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Wednesday 2 March 2011

NEW 3D TV - what you need to know!

3D TV's are all the rage and the newest technology on the market.  but how do they work? how much do they cost? which one is best? and most importantly which one is right for me? all these questions and more can be answered.

First things first, any 3D TV that you may buy, is not 3D all the time, it is more like 3D ready or 3D capable, certain settings in the TV can be altered so that you can watch transmissions in 3D.

loads of people ask me "can't you just use the glasses that you pick up in the cinema for free, or in the pubs now?"  the simple answer is no, you can't, unless you went for a passive 3D TV like the LG  LD950. (I will explain what passive is later on)

Most (almost all) 3D TV's use active shutter technology, where the glasses essentially cover your left eye completely then switch to the right eye and repeat this in rapid succession.  this allows one eye to view the left image on the screen and the other eye to view the right image on the screen giving you a 3D effect.
(the only brand that don't follow this completely is Sony, but we will come to that bit later)

In the cinemas and with passive technology the glasses are much less advanced and simply have horizontal lines covering one eye and vertical lines covering the other.

Yeah ok sounds good, But what does all this mean?????

next time you're in the cinema watching a 3D film tilt your head and watch the film go out of focus, this happens because the lines on the glasses are now the wrong way around and the 3D effect is lost.  with active shutter glasses this doesn't happen,  you can also sit at a much wider angle with the active shutter glasses, meaning it is much better designed for your home, so you can lie down on the floor, with a beer, at a ridiculous angle to your telly and still watch avatar in 3D, thinking its awesome!

Right so active shutter sounds good, whats are the downsides???

If you go out looking for a new 3D TV, I can't stress enough how much you should give it a test drive!!
look out for cross talk, and flickering with the glasses. (whats cross talk?) cross talk is when the 3D glasses and the screen of the TV are still out of focus meaning you don't get the full 3D effect, this can be very noticeable on some 3D TV's, some LG TV's in my experience suffer from cross talk quite badly.

If you want the best quality 3D on your TV and lets be honest why wouldn't you, stay away from TV's that are only 100hz or 50hz and only HD ready 720p.(for jargon busting look out for our jargon busting blog)  although you might be fine with these TV's  on normal 2D TV and in HD, 3D will really bring out these weaknesses, and although some of these TV's might seem "a bargain" if it looks to good to be true it probably is and the 3D TV next to it that is double the price, is so for a reason.

so what did you say about Sony being different??

well yeah this is the confusing bit, Sony have adopted a slightly different approach to their 3D transmission, a lot of their TV's come with external sensors, rather than have it built into the set itself, this is their argument for 3D ready.  however this is just the start of it.  remember passive and active shutter 3D well Sony use active shutter and passive technology all at once.  their glasses flick between horizontal and vertical rather than on and off.  this give you all the positives and negatives of passive 3D and all the positives and negative of active shutter 3D.  does it still go out of focus if you tilt your head? YES does it mean the 3D runs smoother and you get less cross talk? YES ( on the 200hz models anyway) can you use the glasses in from the cinema or normal passive glasses? erm NO.  so not quite all the positives...

right I've babbled on long enough about this now.  hopefully you will have some more grasp over what you need to look out for, what the pros and cons are and which one you think is best.

In a nutshell, go for something 200hz or above, PLASMA is definitely best for 3D.  make sure your new TV is 1080p.  without a doubt i would recommend the active shutter glasses over passive.  and personally, and even though i love Sony TV's if 3D was what I was after I wouldn't even think about it, unless i had a cinema room (but i don't).

1 comment:

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