CES Review, Part 2

Pollack Media Group President Tommy hadges continues his review of this year’s CES with a discussion of 3D TV. 

The big new 3D TV development this year involves the use of passive glasses (lighter in weight & non-powered, exactly like the ones used in movie theaters), which utilize simple circularly-polarized filters (one clockwise & one counter-clockwise).  Because each eye sees a constant image, it seemed much more comfortable while viewing this system. 

Toshiba, JVC & LG had 3D sets on display using passive glasses that won’t be released until later this year, but Vizio had their XVT3D650SV 65” Theater 3D panel on display that had a soft launch at WalMart last month listing at $3699; the picture was excellent, with no crosstalk (shadow imaging of the 2 images on-screen), no flicker, high contrast & clarity.  I believe this new system using passive glasses, if 3D TV does eventually achieve widespread acceptance, will eventually render the technology using active-shutter glasses obsolete.

The other new 3D TV development in the last year involved glasses-free displays.  For smaller images (3” to 10”), the technology worked quite well in demos by Hitachi & Sharp.  For larger displays, despite the impressive picture quality achieved by some manufacturers, it was absolutely necessary to remain at the specified distance from the display to see the 3D images clearly, which became grossly distorted when I moved either too close or too far away from the screens.  For big displays, glasses-free 3D viewing will require much more refinement.