New Poster and Leaked Clip are "Up"!

Hi, Michael here.  Check out this new poster and teaser clip from Disney/Pixar's Up.

The clip is from Sony's CES keynote, and is a more recent version of some of the incomplete footage that director Pete Docter showed off at Comic-Con last summer.

From everything I've seen and heard, Up looks to be another instant classic from the geniuses at Pixar.  I can't wait to see how they use 3D to take their stories to even grander heights.

Poster source: Yahoo! Movies

CES 2009: Autostereoscopic 3DTV Roundup

Hi everyone, Michael here with an overview of the autostereo (no glasses required) 3DTV's that were on display at CES.

Let me start off by saying that no piece of tech on the CES show floor (save Samsung's touch screen vending machine) drew crowds as big as those in front of the autostereo displays. The average attendee's reaction usually progressed from "wow, that's amazing!" to "I have to stand in certain spots for it to work" to "I can't wait until they perfect this." A lot of people seemed truly boggled by what they were seeing, as if they were witnessing magic.

Alioscopy

Alioscopy's 3DTV had the sharpest resolution, deepest 3D-effect, as well as the most inconspicuous transfer between views of all the autostereoscoic displays I saw at CES. From what I learned from the Alioscopy reps, their high quality 3D is a result of a prioprietary lenticular screen and pixel interleaving routine which maintains the highest resolution possible, along with special 3D authoring software to create the 8 viewpoints used in their display. Alioscopy's demo of potential medical applications of autostereo (in the form of 3D images of the human body) was particularly impressive.

Samsung

Samsung's autostereo 3DTV was just a notch below the Alioscopy demo in terms of image crispness and fluidity of transition between viewing angles. The range of viewing angles in their 9-viewpoint autostereo system was quite wide, too.

LG

LG's display featured the least pronounced 3D-effect of the three. The image also seemed the most pixelated. Nevertheless, this display--as well as all autostereo TV's shown on the CES floor--drew many "oohs" and "aahs" from attendees.

I heard from someone on the last day of CES that Phillips also had an autostereo set on display, but that it was being shown in the Hilton Hotel, away from the other major consumer electronics companies. If anyone who has seen the Phillips display would like to chime in below, I'd really appreciate hearing what you think of it.

CES 2009: "Minority Report" Come to Life: Toshiba Shows Spatial Motion Interface

Hi - Michael here.  Toshiba is showing off a really cool user interface for televisions based on hand gestures.  I gave it a try, and discovered it to be surprisingly sensitive.  After about a minute of figuring out how big and fast to make the motions, I was navigating the interface with ease.

Now imagine something like this as an interface for 3DTVs, or as a control method for 3D games. Hopefully Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are taking notes.

Watch the video below to see the Toshiba representative taking it for a spin:

CES 2009: "How Will We See 3D TV?" Panel Podcast

Hi - Michael here.  Listen to the podcast below for the best panel session on 3D I've heard yet.  This session focused primarily on 3D at home technologies, and the panelists go into some fascinating detail regarding the various technologies that are in the running, as well as what will need to happen for a standard to be reached.  The questions directed to the panel from both the moderator and audience resulted in some great discussion.

This is really a must-listen for those who want to be on the cutting edge of what is happening to bring 3D into the living room.

Listen to the podcast below:

Moderator: 

Eric Taub, Technology Contributing Writer, The New York Times

Panelists: 

Doug Darrow, Brand Marketing Manager, DLP Products, Texas Instruments

Nicholas Routhier, President and CEO, SENSIO Technologies

David Naranjo, Director, Product Development, Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America Inc.

Chris Chinnock, Co-Founder, 3D@Home Consortium and President, Insight Media

Neil Wittering, International Strategic Business Manager, projectiondesign

CES 2009: Panasonic 103 inch Full HD 3D Plasma Details

Michael here. Panasonic is really leading the charge for bringing the 3D theatrical experience into the home, both technically and in getting the word out.

According to information sheets at CES, Panasonic's system works from a single 50 GB Blu-ray disc (using a modified Blu-ray player), feeding the 3DTV successive Full HD left and right-eye images at 60 frames per second apiece, for a total of 120 frames per second. That's significantly better than any other system currently being demoed.

They are utilizing the same 103 inch Plasma 3DTV that they showed at the 3D Entertainment Summit, this time showing some extra clips, including some spectacular footage of Aliens of the Deep, Ghost of the Abyss, sporting events and music videos from PACE.

