Low Cost Ways to Show A 3D Short Film?

[Adam Stanislav]

OK, thanks. Active glasses is not a good solution, except perhaps when used by an individual, but not practical for a group.

This is disappointing. If I could come up with the right idea, I am surprised TI engineers have not come up with it. Perhaps we need a massive letter writing campaign to explain it to them and to demand it.

It is quite simple. Let the chip double the number of pixels, separate pixels for the left view and the write view, with the micromirrors made to produce opposite polarization for each view. Then project it all through a single lens, both images at the same time. This would produce perfect 3D image, perfectly aligned, etc. And it would not require active glasses, just good ole' polarized glasses.

[Giroud Francois]

the active glasses are the solution. No special screen, only one projector or screen.
Add the DLP 3D-ready technology on it and you got the perfect system, simple, efficient.
The only problem is the price of glasses, but we can expect it goes low very soon.
After all it is just 2 small LCD windows with a 1$ electronic chip.
You find many free devices (giveaway) with much more complicated LCD screens that cost almost nothing.
So a $20 lcd shutter glasses seems not impossible.
Polarized glasses is just a temporary workaround, because polarized technology has no room left for improvement and cannot be really cheaper. It alway will require glasses, special screen, loose a lot of light in the process, have ghosting.
LCD shutter technology can go cheaper by a 10 factor easily, improve in quality (not limited in resolution and fps) , can be implemented on projectors and screens, does not add special requirement on devices (they do not need to be fitted for 3D, they just need a level of performance to be able to play 3d, a polarized screen need a special layer, a 3d ready screen for shutter glasses just need to be able to display 120Hz, something that all screen will do soon).

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

the active glasses are the solution.

Let me guess... You do not wear prescription glasses, do you. Because not a single person in the world who has to wear glasses already might think that having to put a pair of glasses over his pair of glasses is a solution, let alone the solution to anything. I know, because I am one of those people.

According to glassescrafter.com, about 64% of adults in the US wear glasses (and another 11% wear contact lenses). I know it is hard to extrapolate US statistics to the entire population of the world, but it shows a potential of billions of people wearing glasses. And that is why if active glasses are the solution, 3D is already doomed.

People like me prefer 3D clip-ons (and we hate Robert Rodriguez profoundly for his glasses-on-glasses-off gimmick—yes, kids wear glasses, too, and adults watch kids movies), which are readily available in a variety of 3D methods, all except active glasses and, for whatever silly reason, colorcode. No 3D technique will ever become the solution if it is not available as clip-ons.

Add to it that many people who wear glasses buy polarized lenses for their glasses already. Unfortunately, these are not the same as the 3D polarized glasses because they are not fine tuned the same way and they use the same type of polarization for both eyes. But once there is a standard (right now, unfortunately, we have several incompatible ways of using polarized light for 3D) and 3D movies are the norm, a lot of people who wear glasses will simply have their prescription lenses made with the proper type of polarized lenses. They do not interfere with using their lenses outside of the movies and actually help against the glare of the Sun reflecting from car windows in many parking lots during certain times of the day.

You say "polarized technology has no room left for improvement" as if that was a bad thing. It means that polarized technology has all the bugs worked out. It has been perfected. It needs no improvement. Develop the chip I have suggested (something perfectly feasible with modern technology), and you can have a polarized projector with a single lens, one that can project both images at the same time, perfectly aligned, and you have no need for active glasses, no need to synchronize every single pair of glasses with the projector.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

glasses over glasses stink bigtime. But I see studios making money anyway - so I think the market will bear it for quite some time.

[Prech Marton]

I agree with you.
Rather a silverscreen than lots of shutterglasses.
Maybe when 200Hz will be very common, i dont see any more flickering.

