3D Television types

Last year I tried the Sony system of 3D televisions which require the viewer to wear glasses. These contain LCD shutters that time with the television to broadcast one frame to one eye then the other to the other eye. As mentioned the flickering was simply not bearable for me.

Then I tried the Nintendo 3DS and that uses a parallax barrier, a grill in front of the display screen that selectively blocks light to each eye. The benefit is not having to wear glasses. The downside is that it only works within a 'bubble', that is with the viewers head being within a certain distance from the screen at certain angles. Have multiple people sitting around a television designed like that and it simply won't work. Oh and this too started to give me a headache.

Now for the third type, this time a demonstration from the new combined PC World/Currys. Glasses on, but these use polarisation. They only allow light that's been rotated in the 'correct' manner to pass through the lens. For a movie screen this is easy - two images broadcast on the same screen that have passed through two filters. For a television that emits light two images can't be shown at the same time - a switching filter needs to be placed over the screen and that means flicker.


But it wasn't that bad, I'd even go so far as to say it was quite good. The fact that only the television flickered compared to everything flickering with the shutter glasses certainly helped and given that the technology is inside the television means I can see advances being easier compared to having to sync up to powered shutter glasses.

Even the fact that polarisation cuts light levels from the rest of the world helped, the setup meant I was at the back of the shop facing out towards the doors with all the light streaming in. With my 'sunglasses' on the television still seemed nice and bright. One small point though was that to get the effect I needed to stand in the aisle behind, that is about 2m from the screen. Not a problem and given its size expected, but I am trying to work out why that would be necessary.

Oh and on a final note the clip they showed was set to infinite focus meaning everything was focussed and not just the thing I was supposed to be looking at. So I could refocus on structures 'behind' the main action.

Of the three I've seen polarisation would be my favourite - cheap glasses that don't need new batteries or recharging, wide viewing angle, and as the tech is in the TV if it gets better the current glasses should still work with a new set. Oh and added bonus buy two pairs of glasses with the same polarisation in each lens and one person could see one 2D screen and the second another - split screen games become full screen games.