A personal note to all 3D TV pessimists

[David Roth weiss]

[Ron Lindeboom] ” I am in 100% agreement with you here. “

I like it!!!

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

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A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Steve Wargo]

I apologize Herb. I thought my post was so ridiculous that it was obviously a joke. Next time I’ll put a smiley face on the end or do this >> (This Post Was Meant to be Funny. Please Don’t Take it Seriously)

By the way, this post was meant to be just a bit sarcastic.

Steve Wargo
Tempe, Arizona
It’s a dry heat!

Sony HDCAM F-900 & HDW-2000/1 deck
5 Final Cut (not quite PRO) systems
Sony HVR-M25 HDV deck
2-Sony EX-1 HD .

Ask me how to Market Yourself using Send Out Cards

[Tim Wilson]

[Chris Blair] “I couldn’t find a thing about current televisions that were already capable of viewing the type of 3D that these networks are proposing to broadcast.”

You won’t find much about this on Bing because reporters are overworked (ie, lazy) and are largely recycling the same hype, which they get from the same handful of sources, including themselves. Because hey, if it’s on the internet, it must be true, right?

(I’m not making fun of you for reading the internet. Quite the contrary! I’m a big fan. But I’m less than impressed with current reporting.)

You can start by going to your local Best Buy and looking at any Mitsubishi TV. Says right on the box that it’s 3D-ready, which has been true for years. I bought mine in 2008.

3D decoding is also built into the recent HDMI spec. On the fly, it can decode under-over, side by side, interleaved, and anything else thrown at it via pixel addressing. The device tells it where to put the pixels, and it happens.

Now, THIS is the gating factor: the devices. The biggest one will be set-top boxes, but also Blu-ray players. The displays? Plenty are ready. I’ll continue.

The “Full HD” spec is built around 1080p, which nobody is currently broadcasting. In addition to 1080i, 720p is also working fine. Of ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, two are 1080 and two are 720. Can you tell by looking? I can’t. No worries, the box handles it.

I also have a quarter-res upconverting projector I got in 2002. Via HDMI, even at 100″+, I defy you to tell me it’s not native HD.

Now a few words about standards. I wrote a full post about this in the Stereoscopic forum – you can look it up – wherein I pointed out that there are at least 8 standards bodies at work on various aspects of home delivery, down to the use of graphics in set-top boxes. Think about it – where will OSDs live in 3D space? When the depth in the program material changes, the menu could appear to move and scale relative to that! Problem largely solved these days, but it wasn’t automatic.

Once again, the box solves the problem for the display. The display is not an issue.

Also keep in mind that 74% of Gen Y watches more than half of their TV on their computer. I’m twice their age and watch probably a quarter of my TV online. Throw in Roku and Apple TV, and I can think of several people older than me who watch virtually ALL of their TV this way. Those devices are a firmware update away from any of the many 3D standards…all of which will work fine on any device connected to them.

But my point about computers is that my first 1080p 60 display was in 2000. Ready for the highest *current* spec of 3D, and any number of standards below the top.

With varying degrees of satisfaction? Yes. Do-able? Absolutely. Just as set-top boxes can work through these issues now, they will later.

As soon as they’re ready. But tvs and the computer displays that will be watching this stuff? Ready now.

Well, and the glasses too I guess, but you can buy those now. To name one vendor, NVIDIA has been selling their active shutter glasses for quite a while now.

Seriously, think about it. Why would ESPN and others be launching all-3D networks in the next few months if 3D sets are as far in the future as the popular press and some manufacturers would have you believe? It wouldn’t happen…and it’s not going to happen.

So what’s the hype around future 3D displays? More and better. While the *top* of the *current* 3D ladder is 1080p60 – a full 30 for each eye — you can already buy sets at 1080p/240 – 120 for each eye! Which nobody, including the current HDMI spec, currently supports Future “proofing” – which we know doesn’t exist. But still, it’d be cool to be ready for the next few iterations.

