Official 3D Projector Thread.

As Emil M. Antonowsky of RoboCop said, "I Like it!"

Digital Projection TITAN 1080p 3D

Digital Projection TITAN Reference 1080p 3D

Digital Projection LIGHTNING Reference 1080p-40-3D

(not sure if these will be compatible with the new BD3D spec)

does anyone have a link to the actual spec? is support for 144Hz included or are we stuck with 120?

By the wording of that article, it seems they will be using two of the JVCs to project one 3d movie, which is something that can be done with any two (preferably the same) projectors.

It'll be more interesting to see which projectors support a 120Hz or better path.

Frankly, for any hope of wide acceptance of 3D Blu-ray technology, there will need to be AFFORDABLE 3D home theater projectors. It's great they have a $100,000+ 3D projector, but very few can afford such luxuries.

I'm hoping that some of the manufacturers of "cheaper" projectors (Sharp, Panasonic, Epson) will release 3D capable versions of their popular projectors that are affordable (Under $5,000). If not, then this technology is completely dead for the mainstream.

One thing I muse about is, if 3D becomes ubiquitous at home, how this will affect some of the parameters we've always judged in images. Of course we'll still want accurate color, good image clarity etc. But a lot of videophile hand wringing has always been over
issues that affect the dimensionality of the image - contrast, black levels, gamma etc.
All these discussions of the effects of higher ANSI/Higher On/Off and their effects on image depth etc. The purported greater dimensionality of DLPs in brighter scenes, the purported better dimensionality of JVC projectors in darkest scenes...

How will all this be affected once we have 3D and the images from any 3D projector will be given three dimensional depth?

Will it, to some degree, obviate all these niggling discussions we have concerning our attempts to get more dimensional looking images out of our current 2D projectors?

DepthQ has had a projector for a while that will do 120Hz input for HD (but 1280x720) for the nVidia Geforce 3D system at ~$6K. So, with this launch of definite specs there should be some 1080p120 input capable quite soon and competition will bring the prices down.

We will soon be talking about solidity and "life-like" issues. Directorial choices over color/bleach/grain/stark contrast etc. will be limited to those choices that do not destroy or "make less realistic" the 3D effect. A sure thing for discussion will be "ghosting" from displays especially on fast moving 3D objects (you know, like pendulums swinging out to cut open your eyes ) given the fast refresh rates required and absolute lack of crosstalk needed for "believability". Bring it all on - this will definitely be spurred on by 3D dildonics just like other new media were....

Not sure if DepthQ will sell at lot at 6K - the Optoma HD66 is out now. The press release does not specify an MSRP but an 'end-user' price....and it looks like the HD66 is in-stock at visual apex NOW...

I'm pretty interested in this as a second projector to add to the HT for gaming and maybe some football with the lights on. For the price, this seems like a great way to experience some 3D now while waiting for 1080p 3D capable projectors to be released.

My htpc upgrade for nvidia 3d vision should be complete today or tomorrow. I'll be using a XGA BenQ MP776 ST in the short term....should be interesting to get a taste of big screen 3D....

It looks like we'll lose half the available projector light during 3D if it works anything like the commercial cinemas?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RealD_Cinema

I'm definitely interested in what I can do now to prepare for 3D @ home in the future.

Yes, the polarized glasses cut down brightness by about 20% in my estimation. So, there will have to be a trade-off there. You might be able to bump up the projector brightness a tad to somewhat offset the dark glasses, but most likely you'll need to choose between the 3D effect or a brighter image. The glasses also slightly shift the colors. So, if you're a perfectionist with image sharpness, light, and colors, you might be bothered by the current 3D technology. Just the way it is with 3D right now. Even when the glasses-free system comes around, the 3D effect will still likely affect light, colors and sharpness.

Actually, they cut by 50%, but it's perceived as less as our eyes doesn't respond linearly.

From what I have read, the theater vs. home 3D systems are different. The theater uses polarized glasses while the home 3D system (as developed by Panasonic) uses an active shutter glasses system. Panasonic is currently developing a series of plasma only 3D displays ranging anywhere from 50" to 103". It is estimated that the 103" plasma display will retail for between $30,000 and $50,000

I currently have an Epson 1080UB projector and a 106" screen as my home theater set-up. Unless developers can offer an equivalent or better 3D capable projector for under $3,000 there is no way this technology will catch on with me or, likely, the mainstream market. Not very many people will go out and buy a $50,000 103" plasma that likely weighs 600 pounds. Even the 50" 3D plasmas will likely cost over $5,000.

I'm not sure why Panasonic is stating that their 3D technology is exclusive to plasma displays. I'm sure it can be implemented in LCD displays as well, but thus far, Panasonic is sticking exclusively to plasma displays and their $75 per pair shutter glasses. I guess this is how new technology is introduced to the wealthy early adopters.

