So keep an eye out... 3DRoundup is gonna spill ALL the beans about who's cutting deals, who's buying and who's selling, what cool new tech is coming and what 3D looks good... or like crap.  If you see ol' Raymond sneaking around your company's cocktail party, screening or tradeshow back-of-the-hall conference room, you'd better hope those NDAs are iron clad.

LG -  Michael Ahn, LG's CEO, just dropped the 3D bomb at their press conference...  "Next big thing is 3D" 3D chipset will be integrated in all TVs, plasma and LCD models will be on display at the booth.  ALL LG TVs will be 3D-Ready??? Really???

Next3D XBOX 360 3D Movie Player - Next3D is going to offer a stereo 3D movie player and download service for the XBOX 360.  Details are light at the moment, but, a beta sign-up is available for XBOX 360 owners w/ 3D-Ready TVs.

Sony 3D LCDs -  Sony will unveil new 3D-Ready TVs this week, using their sponsorship of Fox's 3D broadcast of the BCS championship game to promote the announcement. Sony will show the 3D game to VIPs at the show.

Viewsonic - Here's something we didn't already know about going in:  The new Viewsonic 3D-ready PJD6220-3D works with active shutterglasses (sounds like in accepts checkboarded input and does the DLP wobbulation thing). It has a native 1,024 X 768 res, 2,200 lumen output and a 2,000:1 contrast ratio.  Available in Feburary for $1,499 (not to bad at all).

Nvidia Shutterglasses - Nvidia's very stylish $199 shutterglasses are now available for order (yes, we did) and will ship in less than 1 week. The glasses come bundled with a IR emitter and stereoscopic driver software (requires PC, Nvidia card and 3D-Ready TV or display).  At launch, their driver will support 350 game titles in stereo 3D. 

Panasonic - Panasonic is expected to roll-out a series of 3D-ready plasma displays this week.  We'll get the 411 on input format, etc. as soon as we can.

Dolby Stereo 3D Encoder - Dolby will demonstrate a prototype 3D encoding technique that uses checkerboard interlacing to deliver stereo 3D over Blu-ray and other H.264-based formats.  (We assume that encoder follows the draft H.264, MP4 multi-view specification).  Dolby is now the latest to throw their hat into the 3D format ring, along with Panasonic, TDVision, Philips, Sensio, TriDef, Visumotion.  As the H.264 specification seems to quickly be gaining ground as a standard,  hopefully we will avoid massively divergent format wars for stereo 3D.   One wonders...  Is Dolby is simply pre-cherkerboarding video and running the H.264 encoder in a 100% bit-for-bit perfect lossless mode.  If so, how much 1080P can you get on a 50gig disc without lossy compression?  Are they relying on the hinted-at additions to H.264 multi-view that compresses while preserving the checkerboard?  Would such a process be fully backward compatible with existing Blu-ray players, as Dolby has claimed their process to be?  We're on the case.

Soyo - Soyo has announced 46" Crystal 3D Series LCD HDTVs and Pearl 3D Series 22 and 24" LCD Monitors.  No word yet on input format.

Are you asking yourself, “Which shutterglasses are the best value?” or, “Which are the absolute best shutterglasses money can buy?”  Well, you are in luck.  We’ve put the RealD CrystalEyes, NuVision 60GX, eDimensional and Samsung SSG1000 shutterglasses to the test.  The test setup was the reference standard Sammy DLP 3D-Ready HDTV and a big honking PC with a recent nVidia card running Peter Wimmers’s Stereoscopic Player. All of the tested glasses are 100% out-of-the-box compatible with all 3D-Ready TVs from Samsung and Mitsubishi. The test images were shot through the shutterglasses lenses with a fixed exposure point-and-shoot digital camera.  

Tested Products:

RealD CrystalEyes (Model 3 reviewed) -  Most stereo enthusiasts have worn CrystalEyes at least once.  Originally sold by Stereographics, these are the glasses that NASA uses to view stereo images coming back from space.  They are time tested and have seen 3 revisions in the 20+ years they have been available.  At $600 without emitter, these are the most expensive (by far) glasses that we have come across.  Besides the price, we can find little to criticize – they are very good. 

