3D Mark II ?
Monday, 13th August, 2012The Toshiba 55ZL2 is the world’s first “large screen, glasses-free 3D TV” (T3 magazine, August 2012, page 18). While 3D technology has become relatively impressive over the past couple of years or so, most prospective customers want a solution which doesn’t require them to wear (silly) glasses.
So what’s different about the Toshiba 3D model?
Over the years there have been attempts in creating a display capable of projecting viewable images within three-dimensional space. Some involve lasers, some project images onto a fine mist or onto artificial smoke, but these methods aren’t that common or indeed very practical.
However, one way in creating three-dimensional images may be seen in places such as sports arenas or in hotels during conferences. The method relies on displays coated with a lenticular film. And that is what the Toshiba 55ZL2 uses.
Lenticules are tiny lenses on the base side of a special film. The screen displays two sets of the same image. The lenses direct the light from the images to the viewer’s eyes - each eye sees only one image. Your brain puts the images together and you interpret it as a three-dimensional image. The technology requires content providers creating special images for the effect to work. They must interlace the two sets of images together and if you were to try and view the video feed on a normal screen, you would just see a blurry double image.
Another problem with lenticular displays is that it depends upon the audience being in a sweet spot to get the 3D effect. If you were to move to the left or right of one of these sweet spots, the image on the screen would begin to blur. Once you moved from one sweet spot to another, the image would return to a cohesive picture. Future televisions may include a camera which tracks the viewer’s position. The television will be able to adjust the image so that you’re always in a sweet spot. Whether this will work for multiple viewers of the same screen remains to be seen.
Some people experience a feeling similar to motion sickness after watching a lenticular display for more than a few minutes. That’s probably because your eyes have to do extra work as they deal with the discrepancy between focus and convergence. But on the other hand, you don’t have to worry about losing an expensive pair of active glasses (Source)
Bang & Olufsen’s BeoPlay V1 also gets a mention within the same T3 magazine article.