Obviously there's no point in even considering 3D home theaters in 2010. It will probably be 2012 or 2013 before this is even remotely affordable. There's probably no point for Avatar to come out on Blu-ray in 3D for a while. I guess that's why the director is stating there's no plans for a 3D Blu-ray release of that movie in the short term.

And that brings us to the other dilemma. It is hard to adopt a new technology when there is very little 3D content to watch. And it really doesn't pay to produce 3D content, if so few have the new technology. It's one of those catch 22s.

We'll see three or four years from now if this technology is, indeed, the new standard for HD . . . and affordable.

I am guessing that 3D movies will be released as one SKU, as both the 3D and 2D version, since they will be backwards compatible with old 2D players.

So you should see all current releases in 3D, and the studios will probably release a bunch of older titles in 3D/2D encodes as well.

Hopefully...

I will definitely pick up a panny 3D plasma, prolly at 65 inches.

But the output of the new 3D players will likely to be sufficiently flexible to support various 3D projection models, as well as some existing/older rp units.

As far as a new projector, I'd look forward to a 240 hz pj which Frame interpolates the 60p/60p signal from the players to 120p for each eye. I might prefer this to the polarised approach, but then price will always be a factor!

...are you listening JVC???

[quote=rdjam;

As far as a new projector, I'd look forward to a 240 hz pj which Frame interpolates the 60p/60p signal from the players to 120p for each eye. I might prefer this to the polarised approach, but then price will always be a factor!

...are you listening JVC??? [/quote]

240hz for football would rock! And 3D!

Heh! I love it! Great photo simulations! lol

It's also possible that they may only output 24p per eye, inwhich case I'd be happy with FI to 48p per eye or even 96p per eye...

As far as I know the broadcast 3D will be 30p per eye, so definitely we want FI to get it up to 60p or 120p per eye!

For the kind of money they'll prolly want for this 3D equipment, I think dual channel FI is a must!

This is just one data point, but I just measured my NVIDIA active shutter glasses - like what will be used with the panasonic system - using a light meter:

The first set of numbers is from an overhead incandescent lamp. The second is from a fluorescent desk lamp. I'll do some more testing with the actual projector tonight.

At least we will see some improvement in black levels....

It's true that both the 3D and 2D versions can be put on the same disc, however, the movies need to be SHOT in 3D in order to HAVE a 3D version. Now, whether makers are willing to fork out the money and time to shoot 3D versions is the question given the market conditions. I know that 3D movies in theaters are catching on, so film makers may be more inclined to make 3D versions. Once they're made, then it wouldn't cost that much more to encode them on BD discs (or would it?)

However, what would be unfortunate -- given that very few homes will have 3D set-ups anytime soon -- is if the studios decided to make a combo 2D / 3D disc of a movie and up the price from, say, $29.99 to $44.99 because of the new technology. Then consumers would be facing having to spend a lot more money for a 3D disc that most will only be viewing in 2D.

I hope they are thinking this out. The main stumbling block to most mainstream consumers is still the cost versus benefit factor with BD. They need to keep trending the costs down. I fear that implementing 3D with their 2D, they will force prices up again.


Personally, I think that's too small for a 3D home theater. Minimum 100". That's why I need an affordable 3D projector.

And that's probably why projectors might be problematic with 3D technology. It's already hard enough to get enough brightness with a calibrated HT projector. To cut the brightness down by 60+ percent with 3D glasses is really not workable, IMO.

But is this desirable? Both versions will surely suffer as they will have to be bit starved to fit them on? Are we about to enter an era of degraded Blu-Ray images in order to support this, currently, very niche technology??

Mark

They are not completely separate versions, but are compressed together. In the end it takes 50% more space on the disc for the same quality, which there is room for.

Colors on Bluray 3D have been very compromised with the red/blue glasses so far, as has sharpness. Hopefully the upcoming technologies will be a different ballpark altogether.

I saw Avatar in IMAX 3D opening night with the glasses that are dark green in both lenses. The 3D was fantastic and no real smearing of the images to speak of. I am betting that the colors will be a bit more saturated on the Bluray, but I'm not sure if that's a defect of this particular theater or a product of the process. I saw Shreck 4D (smells added) at Universal Studios on a much smaller screen than IMAX, though still big, and the colors were sweet and the images were sharp.

Get ready to buy a silver screen!

I found this thread that has a decent amount of data on average blu-ray bit rate.

using simple math, if the max bit rate for video is 40 Mpbs and the extra data requirement for the 3D stream is 50%, this would drop the max for the main steam down to 26.7 Mpbs (ie, 40/1.5*Max). There are a lot of discs on the above list with average bit rate way above 26.7 Mpbs. so, it would appear to be at least some concern for quality issues, especially at peak levels.

