simple test for 3D crosstalk

Clever. How does your Panasonic 3D TV do?

I'll try it out with my Samsung.

I'm no guru, but I think you're test may suffer from a few flaws. I did notice that when I ran it, my glasses went into stereo mode, and the LCD darkened in one eye. It didn't darken completely, however, and I could see a bit of the image. With both eyes open, there was that (and I'll make some words up here) "stereo shimmer", like what you get when you look at 2d stuff with anaglyphic glasses.

Weird and worthy of discussion, I'm not sure that it's equivalent to ghosting. I noticed the glasses don't completely dim the lens before, but I've achieved perfect stereo effect with no ghosting, especially in sequential frame-packed (SFP?) content.

my .02.

It looks like the video was taken in bright daylight so the cross talk which causes ghosting may be more likley to occur with bright scenes with light colored content.
Its is good test that you came up with.

Thanks for the test images, Frank.

I have to close one eye for this test, of course. When I do, I still see a dim view of the entire sailboat image. What's worse, the shutters seem to block out the light unevenly. That is, parts of the LCD lens of the shutter glasses are darker than other parts, but inconsistently so. As I move my head, the lens seems to be unable to maintain a consistent level of opacity throughout the lens area.

Very telling! What this says to me is that it should be possible to improve ghosting problems significantly with better glasses. Since ghosting is the number one problem for me while viewing 3D (especially in dark scenes), I'm hopeful better glasses make the 3D experience even more satisfying.

I think your test is a very clear indication of what causes ghosting. LCD shutters don't come close to blocking out all the light. It's that simple. When a bright object from one eye view overlaps a dark area from the other eye view, there is potential for ghosting. When both eye views are pretty much uniformly bright, one eye doesn't pick up on the ghosting. One eye is simply too bright and overwhelms the dim image from the other eye.

Now my search begins for the best ASGs - ones that do a better job of blocking out light when their shutters are closed.

Points for discussion, when I have tested ghosting before, it's been done by closing one eye. The open eye sees the intended image, and also some crosstalk from the opposite eye image. This is not a question of dimness in my view, but of frequency syncing. If the issue of inconsistent opacity was coming into play, I should be able to move my head and see the effect on the severity of ghosting, or ghosting "blooms." I don't.

Agreed better glasses could be good. The panny glasses have poor nose pieces IMHO.

The Samsung glasses are very comfortable, much more so than the Panasonic glasses. The frame of the Samsung glasses also wrap around to the side, blocking out more ambient light. I was a bit bothered by the Panasonic glasses after even short periods of usage. I can wear my Samsung glasses seemingly indefinitely without any discomfort. I'm also very sensitive to the weight of my regular glasses. I can't have heavy lenses - they get to me quickly.

I'm not sure what you mean by "frequency syncing." Do you mean that you think the syncing is not accurate? If that were the case, ghosting would be much worse, wouldn't it? My take on what's going on is that it's an inconsistency in how much the shutters actually close. Some areas of the glasses seem to close the shutters more thoroughly than others (block out more light), and it's blotchy, fluid and changing. I think if the problem were syncing, I'd see flashes of the other eye's image, which would be extremely noticeable and disturbing.

As I move my head, the unevenness does seem to change, fluidly. This corresponds to what looks like changes in ghosting in some scenes of the MvsA disc. For instance, when the movie opens, there's a shot of a planet that's about to explode. That planet shows ghosting on my Samsung plasma, but it seems like I can affect the amount of ghosting a bit by moving my head around. That's the case in a few other scenes, too. They're all scenes that feature bright objects against dark backgrounds.

The Golden Gate Bridge scene and the chapel scene were my acid tests for ghosting when the Samsung LCDs first hit the stores. Ghosting was awful. I saw the same ghosting when the first Samsung plasmas hit, too. With the firmware updates, that ghosting is all but gone on the plasmas. If I watch really hard, I can pick up on a tiny bit of it in the cables, but it's almost impossible to spot unless I'm concentrating and looking for it. I'm thinking that was probably a sync issue, because the glasses didn't change - just the TV's firmware. So, what I'm thinking is that the glasses are responsible for what's left of the ghosting, in scenes with high contrast. They simply can't keep out enough from the other eye view.

I accidentally deleted this post from my e-mail, and when I went to look for it, I forgot which thread it was in.

I didn't notice the ghosting in the 3D image so much until I really looked for it. Maybe if it were moving I'd see it more easily, but it's not horrible on my set as a still. Several shots in MvsA are much worse. And I'm just not picking up on a green tint at all. As usual, it's the dark background with the bright dog fur - the contrast - that causes so much of the image to bleed through, especially if the subject is close. That causes the offset of the two eye views to be exaggerated, accentuating the ghosting.

Do people here honestly believe that 3D is going to be flawless with zero crosstalk on their consumer based displays and glasses?

If so - that is expecting way too much.

They have taken a flawed platform - consumer HD - and built upon it 3D. GIGO applys here

I wouldn't say flawless, but it's like when you buy a new 370z or 2011 Mustang: you test the limits and accept that they're better than your manky old corolla, but you'd still like a ferrari.

Would love to hear what you find on the samsung, since it's generally accepted they're sub-par to the panasonics.

There are so many variables that create crosstalk in 3D images. It isn't just the display or the glasses. It is almost inherent in S3D.

In what ways do you believe you can hide crosstalk?

As far as the physicology of watching S3D images, you have to have Stereo Acute vision. Recent studies say maybe half the population has it. The rest don't which means they have eye issues.

I read that only ~10% of the US population is stereo blind.

Are you using the Samsung rechargeable glasses or the battery powered glasses?

I have the battery powered glasses and the 3D crosstalk (ghosting) is quite severe during the commercials in ESPN 3D. Especially during the "This is SportsCenter" commercial I can see a double image of the guy's legs and baseball bat. I also observe crosstalk in the Sony commercial where the girls are running towards the screen from the end of the hallway, as well as during the Gillette commercial when the blade spins in front of the screen.

This is on the PN63C8000 with 1021.1 firmware.

I'm wondering if Panasonic owners are experiencing this as well. Are other Samsung owners seeing this?? Do you have the battery powered or the rechargeable glasses?

What is interesting in your PIC is that your cameras are placed far enough apart and so close to chrlie that only one of then sees Charlie at all.
Also the closer the distance the more likely ghosting is likely to occur due to any horizontal or vertical misalignment of the cameras.

I have the standard battery powered glasses that come in the MvsA kit. I don't have DirecTV - waiting for Dish to make an announcement (which could be a long wait). I'm using the 1019 firmware. I haven't hooked the set up to my home network yet to upgrade, and the Samsung download that I put onto a USB stick doesn't work.

Crosstalk is not severe with my set, at least not anything close to what I saw before the firmware upgrades became available. Still, it's more than I'd like. From what I've seen, the Panasonic MAY be a smidge better with crosstalk, but certainly not substantially so. On the Astro Boy and Grand Canyon Adventure clips from the Panasonic Blu-ray player, the two sets seem all but indistinguishable from one another in terms of crosstalk. Of course, I've had more time with the Samsung set, since I own it, but I've watched the Panasonic demo disc many times.

On the material I've seen, crosstalk seems worst in high contrast scenes. In general, it's less noticeable in brighter scenes, but even then, when the image is high contrast, crosstalk is visible in some shots.

Don't know why there's such a big discrepancy between our glasses, Frank, but my ghost image looks nothing like yours - no serious green tint. It's just a dim version of what I see when the shutter is fully open. Maybe the Panasonic glasses have a green tint that the Samsung glasses don't. That appears to be the case in some photos I've seen, but who knows?