But think about it – if nobody is broadcasting 1080p ANYTHING, much less 1080p/60, then all we know about ESPN’s output is that it will be less than 1080p/60! It won’t be 1080p, either. It will be 1080i. Anybody here got a TV that supports that? I’ve got an embarrassing number of them. So does my 72 year-old dad. This isn’t that hard.

And if the display can’t handle 1080i natively, I’ll bet you a box of Randy’s Donuts that set-top boxes will cover a multitude of possibilities — just as they do today!

There’s also the matter of moving some of the computing into the display and out of the set-top box in the future…but again, today, simply not necessary.

Cast your mind back to the notion of cable-ready TVs with tuners that grab lotso channels. Well and good, and these venerable sets from the 80s still work great…as long as you don’t need pay services or digital signals. And if you do? The box solves the problem! The fact is that I don’t know if all my current TVs support hundreds of channels. I doubt it. And I know for a fact that at least one of them (the projector) has no built-in tuner whatsoever. The box takes care of that.

I’m repeating myself, but the short version is, if a display (including a computer display that plays TV) supports HD, it’s ready now.

Last but not least, 3D works great in SD, too. I don’t know about you, but my cable box has a gorgeous downconvert. I watch lots of HD on my one remaining set, one of those flat-screen Trinitron tubes that still looks wonderful. There are hundreds of stereoscopic movies already on YouTube, with anaglyph by no means the majority.

Laster but no lesser, what about boxes? There are hundreds of thousands of cable boxes already in homes that are addressable via firmware to support any current 3D standard. Many have that firmware already in place.

This isn’t going to be hard. The adoption rate is going to blast by the rate for HD because the sets are already there. Many of the boxes are too.

Not that it all won’t get dramatically better in the future. But it doesn’t have to, which is why it will launch in 5 months. Admittedly the future, but still.

Yr pal,
Timmy

[Mick Haensler]

I just got called in to consult on a project with a local arena(taxpayer owned) that is putting in a Digital Signage network as well as an IMAG system for the arena. Unfortunately they have to take the lowest bid on this and you’ll never guess what cameras the installation company specked out for the IMAG system. Canon GL2’s……FREAKIN GL2’s!!!! They bought 2 high end 8′ LCD panels that must have cost gobs of cash and they’re going to feed them with FREAKIN GL2’s!!!! They can’t even do 16×9 SD!!!

I have no fear of having to upgrade to 3D any time soon….

Mick Haensler
Higher Ground Media

[Alan Lloyd]

GL2? They still make those?

Seriously – a GL2 is what a truck guy would list as an LPS.

I’ve had to use them on occasion, and while they can produce a usable image outdoors during the day, they are not very sensitive and incredibly noisy.

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Nick Griffin] “What constitutes a 3D capable set. (And please tell me I already have one of them.)”

Many people think that their existing TV flatscreens are not 3D-capable, when they are.

I have a 42″ Polaroid flatscreen, nothing fancy, bought it for about $1,500 a couple years ago and it did not list 3D as one of its capabilities.

Can it do 3D? Yes, we have watched many a show on it — and it is quite cool.

How did we get there?

You have to have a minimum of the following:

• An HDMI flat-panel capable of 720 or 1080 HD support.
• A Blu-ray DVD player
  OR
• an up-converting progressive scan SD DVD player
• An HDMI cable between the player and the flatpanel.

We have nothing fancier than that and we watch 3D movies all the time at home.

I cannot tell the difference between the up-converted progressive scan SD version of movies like Coraline in 3D, or their Blu-ray counterparts.

I do not trust the manufacturers to incorporate real up-conversion and progressive scan on the Blu-ray players, so I own separate units because I don’t for the life of me believe that there is any advantage to a manufacturer to add real up-converting support to a Blu-ray player because they are so visually comparable that they would have viewers saying, “So what is the big deal about Blu-ray?”

One of the other secrets that we have found to getting great 3D at home, is that you have to have curtains that stop all outside light from coming in. We have window coverings that totally blacken the room. In that environment, our never-meant-to-be-a-3D-television-and-yet-it-is unit is more fun than any TV we have ever owned before.