Sony is refusing to discuss the technology behind their CES 3DTV demo, which uses polarized glasses, stressing that they do not want people thinking that they have chosen to pursue any particular 3DTV design. Samsung is using shutter glasses in their demo, but are emphasizing their technology's ability to convert 2D content (films, games) to 3D in real-time instead of duplicating the theatrical experience in the home.

I personally agree with Panasonic that shutter glasses are the way to go for 3DTV's. In every single case that I've seen, 3DTV systems employing polarized glasses have a picture that looks substantially below 1080p resolution. This is likely due to the polarizing layer on the screen polarizing only half the horizontal lines of the image at a time, effectively cutting the resolution in half. Until passive 3DTV systems figure out a way to show successive 1080p left and right-eye images without sacrificing resolution or framerate, the shutter glasses method will be the way to go. Although polarized glasses systems (such as REAL D) are ideal for the multiple-viewer theater environment (it is more logistically difficult for theaters to manage hundreds of pairs of the relatively expensive shutter glasses as opposed to the super cheap recyclable plastic polarized ones), it seems wise to uses shutter glasses in the home, as this will eliminate the need to expensively modify HDTV's to be capable of polarizing their images. It makes sense to me to just buy a pair of shutter glasses and a base station that will synch to any TV.

I really hope that Panasonic manages to get its system (albeit likely using a smaller TV) into the home as soon as possible. I'm optimistic that we will have at least a de-facto standard for 3DTV by the end of 2009, and I think that Panasonic is very well positioned to become that standard.

CES 2009: Samsung Shows 2160P Ultra High Definition TV's!

Hi everyone, Michael here with pictures of one of the most impressive things I saw at CES today: Samsung's prototype 82 inch LED Ultra High Definition TV (that's 3840 x 2160, or 8,294,400 pixels, compared to the 2,073,600 found in 1080p sets).

I found that I had to stand incredibly close to this gigantic set in order to discern the pixels--I had to practically press my face up against it. It seems ideally suited for stereoscopic 3D since the quality of a 3D experience very much depends on feeling immersed in the scene. And because you can sit close enough to this set to completely cover your peripheral vision without sacrificing resolution, the 3D experience would be spectacular.

Another reason to look forward to 4k TV's? Autostereo. The more pixels a TV has, the more that can be dedicated to additional parallax barrier / lenticular bars, potentially eliminating the annoying shifting effect that occurs when you change position in front of an autostereoscopic display.

nVidia Launches GeForce 3D Vision at CES

Jim here. At the CES show today, nVidia launched a new 3D platform for gaming which looks interesting - have a look:

High-Tech, Wireless Active Shutter Glasses

Designed with top-of-the-line optics to deliver 2X the resolution per eye and ultra-wide viewing angles versus passive glasses. Comfortable to wear and modeled after modern sunglasses, offering a stylish and lightweight alternative to traditional 3D glasses. Fully untethered solution, offering free range of motion and up to 20 feet of wireless 3D viewing.

USB-based, High Power IR Emitter

Transmits data directly to active shutter glasses within a 20 foot radius and contains an easy to use real-time 3D adjustment dial.

Maximum Display Flexibility

Designed for pure ViewSonic and Samsung 120 Hz LCD monitors, Mitsubishi DLP 1080p HDTVs, and DepthQ HD 3D projectors, unlocking crystal-clear, flicker-free stereoscopic 3D gaming for multiple viewing solutions.

Out of the Box Game Compatibility

Advanced NVIDIA software automatically converts over 300 games to work in stereoscopic 3D out of the box, without the need for special game patches. In addition, NVIDIA’s The Way It’s Meant to Be Played program ensures that future games will support GeForce 3D Vision. GeForce 3D Vision is also the only stereoscopic 3D gaming solution to fully support NVIDIA SLI®, NVIDIA PhysX™, and Microsoft®DirectX® 10 technologies.

Extended Usability On a Single Charge

A single charge using a standard USB cable powers 3D gaming for more than 40 hours. Intelligent circuit design built into the glasses automatically shuts the glasses off after 10 minutes of inactivity to preserve battery life.

Support for 3D Movies

Fully supports 3D video players such as 3dtv Stereoscopic Player, and others.

Support for Stereoscopic 3D Photography

Included free photo viewer allows consumers to take in-game screenshots and view them in stereoscopic 3D, or import and view stereoscopic pictures from a variety of different capture sources and online web photo galleries.

They recommend the following games to try out:

FPS: Left for Dead
Racing: Burnout Paradise and Race Driver Grid
RTS: Age of Empires 3 and Spore
RPG: World of Warcraft and Fallout 3
Simulation: Flight Sim X

I love Left For Dead in 2D - would be interesting to see in 3D! More from CES as it happens...