Even my wife knows to watch the bedroom TV if I’ve got a big game to watch on our plasma (or occasionally I’ll oblige and let her keep watching HGTV or something while I view the umpteenth Red Sox game in the middle of the season on a secondary TV).

But Texas Instruments wants us to have our cake and eat it together.

The DLP chip maker showed off its early development stage that would let two viewers watch two different programs on the same TV, simultaneously. Sure, we’ve seen picture-in-picture and split-screen before, but this way would allow both to watch as the full-size image without compromise, as Reuters reported from the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers Technical Conference and Exhibition this week.

OK, there is one compromise—you have to wear special glasses, because TI’s “dual view” concept works similarly to 3-D, where the stereoscopic images combine to give you one with greater perceived depth. Dual view combines the images, too, but they are different ones, hence the ability for one person with a pair of glasses to see just one image, and the other person to see the second image.

We’re still a proponent of simply having a game of rock, paper, scissors and the loser heading to another room to watch a program—but I suppose if you both want to watch sports and a movie on your giant 110-inch projection screen, then leaving for the 32-inch LCD would be a bummer.

Arlen Schweiger - Managing editor of Electronic House Magazine

Arlen contributes product news items to electronichouse.com along with his role on the print publication. Got a tip? Send it along!