NuVision 60GX – These well-made glasses are marketed as a lower-cost alternative to CrystalEyes.  They are 100% compatible with the CrystalEyes IR emitter.  These shades use a large LCD Pi-cell which is cheaper than the CrystalEyes lens material, but suffers from a long warm-up time.  This results in visible specks in your eyes for the first 60 seconds of use.  The Pi-cells have an unusual bluish cast when powered off, but this does not impact the transmitted image quality.  The 60GX’s retail for $450, sans emitter.

eDimensional ED Wireless – The eDimensional are the smallest and lightest of the glasses tested.  The formfactor has been around for years in wired and wireless PC CRT shutterglasses sets.  The eDimensional shades are a fraction of the cost ($50 for the glasses) of CrystalEyes or NuVision, and it shows. The plastic frames are flimsy and the battery cover is just plain junk. There are a few more unfortunate annoyances as well.  The automatic power-off that kicks in when the glasses loose contact with the emitter is way too fast.  Just handing the glasses to someone can result in a power-off.  Also, the IR emitter is on the same wavelength as household remote controls. For instance, when the emitter switches on, you cannot use the TV remote control to change the volume (bummer). Finally, the lenses are a bit too small for big-screen viewing.  The effect is slight tunnel-vision… making you constantly aware that you are looking through glasses.

Samsung SSG1000 – These are the new kids on the block.  Amazingly, they are the lowest cost glasses that we tested ($45 for the glasses).   They are the least goofy looking of the four – looking a bit like ski goggles.  They are built very solidly and are quite comfortable. Samsung has designed these with the home user in mind and they have, as usual, done a great engineering job.

Transmission Image Quality:

These test images, shot directly through the lenses of each of the glasses, demonstrate light transmission and color balance.   While the results are not widely divergent, the NuVision and Samsung glasses produce the results most true to the original. The eDimensional glasses have the most distorted result.

Conclusions and Specs:

Conclusion:

The best overall value are the Samsung SSG1000 glasses, hands down.  If money is absolutely no object, you may want to spring for the CrystalEyes for the slightly better comfort and fit over prescription glasses. Otherwise, the Sammys are the way to go.  

There are some interesting new players on the hozion as well.  Nvidia has bandied about a very stylish set of glasses.  It's not clear if they will be out-of-the-box compatible with 3D-Ready TVs - or - will be intended for new high-speed, page-flipping LCD displays from Viewsonic and others. Stay tuned. 

When Samsung announced a series of 3D-Ready plasma TVs at last year’s CES, our expectations were high, but tempered with a healthy dose of skepticism.  After all, it is commonly understood that plasma display technology suffers from less-than-excellent refresh.  When the first sketchy reviews emerged for 3D plasmas, we were disappointed, but not surprised, to hear that ghosting was an issue.

When the Sammy plasmas started streeting at incredibly attractive prices, 3DRoundup decided to put one through its paces.  Our test setup was a 42” Samsung 42A450 Plasma 720P HDTV ($689 delivered), a big honking PC with a recent nVidia card running Peter Wimmer’s excellent Stereoscopic Player (if you don’t have it, you don’t get it) and Samsung’s own SSG 1000 shutterglasses.  The test images were shot through the lenses of the Samsung shutterglasses with a fixed exposure point-and-shoot digital camera. 

Our first test compares the ghosting (stereo extinction) between plasma and our reference standard Samsung 3D-Ready DLP (thanks to Yuri–the–best @ Gamerus Cleverus for the test bitmaps).  The shots were taken through the left lens of the Sammy shutterglasses. 

Note the heavy ghosting areas to the left and right of the black and white squares in the plasma image. These are completely absent in the DLP image.

Our second test uses the extinction test pattern supplied with the TriDef DDD software.  Again, the shots were taken through the left lens of the Sammy shutterglasses.

Note the ghost of the “R” in the center of the plasma image and the smaller circled R’s on the right of the image.  This is bleeding through from the right-eye image and should not be visible. The DLP image exhibits a very small amount of this as well.

The test images above, by design, are worst-case scenarios for ghosting.  They have the maximum possible contrast variation between the left and right eye views.  Real-world results are less clear-cut.  While the trailer for the 3D animated movie Fly Me to the Moon had considerable ghosting in one scene, the overall impact of the ghosting was very slight.  In fact, a stereo novice would likely not notice at all.  In the following real-world stereo pairs, the high contrast of the dolphin’s snout has a high potential to ghost.

There are, however, no ghost snouts here.

Ghosting aside, the plasma display delivers very solid picture quality. Brightness, color balance, and color saturation (qualities often diminished the by fast switching and shutterglasses required for 3D) are every bit as good, if not better, than DLP displays.  Additionally, the viewing angle of the plasma is wider than that of a rear-projected DLP display.  There is, however, a small amount of video noise introduced by the required checkerboarded 3D input signal.  The checkerboard interlace format was originally intended for wobulating DLP-based displays and is not native to plasma technology. 

