3D SONY Televisions looks fake ..

[Kiriakos-GR]

Today I did a walk in local large shop , with lots of the latest TV sets and all sort of gadgets .

In it was some of the latest 3D TV by SONY , 40" and much larger priced at 1.300 EUR .
Well they come with 3D glasses , and I did try them on, and watch the SONY 3D demo.

The first impression was positive but lasted for few seconds,
later on I had a new impression that everything that was in front of me,
was a fake scene like a puppet show with two points of focus ,
and in between a bit of blur.

The demo had many parts as subjects,  one of them was two people who was playing golf,
and a bit far away there was their fun club.
And yes there was some visible details like 3D show, when they was giving hand shakes and specially in the movement of their hands.

Personally even if I had the cash, I would not get any.
Yes it was an remarkable in quality screen for 2D, but I did no sense any magic about viewing in 3D mode.
I would call it even today as experimental technology. 
 
Free to comment as much you like .. 

   

[the_raptor]

"3D" only works if you stare at the focal point that the designers want you to stare at. It doesn't work for me because I like looking at details in the background.

Judging by declining movie ticket sales this round of 3D has just been another gimmick.

[sacherjj]

3D has made the quality of cinematography and editing go all to hell.  A good cinematographer can make a 2D screen 3D to the viewer.  It is about placement and framing of the shot.

[Mechatrommer]

A good cinematographer can make a 2D screen 3D to the viewer.  It is about placement and framing of the shot.

IMPOSSIBLE! as raptor said, its about focal point, where you stare at and the angle difference between your eyeballs, you'll never know that makes the 3D effect. have you tried the 3D viewer which has blue and red glass on it? thats the old tech i know, but it demonstrate the difference between 2D plane and 3D very well. the new sony tech maybe a hype i dont know, never try it, but the point is, a true 3D should be easily differentiated from 2D view, otherwise it is just BS.

there is! 2D picture viewed as 3D, but it will be an odd picture if you look normally. apart from hologram, which i never saw done in arrays of RGB pixels.
this picture tells a 3D "Happy New Year" with round/sphere shapes every where and Saturn shaped i think on the left...

[vk6zgo]

3D movies fizzled out in the 1950s, & 3D movies & TV will fizzle out this time.
Wearing glasses to watch the movies turned people off in droves back then.

Movies were a mature technology then,& the only advance since seems to be in making the glasses work differently.
That said,the only glasses I've seen when 3D TVs are on display look just like the old 2 colour type.

One shop had a 3D CCTV camera  looking at the crowd,feeding a 3D TV.
They didn't supply any glasses,so it was a total turn-off for the customers.

Of course the "Trendoids" will have to get the "latest & greatest" whether it is any good or not,& will pay top dollar to get it.

VK6ZGO

[ziq8tsi]

IMPOSSIBLE!

(You totally misunderstood sacherjj's point.)

Another problem with stereoscopic TV is the total lack of parallax effect when the viewer moves his head.  This might be acceptable in a movie theatre where you are rooted in one seat, but I can not see how it is supposed to work in domestic viewing conditions.  Anything sticking out from the screen will unnaturally appear to follow you around the room.

Also I have read that in the wrong filming or viewing conditions people on stereo TV can look like miniature 3D puppets in a box.

Essentially the whole technical concept seems to be pointless, and I think the only reason it has made a comeback is because digital technology means there is no longer any significant cost to filming and processing stereoscopically.  For the same reason, it may be harder to kill off this time around.  If it does fail in the marketplace, it will be a rare example in the history of television of a widely implemented technology doing so.

BBC have announced that they will broadcast the Wimbledon finals in "3D" this year.  You will not be able to look up player's skirts.

[david77]

Pffft... 3D anything leaves me cold.
I wear glasses and according to the quacks my eyes/brain cannot do "depth perception" like normal people's eyes/brain. I really don't know what that means, I can't make out any difference in what I see to what others see (as far as one can describe what one sees).

However, these Magic Eye pictures have never worked for me. I just can't see anything hidden in them.
I suspect 3D TV / gaming / films wouldn't work for me either.

[Leo Bodnar]

there is! 2D picture viewed as 3D, but it will be an odd picture if you look normally. apart from hologram, which i never saw done in arrays of RGB pixels.
this picture tells a 3D "Happy New Year" with round/sphere shapes every where and Saturn shaped i think on the left...

It actually says HAPPY NEW YEAR

[Mechatrommer]

However, these Magic Eye pictures have never worked for me. I just can't see anything hidden in them.

relax your eyes just as you are looking at far distance object or while you are daydreaming (you eyeballs angle difference should be reduce close to parallel), the picture wil get blurred and the pieces of image will re-combine into 3D. its a bit difficult with small image, you need to get closer to the screen.

[david77]

I know the theory and have tried it often enough over the last 15 years or so. It does not work for me.

[Leo Bodnar]

relax your eyes just as you are looking at far distance object or while you are daydreaming (you eyeballs angle difference should be reduce close to parallel)

If you are typical office worker the best time for this is at 2-3 o'clock in the afternoon.

[sacherjj]

A good cinematographer can make a 2D screen 3D to the viewer.  It is about placement and framing of the shot.

IMPOSSIBLE! as raptor said, its about focal point, where you stare at and the angle difference between your eyeballs, you'll never know that makes the 3D effect. have you tried the 3D viewer which has blue and red glass on it? thats the old tech i know, but it demonstrate the difference between 2D plane and 3D very well. the new sony tech maybe a hype i dont know, never try it, but the point is, a true 3D should be easily differentiated from 2D view, otherwise it is just BS.

