Kogan selling 3D Active Shutter glasses for $49
Posted Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 12:25 pm by Jason Cartwright
One of the biggest complaints about 3DTV is the high cost of the glasses. This is particularly an issue if you need multiple pairs for gatherings. While bigger manufacturers are charging up to $200 for each pair, online retailer Kogan are making the 3D glasses much more affordable at just A$49. No delivery isn’t included.
Kogan’s 3D glasses are actually pretty stylish (as far as 3D glasses go), we’ve seen some pretty big disasters in this space. They weigh in at just 47 grams and are rechargeable so no need for batteries, mind you there’s a downside. If you forget to charge the glasses, you’ll need to wait hours for them to charge before watching that movie, instead of just switching in new batteries.
So with the new entry price for 3D Active Shutter Glasses, does that now solve one of 3DTV’s biggest issues ?
The glasses announced today are now available for purchase with an expected dispatch date of 29th July 2011. These come as part of Kogan’s entry into the 3DTV space. Kogan 3DTV’s start at a Live Price of $899 for a 46”, or $1,499 for a 55” with Samsung internals.
More information @ Kogan
Forget active-shutter, how about active-eyelid 3D ?
Posted Sunday, January 16, 2011 at 11:13 am by Jason Cartwright
One of the more unique approaches to the 3D glasses problem is to use your eyelids as active shutters. Most 3DTV’s work by presenting an image to each eye while the other is blocked, this happens so fast that your brain interprets it as a single image with much more depth. This unique concept involves placing two nodes on your temples, syncing them with the display, then playing the movie.
The two nodes beside either eye communicate with the TV to sync the frame being displayed with each eye. To do this, the opposing eyelid is closed, then the process is alternated and repeated. Its a very bizarre thing to watch, as this kind of behaviour of the eyes is what you would typically associate with someone having a seizure. Without using it myself, its hard to know just how well it works, but the theory behind it is sound.
The system requires a 120hz TV, just like regular active shutter displays.
He hopes to have a final version ready for CES 2012, although I’m not sure many reviewers would be willing to give this one a go. It is a unique way to tackle the issue of consumers not wanting to wear glasses to watch 3D content, however I suspect the majority aren’t going to adopt this either.
More information about active-eyelid 3D at Jonathon Post
TiVo jumps on the 3D bandwagon
Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 11:38 am by Jason Cartwright
TiVo is the latest in a long line of manufacturers to catch the 3D bug, announcing today they will support 3D channels. If you live in a major city, you may be getting a 3D channel right night, try rescanning your channels. The TiVo is capable of interpreting this channel and doing the pass-through to your 3D enabled TV.
Hybrid TV, creators of TiVo in Australia say that if you don’t have a 3DTV yet, you can record the shows to your TV now and watch them back when you do. A nice idea, but given most people won’t replace their HDTV for a few years, you’ll need a lot of storage to hold all your 3D.
If you are one of the ‘lucky’ ones with a 3D TV and live in a major city that’s getting 3D, then you can watch the State of Origin tonight in 3D. With TiVo you can record it and show it off to your friends later, after all there’s not a lot of other 3D content around to demo your 3DTV.
For those without a 3DTV the channel is still viewable and looks like this. The 3DTV would take the left side of the image, un-squash it to the full 1920×1080 image, then follow that frame with the right side of the image. Showing one frame after the other and pairing that with appropriate glasses will give the appearance of 3D. This technique should mean that recording 3D shows on your TiVo requires the same storage as a normal show, the smarts is done by the TV, rather than more data being sent in the broadcast over-the-air stream.
