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3D High Definition TV is here!
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3D Glasses and PC Requirements

There are some additional components needed to turn your new 3D-Ready HDTV into a home 3D-IMAX theater.
  • Wireless 3D Glasses with an IR Emitter (The emitter plugs into the HDTV)
    - OR -
  • 3DFlightSim's 3D-30 "AVATAR" wired glasses kit
  • A Personal Computer (PC) connecting to the HDTV through an HDMI cable
  • 3D playback software for the PC
  • A starter library of 3D-DVD movies and 3D Video

XForce3D
Wireless LCD "Shutter glasses"
Several types of "active" 3D glasses are available for the new 3D-Ready TV's. "Active" 3D glasses differ from the "passive" glasses used at most U.S. 3D movie theaters, but active 3D glasses give equal or better performance. Passive 3D glasses use polarized lenses to block-out or pass-through the left-eye (or right-eye) image to create stereoscopic depth. Passive glasses are inexpensive but require very expensive projector systems. Passive systems are also prone to "ghosting." Most 3D movie theaters in Europe and some U.S. cinemas use active rather than passive 3D glasses.

Active LCD shutter glasses contain microelectronics that alternate between left-eye and right-eye images as they are rapidly flashed back-and-forth on the HDTV display. An infrared LED emitter operates just like a TV remote control to sychronize the shutter glasses with the 3D TV imaging.

Note: Most all 3D glasses fit comfortably
over prescription eye glasses.

Terminator Style ELSA Style

 

"AVATAR" 3D-30 Kit Which type of 3D glasses should you choose? That may depend on your expected audience. Believe me, during the holidays everyone in the house will want to experience the new 3D theater! And that means having several sets of glasses.

Terminator style wireless glasses require pressing a small push-button to activate the 3D. If the IR trasmitter signal drops out or is blocked for 10 or 20 seconds the glasses turn themselves off. Not a big issue once you use the glasses for a while, but visitors who haven't used the glasses may find this annoying.

The ELSA and Termintor glasses sold here can be used together, but XForce3D glasses require a different transmitter. The XForce3D line glasses have more solid construction and its transmitter does not interfer with the TV's remote control. With the ELSA and Terminator wireless glasses the 3D must be shut-off in order to use the TV's remote.

Best Buy for Starters
If you just want to test out the 3D on your 3D Ready Mitsubishi or Samsung for the least amount of money you can purchase our "3D-30 Kit." The kit provides two pairs of wired glasses and the 3D-30 Driver for under $100. The wires on these glasses are nearly 12 feet long, plenty of length for testing and gaming purposes.


PC Requirements
You will need to connect a PC to your 3D-HDTV to watch stereoscopic video. Searching on the web it is difficult to pin down the system requirements for the PC. Most new PC's will provide for these minimum PC requirements for testing purposes:
  • A 1 GHz or better CPU
  • Windows XP or Vista
  • DirectX version 9
XBox 360 and PS3
UBI Soft's "AVATAR the Game" produces excellent HD video in 3D for Playstation 3 and XBox 360 consoles as well as for PC versions of the game. More 3D games and future Blueray 3D DVD's are scheduled for release soon.
My testing indicates that 3D video playback does not place very much load on the PC's graphics. But my attempts to use PC's with some on-board (integrated) graphics were not successful. The ASUS M2A-VM motherboard with HDMI integrated graphics proved incompatible with stereo video. There may be a problem with current versions of 3D graphics drivers, or there may be a more basic hardware incompatibility with this board's ATI Radeon X1250 chipset. The GIGABYTE 73PVM-S2H with integrated HDMI graphics works perfectly with our test setup.

 
  • Page 1 - Is your HDTV "3D-Ready?"
  • Page 2 - 3D glasses and PC requirements
  • Page 3 - video card and software requirements
  • Page 4 - Hooking up the test
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