I'm sure the 50% is some sort of average and not an absolute...it will be interesting to see bit rates (and overall pq) for the first real discs to see how the bit rate/quality is balanced between the two different streams...

as far as the brightness reduction due to the glasses, the 60% does not jive with perception at all. I was thinking that it was not going to be close to the 50% number - the non-linear response of the eye is a big factor here. For comparison purposes, I just measured a pair of sunglasses and found 78% and 82% reductions (each lens).

But the bitrate can't be the deciding factor in this case. A 2D version would have the same bitrate available regardless if it is stored on a 3D or standard BD.

By the way, I found an old article describing BD with up to 200 GB of space.
http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-W...cs-34584.shtml
(Does anyone know the capacity possible today?). Movies, as far as I know, take about 20-30 GB of space on a BD disc, so there should be plenty of space to make a 3D disc. (I recall at least 50 GB discs are common)

Drexler,
My (incorrect) assumption was that the 2D and 3D streams need to be presented at the same time, so the 3D would need to be part of the (single) video stream. Thinking about it a bit more, if the 2D and 3D frames are sequential - ie, how the active shutter glasses actually work - then bit rate remains the same. thanks, I feel better now.

I know I have some blu-rays that are pushing the high 30 GB size (37-38)....the link I posted above has movie and disc size info.

Yes - your rough math is correct. Of course the 50% more for the second channel is probably a best-case average, but it shouldn't vary that much, after all the other eye will be seeing something pretty similar to the first eye.

As to whether it has an impact on PQ, my guess is that it won't be much of a factor, except possibly in high-motion sequences, which probably won't be discernable anyway. I think it's a fair trade for the extra benefit of 3D.


This makes sense, although I would be quick to point out that what you measured from sunglasses is not going to be stricly the reduction due to polarising.

That said, a polarising filter will filter light in only one plane, but it's not like half the light is vertical, and half the light is horizontal - the light is scattered all over the compass, so to speak - so on a regular, non-polarised light source a polarised filter will reduce the light by significantly more than 50% - the 62% and 64% numbers above seem realistic, for a regular light source.

However, on a polarised source such as a 3D projector, which is only putting out, say, horizontally and vertically polarised light, then the reduction would be about 50% - since much of the other light at the in-between polarities would already have been filtered at the projector.

Personally - I prefer the shutter glasses over the polarised glasses systems. They are brighter, higher contrast and more enjoyable, in my opinion.

I saw movies like "Polar Express" in an IMAX theater with the polarised system, and they didn't hold a candle (pun intended) to the Real D system I watched Avatar with.

I was worried about the shutter lens glasses systems in the past, because the "old school" systems I saw a few years ago had lower refresh rates, and the flicker was just awful, especially if flourescent lights were around.

But what I saw with the Panasonic demo at CEDIA, and in the theater with Avatar, were vastly different - much better. So, at this moment in time, I am definitely in the Shutter Glasses camp.

By the way - if anyone want to know what LED projection systems will be really good at, it's 3D. Flash those little LED suckers at 120hz or 240hz and you've got yourself a 3D projector by just re-designing the board and the software - no fancy gimmicks to attach to the light path.

As far as I know, RealD is not active shutter but also uses polarized glasses. Every RealD theatre I've been too gives you glasses that come in a plastic bag that includes DISPOSABLE plastic glasses. If they were active shutter they would be expensive and have alarms that would go off if you "forgot" to return them to the bin. The IMAX near me is the one that uses active shutter which are bigger bulikier glasses that have to be returned.

The RealD system is better to me also, but thats because RealD is digital and IMAX is film. 3D always will look better on a digital projector rather then a film projector. I also use Active shutter at home with Nvidia 3D vision and they are better then both RealD and IMAX 3D. I can't wait to see the Panny actice shutter system. Full 1080P to each eye at 300hz!!

didn't realize that this thread was here before I started my new one. Admins feel free to merge them...

dave

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...php?p=17801864

My understanding is that RealID uses circularly polarized light as opposed to linearly polarized. Briefly that means that the direction of the light wave components rotate as it travels, as opposed to staying in one plane. One eye sees clockwise polarized light, the other counterclockwise. A claimed advantage is that the viewer can tilt his head quite a bit without loosing the image, clearly an issue with vertical vs horizontal polarization.

CES reports show the greatest problem with real 3D in home theater is that you have to change all your devices, including many of new receivers.


At this stage, 3D at home will imply in huge expenses, to have something that may not even compare to 3D in a proper commercial projector room.



3D at home is straddling and will take some years to achieve acceptable standards.


In this mean time it will restricted to to the niche of early adopters.