The quality of the 3D viewing experience is what counts, and not trying to leap onto the 3D bandwagon to acquire market share.

LCD television technology is inherently flawed for 3DTV viewing purposes.  Standard LCD televisions project light in a polarized manner due to the grid arrangement of the transistors.  Active shutter glasses as well as some passive glasses do not allow the viewer to see a picture on these televisions when their head is turned 90 degrees - such as lying on your sofa to watch television which is a common practice by many people.

LCD television also suffers from motion artifacts caused by slow-switching transistors. Hence, the reason why many manufactures tout 240 or even 480 Hz frame rates.  These are attempts to misguide the consumer into believing that he or she has purchased a superior product.  The truth of the matter is that even at 480 Hz the artifacts exist and contribute to motion blur as well as contrast degradation.  These are important issues to consider when purchasing consumer electronics in which the main purpose of its use is to view images in the highest quality possible.

Another fact to consider is that most LCD manufacturers who are currently marketing 3D televisions utilize a lower resolution method to transport the 3D image from the source to the screen.  This implies that information is manufactured by the television using a video processing algorithm.  The image may be displayed as 1080p but most likely was sourced in half of that resolution due to bandwidth constraints of the 3D source material.  Remember, 3DTV requires one frame per each eye. This implies that if an image is to be displayed as 1080p, the transport stream must be 1080p x 2.  Most cable and satellite broadcast infrastructures cannot support this added bandwidth and broadcast 3DTV in what is known as side-by-side (SBS) mode. The horizontal resolution is effectively cut in half using this method.

The other question then arises of how good is the interpolation algorithm to boost the horizontal resolution back up to 1920 pixels/line from 960 pixels in SBS mode? The picture is only as good as the algorithm, and is at least half of it, false.

The only manufacturer that I am aware of that has tackled all of these issues albeit with active shutter glasses is Panasonic.  Panasonic has advanced their plasma technology to meet the high demands of 3DTV viewing to produce a superior image and a superior viewing experience.  Isn’t this what watching a 3D movie with your kids is all about?

R. Matsick

I’ve always said that I won’t have any interest in 3D tv’s/players until no glasses are required and there is no other picture quality penalty involved. This is getting close but not quite there yet..