Oh, and for those who want to insist that it doesn’t work: please tell that to my friends whom we have also helped set up their own never-was-intended-to-be-3D-and-so-should-not-have-shown-3D-but-yet-they-do units. They love them, too.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
CEO, CreativeCOW.net

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
– Gandhi

Better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with the poor spirits who neither enjoy much, nor suffer much because they live in a gray twilight that knows no victory or defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Craig Seeman] “And how does one know that number if they weren’t marketed as such?
I keep hearing about 3D capable HDTVs “coming to market” implying that previously sold sets are not 3D capable.”

There is no financial incentive to manufacturers to tell past customers that they have 3D already. They get paid on new TV sales, not on telling consumers about features they already possess but may not be aware of.

My 42″ Polaroid flat-panel — as well as my friend’s just purchased 32″ Phillips 1080-ready that we set up for him the other day — did not mention 3D support as a feature.

Both play 3D nicely, thank you.

So, anyone that bought the 1080-based Polaroid with HDMI ports that we have, possesses a 3D-ready unit. Add to that, the 1080-based units with HDMI ports from Sony, Phillips, Panasonic, Sharp, Mitsubishi and a bunch of others. Add ’em all up, and you have your number.

That is probably what they are counting, Craig.

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
CEO, CreativeCOW.net

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
– Gandhi

Better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with the poor spirits who neither enjoy much, nor suffer much because they live in a gray twilight that knows no victory or defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt

[Ron Lindeboom]

[David Roth Weiss] “Although I didn’t see it, many here on this and other forums saw and have commented on the 3D commercial broadcast during last year’s Superbowl. So, rudimentary 3D is capable without any technology other than a set of red and blue lens in cardboard frames. Great, that’s cool for a quick thrill.”

I responded to David’s other remarks in another post but felt that this one deserved and merited its own uniquely focused reply.

What we watch on our home unit is not “rudimentary 3D” and it is a far cry better than 3D from the 1950s that Herb Sevush mentioned, for example.

One of my favorite things to do with our friends who tell me that you can’t get 3D at home, is to sit them down in front of our 42″ non-3D-but-yet-it-is flatpanel, and put in Coraline and show them the living fantastical garden sequence and then the same garden later in the movie when it is dead.

They usually laugh and have a great time and then want me to come over and set up their TVs for them. As it takes only minutes to do, I never mind.

That sequence from Coraline is anything but rudimentary.

Is it as good as what we saw together at Dreamworks, David? Hardly. Does it rival Real-D? Nope. Is it as good as IMAX 3d? Not a chance.

But does it blow away all the Roger Corman and Alfred Hitchcock “a pair of scissors coming at you” 3D? It is lightyears better than that.

What we get at home even made the piece of crap movie of Brendan Fraser’s “Journey To the Center of the Earth” worth watching — once. (Ah, dirty pleasures, eh?) ;o)

But I know what you mean by the state of the art in the theaters today, now THAT’S entertainment. 🙂

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom
CEO, CreativeCOW.net

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
– Gandhi

Better is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure than to rank with the poor spirits who neither enjoy much, nor suffer much because they live in a gray twilight that knows no victory or defeat. – Theodore Roosevelt

[Lyn Norstad]

Herb –

[Herb Sevush] “For the most part I make PBS cooking shows and I can’t see the call for 3D here – hell, it took years before HD got a foothold and still today most cooking shows are still shot in SD. When someone asks for 3d I’ll be quite happy to learn and oblige, but I’m not holding my breath.”

I just caught … quite by accident … one of your “America’s Test Kitchen” episodes on the local PBS station, WTTW in Chicago.

Nice show … and they actually ran the credits slow enough that I saw your name pop up a couple of times.

It was one of those “Hey, I know him …” moments.

Regards,

Lyn Norstad
Chicagoland, USA

Co-host of CreativeCOW forums:

Matrox Video Systems
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[Richard Herd]

[Mick Haensler] “They bought 2 high end 8′ LCD panels that must have cost gobs of cash”

I spec’d a 22′ by 2′ LCD panel in 07: $200k (didn’t buy it).
I use CastNET & Scala.

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