Is 3D TV Finally Here?

We've been hearing the promises of 3D TV in our living rooms for quite awhile now but it looks like it's almost a reality. according to News.com:

Several display companies are concocting, and in some cases already selling, monitors and other components that provide a simulated 3D viewing experience. Many of these new products don't require glasses.
Stand in front of a Philips 3D monitor, and animated characters throw rose petals or dice at you; the first time you see it, you startle and jolt upward slightly. A film trailer shown on the monitors seems to have more depth than a standard 2D movie.

The Dutch electronics giant has tested the technology in the labs with consumers and noted that a person's galvanic skin response--a change in the skin's ability to conduct electricity, caused by an emotional stimulus, such as fright--rises with 3D viewing.

So how's that possible?

Three-dimensional monitors and TVs essentially rely on human gullibility. In typical monitors, the pixels are synchronized to send out a single image. In a 3D monitor, however, half the pixels are used to create one image, and the other half are used to create a similar, but slightly different one, said Korah. Stand too close or far away, and the images overlap and make the overall picture blurry.
But put on a pair of polarizing glasses, which block the right-eye image from hitting your left eye and vice versa, or stand in the sweet spot in front of a glasses-less 3D monitor, and your brain "sees" a 3D image. The right and left images stitch together in the brain in the same way right and left eye input would if the object happened to actually be there.

Man! I can't wait. And we thought High Definition was a big deal.

Be sure to read the rest of the interesting article:

At News.com

June 26, 2006

Is 3D TV Finally Here?