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Back in 2010 Sony Australia's Paul Colley forecasted that a large percentage of Australian viewers would have 3-D televisions by 2014.
In the same year, industry pundits such as Simon Murray predicted that sales of 3-D TVs were set to increase in the years to come.
But others were heralding the death of 3-D TVs and this year the remaining major manufacturers, LG and Sony, have said they will no longer produce 3-D-capable televisions.
So despite all the repeated push and positive predictions, what went wrong with 3-D TV?
Tim Alessi, LG's director of new product development, acknowledged this year that:
[...] 3-D capability was never really universally embraced in the industry for home use, and it's just not a key buying factor when selecting a new TV.
Sales of 3-D TVs have been in decline for several years, according to data from analysts NPD. In 2013, 3-D TVs accounted for 23% of TV purchases in the United States, but this dropped to just 8% in 2016.
Is 3-D TV dead, or will it rise again?
(Score: 1) by Tara Li on Thursday February 09 2017, @06:23PM
3D is going to have to wait until the cinematographers have some time to grok it more fully. The technology improving some, as well, will be needful - I saw 3D IMAX at NASA KSC once, and it worked really well, but it used the two synchronized projectors with polarization to accomplish the trick.
However, expanded gamut would be nice. I know Sharp tried it with the Quattron line ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quattron [wikipedia.org] ) but I'm not positive that it was the right choice - or perhaps it just wasn't enough - perhaps they needed to add a purple as well, and maybe an orange... I've also seen suggestions for adding a cyan in the mix.
Thinking about it, why not alternate the polarization on each pixel triplet on a LCD/OLED screen, and use regular polarization glasses for the 3D effect on TV? You wouldn't need shutters, nor any particular processing on the part of the display device - each frame would contain both images, just masked together. Yeah, the over all image would be dimmer - you'd want to turn out the house lights when watching one, but a regular 2D show without the glasses would be as bright as usual, and could still use all of the pixels - our eyes don't particularly notice polarization.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 09 2017, @06:50PM
That's what is called passive 3D. The disadvantage is that it halves the resolution per eye (each eye only gets to see half the pixels).
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Thursday February 09 2017, @07:27PM
Did not realize that they still used an RGB back-light for the Quattron TV. While looking for datasheets for some RGB LEDs I have, I did come across RGBA (Red green Blue Amber) ones. I wonder if they were invented after the TV was invented.
(Score: 1) by Tara Li on Friday February 10 2017, @01:19AM
I don't know why they didn't do it on the Quattrons - it's not like pretty much the entire rainbow of LED colors isn't available fairly easily - Mouser lists dozens of colors/wavelengths available.
For that matter, I've wondered why they don't make standard 2x4 ceiling panels with surface mount single-color LEDs arranged in some kind of super-bayer pattern of a dozen colors or so - sure, each individual LED would not be that bright, and so shouldn't put out that much heat, but the net effect should be a really bright panel with a much better color spectrum. RGB really doesn't do it!
(Score: 1) by toddestan on Friday February 10 2017, @11:23PM
It's not like the cinematographers haven't had a few chances to figure it out already as 3D has already been tried a few times before but it always ended up being a fad that died off after a while until someone tries to revive it again. The biggest difference is that this was the first time they really tried to push it into the home, probably because the technology for home use just wasn't feasible before.
(Score: 1) by Tara Li on Wednesday February 15 2017, @03:18PM
Each form of 3D to date has had different characteristics that force different cinematographic choices. Red/Blue anaglyph was the choice for a while, but meant that color choices were constrained. Flicker rate on shutter glasses caused issues. And we're just now finally fully appreciating some of the problems with motion perception and the disagreement between the eyes and the semicircular canals. It'll be 30 or 40 years before it all settles out.