Toshiba To Launch No-Glasses 3D TV This Year 218
angry tapir writes "Toshiba is readying two 3D televisions that can produce images with the illusion of depth but don't require the user to wear glasses, the company said Monday. It will launch the televisions in Japan in December. Toshiba will offer a 12-inch model and a 20-inch model. They'll cost around ¥120,000 (US$1,430) and ¥240,000 respectively. Toshiba's new TVs have a thin sheet of small lenses in front of the display. This splits light from the screen and sends it to nine points in front of the TV."
Re:Do not want (Score:3, Interesting)
Give me a decent script and acting I can believe.
Me too but sometimes I want to watch the pretty pictures.
Re:What's more annoying... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a third alternative: contact lenses.
You need a circular-polarising projector system, as used in cinemas, and matching contact lenses.
It does not matter if the lens rotates.
Now how do I get a patent for this?
Re:I saw Avatar the other day (Score:4, Interesting)
Not only that, I was just reading a story at Ars about how Jon Landau believes everything should be 3D [arstechnica.com]. He calls out studios on hasty 3D conversions. I'd say the pot is calling the kettle black. His film had plenty of problems.
"Converting a movie from 2D to 3D is not a technical process. It is a creative process,"
You know what? After watching your flick at IMAX in 3D and halfway through wanting to leave with my headache, you're doing it wrong. As has been brought up before in previous Slashdot discussions, you can't get a proper 3D effect that will fool the brain with current technology. Stop trying to convert 2D films to 3D, especially for the point of being "OMG 3D" like parent mentioned.
The 3D effect worked decently well for me, better than I expected. There was one part of it that screwed with me though.
... until my eyes reached the actual boundary of the screen. Then the entire image would suddenly collapse back into a 2D picture until I again was looking more directly at the screen.
If I was looking more or less at the center of the screen, to the periphery it would appear (fairly convincingly) that certain objects were jutting out, past the boundary of the screen. Then I would sometimes attempt to follow those objects with my eyes and the illusion would continue
The 3D was far better than I was expecting, which wasn't much. It's still nothing like a true hologram where you could walk all the way around it and see it from many different angles. I couldn't even remain in my seat and move my eyes very far around it without dispelling the illusion. The headaches are something I did not experience but have heard often. I think that could be remedied by becoming conscious of whether you are straining your eyes in order to force a certain perception, as a setup like that might tempt you to do.
Re:I saw Avatar the other day (Score:3, Interesting)
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Re:¥240,000 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I saw Avatar the other day (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you hit the nail on the head regarding the problems with current 3D. A lot of it could be solved by simply having all objects appear behind the screen (like looking out of a window) instead of trying to present them in front of it, but even then the temptation to move your head to see something just out of shot would not go away completely.
The other major issue is focus. In 3D if something is out of focus your eyes assume it is because they are not focusing on it and try to adjust. Of course because it is recorded that way they can't ever bring it into focus but keep straining to anyway, which is what gives you a headache.
Re:I saw Avatar the other day (Score:3, Interesting)
The headaches come from the fact that your vision percieves depth more than just stereoscopically. The eye (at least in younger folks whose focusing lenses haven't hardened) also perceives depth by focus. Your brain can tell how far away an object is by how much effort the focusing muscles are exerting.
To varying degrees, depending on person, most vision is pretty much automatic, and your eyes' focus is tied to the parallax. In a 3D movie, the parallax is there, but not focus -- your eye is focused on the screen, which is a fixed distance away.
You get headaches because your focus is fighting with your parallax. Personally, I find stereoscopy pretty cool but completely unnecessary; various forms of perspective are enough to give a sense of depth.
If you get headaches reading, you'll probably get headaches with a 3D movie. If you can cross your eyes you probably won't, and if you can not only do that but move your eyes independantly you're almost certain to not get headaches with 3D.
Re:I saw Avatar the other day (Score:1, Interesting)
They need to start putting in a floating window on these movies to fix this problem. Essentially you use a small black border at the edges of the screen that is also presented in 3D. This makes the black border appear close to your face. So when things DO get truncated, they at least contain some depth and the illusion isn't destroyed.