Sony To Start Shipping Passive 3D TVs? OLED Coming!!

According to Reg Hardware, Sony is set to start shipping passive 3DTVs and in fact are already doing so to China.

I looks like Berlin's IFA Technology Show in September will be the launching point of the sets in Europe.

Sony HAS NOT officially announced this development yet, but Noriaki Negishi (Deputy President of Home Entertainment, Sony) said they will be aggressively marketing the technology within 12 months.

He added: "Our engineers don’t really like [passive] because it has half the resolution of active shutter 3D, but consumers appreciate the convenience of passive."

I think this is a great move on Sony's part as their active matrix glasses (the bigger, expensive ones that hold batteries and do all the 3D heavy lifting) were tending to slow down sales. LG is having great success with their passive S3D TVs - so much so that Panasonic announced that they too are entering the passive market.

What's next for Sony? OLED (organic, plastic and flexible layers)! They will be shipping OLED TVs next year that are much brighter than LEDs.

Negishi on OLED: "2013 will be the year when we will really fight back with new technologies"

Personally I like the passive technology in that it is much more comfortable - especially for prescription eyeglass wearers. Also - no batteries to worry about. While it is true that the resolution is cut down due to the nature of the technology, I tend to subscribe to the fact that our brains will merge the two images into a higher resolution approaching full HD anyway. Somebody prove me wrong. I know it looks darn good. Add in OLED brightness and flexibility and we have a winner!

Thanks for the heads up Yves!

Source: Reg Hardware