It is not impossible.  You can frame a shot such that a person if the foreground is very large and the car approaching is very small.  Now the car gets bigger as it approaches.  Guess what, you just gave depth and three dimensionality to a two dimensional medium.  

I've worked as a cinematographer for independent film and studied quite a bit on this.  That is why film is an ART and not a SCIENCE.  Perfect 3D representation of the real world is science and gets boring.  Film is about expression and it IS certainly possible to convey the 3rd dimension in a 2D medium.

Essentially the whole technical concept seems to be pointless, and I think the only reason it has made a comeback is because digital technology means there is no longer any significant cost to filming and processing stereoscopically.  For the same reason, it may be harder to kill off this time around.  If it does fail in the marketplace, it will be a rare example in the history of television of a widely implemented technology doing so.

I think a big driver is that it is new and will get butts in the seats and then dollars in the pockets.  TV 3D then tries to follow that.  You are right on how digital makes it much cheaper.  It is almost free for an animated film.  You already have to place cameras for each shot to render.  It is just as easy to make that camera have a stereo capability.

[Mechatrommer]

It is not impossible.  You can frame a shot such that a person if the foreground is very large and the car approaching is very small.  Now the car gets bigger as it approaches.  Guess what, you just gave depth and three dimensionality to a two dimensional medium.  

then you are correct from another point of view. thats the classical solution to the problem (and i call it "placebo" ). but imho thats not the talking in here when we say about trying to achieve 3D effect which now has its own place... stereo (dual) screen, hologram, glasses etc. but an attempt on a plain flat rgb pixels screen is something i've never seen. esp without additional accesories such as glasses mentioned by OP.

then i will be sceptic if anything like the picture below to claim 3D view... or maybe such a technology is not within our/my reach yet.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_television

[sacherjj]

It is not impossible.  You can frame a shot such that a person if the foreground is very large and the car approaching is very small.  Now the car gets bigger as it approaches.  Guess what, you just gave depth and three dimensionality to a two dimensional medium.  

then you are correct from another point of view. thats the classical solution to the problem (and i call it "placebo" ). but imho thats not the talking in here when we say about trying to achieve 3D effect which now has its own place... stereo (dual) screen, hologram, glasses etc. but an attempt on a plain flat rgb pixels screen is something i've never seen. esp without additional accesories such as glasses mentioned by OP.

I'm talking not about the technical solution but I believe that 3D is an inferior solution to the 2D artistic method for MOST programs.  The attention is focused on the immersion, not on the content.  This is why I believe the same as others, that this is another 3D fad that will be relegated to special uses once the wow factor is over.  3D hasn't made movies better, usually quite the opposite.

[the_raptor]

Yeah I believe what sacherjj was trying to say is that 2D cinematography can give users the impression of viewing a 3D space (by cuts, and messing with focus etc). I generally watch well made movies so I have never felt the need for them to actually BE 3D as the cinematography makes me feel I am part of the scene anyway.

When they went to 3D they basically had to forgot a centuries worth of traditional cinematography, and so much of the result appears juvenile.

It is like when CGI got affordable. It has taken nearly a decade for movie makers to go back to using models and traditional in-camera effects* when they work better then CGI.

* For example: The nuclear explosion at the end of _Aliens_ is cotton wool covering a flash bulb. That is a few dollars worth of effect. A crap modern producers would have spent a few tens of thousands doing it in CGI.

[Mechatrommer]

Yeah I believe what sacherjj was trying to say is that 2D cinematography can give users the impression of viewing a 3D space (by cuts, and messing with focus etc). I generally watch well made movies so I have never felt the need for them to actually BE 3D as the cinematography makes me feel I am part of the scene anyway.

dont forget "the matrix effect" where they used array of cameras to capture a moment in time, the result is rotating view of one particular moment (paused), trinity doing dragonfly kick. and frequently i saw a technique where they slide the camera closer to the subject while zooming. the subject's size dont change, but the background size changed, cool effect.. with just a hardwork and creative thinking.

[Zero999]

Essentially the whole technical concept seems to be pointless, and I think the only reason it has made a comeback is because digital technology means there is no longer any significant cost to filming and processing stereoscopically. 

No it is slightly better than before,

Older 3D systems used coloured filters which meant full colour was impossible. Modern technology involves using polarising filters or screen producing slightly different wavelengths of red, green and blue light and glasses with narrow band filters, meaning full colour 3D is now possible. It's also possible to produce 3d without glasses by designing the screen so each eye sees a different image but that only works at close distances from a narrow angle.

Of course you're right that it looks like a puppet show because the scene doesn't change as the viewer moves their head so it's not very realistic. The only way to do this without glasses would be to use a camera and image recognition software to adjust the image to account for the viewer's head but again this would only work for one person viewing from a narrow angle and with 100% CGI images.

[Arthur]

"3D" only works if you stare at the focal point that the designers want you to stare at.

Hit the nail right on the head there.

You cannot look around the scene or what you get is the opposite of immersive: a blurry picture with blurry things floating around the place.

What you get with a 3D movie is a vision of what the set would have look like if you stood exactly where the camera was and didn't move at all, not even to rotate your head by a millimetre. Since humans tend to like moving, it doesn't really work.