[Giroud Francois]

"Let me guess... "

...wrong guess, and wearing polarized or lcd glasses does not change the problem.
If you really want to extrapolate, LCD can be clip on too or you could find corrective LCD glasses.
I have seen Avatar with lcd shutter and it was totally ok, something i cannot say when working with pol glasses on my Zalman monitor.
For polarized projection with only one projector, it exists already, it is the RealD technology that adds a polarized panel in front of a regular projector, but it cost the hell, and you still need the silver screen, and be in the correct viewing axis, since silver screen are pretty directional.
too complex for home use, and not performant enough for commercial use, polarized has no future, but again , today it is an affordable workaround.

[Alister Chapman]

A good silver screen is not directional and has a very wide viewing angle, otherwise cinemas would have big problem with those seated to the side of the theater. I can view my polarised system at well past 45 degrees to the screen. A 6ft silver screen can be purchased for the price of 2 wireless pairs of shutter glasses. Presciption polarised glasses are easy to make, the same cannot be said of active as the LCD shutters are flat, circuitry and batteries make them bulky and heavy plus they must be re-charged regularly.

I don't think cinema operators would be too keen on having to keep re-charge hundreds of pairs of glasses, just imagine the amount of effort and space needed to do that.
The Zalman is not a good example of a polarised monitor, it has a very narrow vertical viewing angle. Today I was working with a 24" Sony polarised LMD monitor and it has a broad viewing angle. I was demonstrating 3D to 100+ delegates at a conference with up to 20 at a time crowding around the monitor. With cheap realD glasses this was easy, there is no way I could have done this with active glasses. During the day I lost about 5 pairs of glasses, so what, they cost a dollar each.. Active glasses loose light too, they are not completely clear when open. Both systems are full of compromises, but polarised wins hands down if you want to show your content to more than 4 or 5 people.

Polarised has not reached the end of it's development. For LCD and OLED displays it is still in it's infancy. In the future we will almost certainly see displays where the individual pixels can be polarised or the entire panel can alternate left/right polarisation giving a hybrid active/polarised system that can work similar to RealD or be used with shutter glasses. For DLP projectors it is pretty easy to add a second spinning filter wheel to polarise the light so expect to see more cheap polarised 3D projectors come on the market. It's also fairly easy to add a polarising shutter to an existing DLP projecter. This will be one of the products I hope to launch in my range of low cost 3D products later in the year. Possibly a complete single projector polarised system for less than $600.
As a parent with children, I expect my 3D glasses to get sat on, stepped on, lost or just broken from time to time, with shutter glasses this, even at $20 a piece is not welcome, with polarised glasses at $1 each it's no big deal.
Active has one insurmountable issue, you can only send the image to one eye at a time and this will lead to temporal issues. Obviously faster shutter speeds will help, but there is a limit to how fast an LCD shutter can operate. Many of the cheap shutter glasses on the market today are already struggling to switch fast enough at 60hz leading to crosstalk.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

I think for home use glasses will be obsolete in the next five years...not for cinema screens though

[Arnie Schlissel]

Originally Posted by Giroud Francois

For polarized projection with only one projector, it exists already, it is the RealD technology that adds a polarized panel in front of a regular projector, but it cost the hell, and you still need the silver screen, and be in the correct viewing axis, since silver screen are pretty directional.
too complex for home use, and not performant enough for commercial use, polarized has no future, but again , today it is an affordable workaround.

Polarized projection is here to stay. It's much cheaper for theater owners, and that's who makes this decision. Polarized glasses are cheap enough to throw away, so they don't need to be collected & cleaned between uses. For theater owners, who make most of their money selling popcorn & soda to the movie audience & virtually nothing on the ticket sales, this is key. If they had to pay people to collect the glasses, any type of glasses, 3D would not be commercially viable.

BTW, not all theatrical projection is RealD. There's also a dual-lens method that's compatible with the RealD glasses. It's being used by a lot of theaters right now.

And for home viewing, many people will opt for passive polarized systems for much the same reason. The Zalman monitors are crap, but several other brands use the same type of Xpol filter with much better results.