Conclusion -

Plasma is not DLP.  If you have seen a Sammy or Mitsi DLP 3D TV, you have seen the current penultimate in home 3D viewing.  It’s hard for the pickiest 3Dstereofile to find fault with a 3D-Ready DLP.  Plasma, like almost all other 3D display technologies, is a second-class citizen to DLP.  The ghosting is noticeable, but, if you’ve lived with green-lagging-phosphor CRT/shutterglasses combos or with an iZ3D display, you can certainly live with plasma ghosting.

On the whole, Sammy has done a great job making plasma work with stereo 3D. They obviously have an engineering group that understands stereo. The quality is darn good and the price is fantastic.  For 3D movie viewing or gaming, dollar-for-dollar, plasma is hard to beat.  And, it’s wall mountable (unlike DLP), if you care about such things.  Let’s hope Samsung preserves 3D compatibility as they evolve the plasma product line. 

[Editor’s Note:  A very interesting bundle combining the 42” Samsung 42A450 Plasma and an XBOX 360 was recently available at Circuit City for $799.  It’s not just the price that is interesting, if the persistent rumors of an XBOX 360 3D movie player and download service are true.   Stay tuned for that one.]

This news comes on the heels of Fujifilm's 3D still and video camera technology announcement at last week's Photokina imaging tradeshow.

If accurate, this could be a huge shot in the arm for stereo 3D cinematography.  As our readers are painfully aware, 3D stereo image acquisition has been anything but "off-the-shelf" up till now.

If anything could dethrone the Samsung DLP HDTV as the 3DRoundup gold standard in 3D displays, it just may be a Mitsubishi LaserVue.  This 10" deep, wall-mountable, DLP rear-projection display uses red, green and blue lasers to generate the projected light.  According to Mitsubishi, the lasers save power over LCD and Plasma TVs while delivering substantially more color information than conventional HDTVs.  The best part is that the TI SmoothPicture technology built-into Mitsubishi DLP HDTVs makes it possible to get stunningly good 3D.  What could better than having 3D frickin' laser beams shooting at your face?   Mitsubishi claims that the lasers will work indefinitely without burning out or fading.

Better start saving those pennies now.  The 65" LaserVue will set you back $6,999 and begins shipping at the end of September.  A 73" model (pricing TBA) will ship later this year.  These do represent a substantial premium over other 3D-Ready DLP HDTV's.  A comparable 65" 3D-Ready Samsung LED-based DLP streets for about $2,000.

This is welcome news for stereo 3D gaming enthusiasts who have seen support from nVidia wax and wane in the last few years and have had few other options. Although gaming is best left to the pros over at mtbs3d.com, we'll give this bad boy a spin soon and report back.

Against this, others will be judged and found wanting…   That’s how 3D-Ready DLP HDTVs stack up at 3DRoundup. The Samsung HL-T6187S Rear Projection DLP HDTV has become our reference standard for high definition stereo 3D display quality. The underlying Texas Instruments SmoothPicture DLP Technology accomplishes what consumer-level single-screen CRT, LCD and Plasma solutions have all failed to do so far – deliver a bright, clean, high-resolution, well color-balanced, 3D image with a wide viewing angle and without a hint of ghosting or flicker. The quality is stunning – as good as the most meticulously configured and maintained 2-projector setups that we’ve had the good fortune to eyeball.

TI’s SmoothPicture, found in both Samsung and Mitsubishi DLP HDTVs, delivers alternating left and right eye views using the inherent oscillation (properly referred to as wobbulation) of the DLP’s micro mirror array. This effectively halves the 1920 X 1080 image that is delivered to each eye, but, as each eye gets unique spatial information, the loss is not visually apparent. The display is physically cabled to a HDMI (or DVI with adapter) output from a reasonably modern video card. The 3D information is embedded in a checkerboard interlaced frame (see http://www.dlp.com/downloads/DLP%203D%20HDTV%20Technology.pdf for more details), which is an efficient method of squeezing left and right eye views into 1920 X 1080 . The display does the work of separating the left and right eye views and sending the stereo sync signal (via standard 3-pin miniDIN VESA jack) to the requisite active shutterglasses. The display even automatically applies a gamma setting in 3D mode that compensates for the color density distortion of active shutterglasses.

