ or your first born to buy this gadget. The screens have a poor viewing angle but that is not a problem since to play you need to look directly at the screen. The screens the DS uses is produced by Sharp. Sharp realised that they are leading the way with this technology and hence are now releasing the first 3D smartphone by the end of this year.
Chelsea just lost against Manchester United in the Community Shield so not the best start of this year season but it could be worse and there was a spark from the Chelsea team not like the other boring games from preseason. They should be able to beat WBA next week. Even Sky now are showing the games in 3D. Maybe the next TV I buy will be a 3D flat screen…
Once work dies down I can start working on my side projects again 
3D Televisions should you be an early adopter?
Posted by Malcolm Micallef in Guide, Technology, Television on March 19, 2010
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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