3-D television set

Why no-glasses 3-D TV may not catch on

TOKYO

TOSHIBA believes it has a solution for television viewers who like 3-D but hate the glasses.

The Tokyo-based company unveiled yesterday the world’s first high-definition liquid-crystal- display 3-D television set that does not require special glasses – one of the biggest consumer complaints about the technology.

But whether consumers will embrace the new TV remains to be seen. Many might be put off by the fact that they will have to be very close to the screen for the 3-D effect to work.

Already, the glasses-free TV sets are enjoying a buzz in the tech world, but they are not without their detractors, who say that the technology may not yet be up to rolling out a completely consumer-friendly product.

“It’s not a 3-D cinema-quality experience, and there’s clearly room for mprovement,” said CNet of the new TV sets.

“But, again, you don’t have to wear any glasses.”

Electronics and entertainment companies around the world are banking on 3-D to fuel a new boom in TV, movies and games. In Britain, Sky TV and Virgin Media have launched 3-D channels, bringing movies and premiere programmes to viewers there.

But most 3-D TV sets in the market today rely on glasses to rapidly deliver separate images to each eye, which creates a sense of three-dimensional depth.

In its new TV, Toshiba uses a “perpendicular lenticular sheet”, which consists of an array of small lenses that directs light from the display to nine points in front of the TV. If a viewer is sitting within the optimal viewing zone, the brain integrates these points into a single 3-D image.

“The result is a precise rendering of high-quality 3-D images whatever the viewing angle within the viewing zone,” Toshiba said in its release. The system is similar to that of the Nintendo 3DS, the highly anticipated handheld device that features glasses-free 3-D gaming.

Toshiba will offer two sizes – 12 inches and 20 inches – designed for personal use. The technology isn’t advanced enough yet to be integrated into larger screens. The suggested viewing distance for the 20-inch model is 90cm, and 65cm for the 12-inch model.

But will consumers baulk at the price? The TV will go on sale in Japan in late December, Toshiba said. The smaller version will cost about 120,000 yen (S$1,890), and the larger one will be double the price.

There’s also one other potential hurdle that the glasses-free 3-D TV faces, said PC World: that of 2-D.

In January, website Engadget looked at a glasses-free display from Magnetic 3D, a maker of  auto-stereoscopic 3-D displays, and found that the lenticular sheet makes regular 2-D viewing “a messy blur”.

“Unless the world decides that nightly news and cheesy sitcoms are better viewed in 3-D, 2-D will always be important,” wrote PC World’s Mr Jared Newman.

PC World notes that perhaps this is the reason that Samsung has scoffed at the idea of glasses- free 3-D, and why Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute said that LCD 3-D TV sets without glasses won’t be commercially available on a global scale until 2015.

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