Speaking of shutterglasses, we regularly test with StereoGraphics CrystalEyes and eDimensional Wireless shutterglasses at 3DRoundup. The CrystalEyes are top-notch and really show-off the superiority of the Samsung 3D. The eDimensional shades are pretty darn good too and are a fraction of the CrystalEyes cost. One frustrating side-effect of the eDimensional IR emitter is that it seems to flood the same frequency in the IR spectrum that many remote controls use, including the Samsung’s remote. When the display is in 3D mode, your other home A/V remotes will be blocked. That can be a pain when you want to adjust volume, for instance. The StereoGraphics emitter doesn’t suffer from this. There are, of course, a number of other wireless active shutterglass options out there. We hear very good things about the NuVision 60GX product. Samsung has even announced a branded shutterglass solution of their own (word on the street is that current prototypes are quite heavy, however). Watch for a detailed shutterglass shoot-out in the near future.

Stereo 3D support from the PC has a few rough edges that will present no barriers to enthusiasts, but, until they are addressed, will limit use by more casual consumers. The included Samsung documentation defers all information regarding 3D configuration and use, to the web where only sketchy instructions can be found. One challenge is to understand the PC horsepower needed for 3D HD movie playback and for gaming. It’s hard to be precise here – but – Stereo 3D (gaming in particular) puts serious demands on the CPU, GPU and even hard drives (for streaming duel HD video files). This is a topic best investigated and discussed on mtbs3d.com, but, the rule of thumb is to get the fastest monster PC that you can. If you do, then maybe Crysis will be playable in 3D (and maybe not). For viewing 3D movies, there are a number of PC players that will work, but it’s difficult to recommend anything but Peter Wimmer’s excellent Stereoscopic Player. It offers flawless support of 3D DLPs. There is a rumor (backed up with a registry hack to prove it) that the nVidia Vista drivers (yeah, we know) will soon support 3D DLP displays for gaming. The only official 3D DLP gaming option is the TriDef driver (www.tridef.com) which currently supports 19 games on PCs running either XP or Vista and sporting modern nVidia or ATI graphics cards. TriDef also offers a bundle with shutterglasses specifically for 3D DLPs. Presumably, this bundle is more user friendly than trying to cobble together your own system.

For Mac users, we can only hint that there is a player in the works... and it works. 3D DLPs can absolutely serve as stereoscopic video production displays and NLE integration is on the horizon. As for Mac gaming… no smoke signals here… nada.

The most amazing thing about Samsung (or Mitsi for that matter) 3D DLPs is that you can pick’em up at any mass merchant electronics retailer (e.g. Best Buy, Circuit City…). Don’t expect the staff at you neighborhood big-box store to have a clue about 3D, however. They won’t. This may change later this fall when Mitsubishi tours it’s new line of laser-based Laservue 3D DLPs. They are expected to provide in-store demonstrations of 3D functionality. It is conceivable that, in less than a year, you’ll be able to drop by Best Buy and pick up a 3D DLP set w/ glasses, a 3D BluRay player and a 3D flick. Only question left is, which movie will do for stereo 3D what “Top Gun” did for surround sound? U2 concert in your living room, any one?

There are a number of great Samsung and Mitsubishi 3D DLP models to choose from. Our test-bed 61”Samsung HL-T6187S streets for about $1500. A few of the Samsung sets, including the HL-T6187S, use LEDs as the light source. The LEDs are supposed to last the life of the TV (over 60,000 hours), as opposed to lamps that fade and burn out over time. If your budget will bear it… bigger in 3D is ALWAYS better. One final buying tip – Mitsubishi’s soon-to-be-released Laservue 3D DLPs are said to be the penultimate in this class of display. Just supporting passive glasses is a major selling point, in our humble opinion... and, of course, that they use frickin’ lazer beams. Stay tuned for our review.

ViewSonic showed a prototype 120Hz 22” LCD display at nVidia's NVISION event last week. The word on the street is that this display, coupled with active shutterglasses, rocked out a darn-close-to-flawless 3D image.

One advantage of this “page-flipping” display approach over polarized filter overlays and passive glasses is that the full image resolution is presented to each eye (60 times per second). With the overlays, only half the horizontal resolution arrives at each eye (note that this isn’t as noticeable as it might sound as each eye does receive unique spatial information).  Additionally, the ViewSonic won't suffer from restrictive viewing sweet spots like filter-based LCD displays do.

While the product stats are great, the brand might be the story here. Having a mainstream display manufacturer such as ViewSonic heat-check the market is another good sign for the stereo 3D industry. It is also notable that ViewSonic seems to be in bed with nVidia, so driver support should be in the bag when this beauty ships later this year. We’ll keep tabs on pricing and availability.