Future of 3D gaming and media *spawn

[patsu]

Germany typically resides in the EU, when it feels like it. I ordered mine from Amazon.de, but that was based off of US and UK reviews I read online so presumably they're available there too. Not sure about Asia.

A 27" would be lovely, but I think the cost shoots up dramatically above the size I have. To be honest for the price of this one you could probably just buy two of them for a similar cost of a larger panel, if that would suit your needs better.

Didn't see your profile before posting. Yeah 3D monitors are more readily available in Europe and Asia. The Acer 27" was "just" US$600 but it's out of stock. I'll see what comes up next.

 

[patsu]

NPD: Consumer Indifference Toward 3D Rises:
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/3d/npd-consumer-indifference-toward-3d-rises-24607

Consumer intent to purchase 3D products declined in May, with the exception of 3D video games, according to a new report from The NPD Group.

The Port Washington, N.Y.-based research firm, in its updated “3D 360-Degree Monitor” survey from last September, found that respondents were less inclined to purchase 3D, including watching 3D theatrical movies, than following the last survey in October.

“With the run-up to the holiday purchase season, the intent to purchase 3D televisions followed the purchase intent to buy TVs in general,” said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis at NPD. “As NPD's sellthrough data shows, sales of 3DTVs did indeed rise during the holiday season, but they have since receded due to the seasonality of major electronics purchases.”

Notably, 3D glasses remain the major barrier to purchasing, surpassing price of 3DTV as the most frequently cited objection, according to NPD. Even so, price still is a growing concern: 42% of consumers in May reported that prices were a barrier to purchasing a 3DTV, which is up from 38% last September.

The lone bright spot includes consumer awareness and interest in portable handheld 3D video games — underscored by the launch of the Nintendo 3DS in February. NPD said the combination of low price (compared with 3DTV) and a glasses-free 3D experience helped boost awareness to 3D gaming to 13% from 5% in October. A collateral effect is expected with the rollout of 3D smartphones later this year.

...

The movie folks will have to wait for 3D Star Wars for another jab.

 

[patsu]

http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/28/ea-chief-stereoscopic-3d-gaming-is-a-dud-so-far/

At EA’s annual meeting today, a shareholder asked John Riccitiello, chief executive of EA, what he thought about stereoscopic 3D games, where you can use special glasses or just your own eyes to see images in three dimensions on TV sets. The question is apt since there’s a huge ecosystem of display makers who are looking to 3D as a way to charge more for their products. But consumers aren’t coming out in droves for it.

“We have not seen a big uptake for 3D gaming,” Riccitiello responded. “We have not seen a big uptake in 3D TVs in the home. We are not here trying to drive a market. We are here to react to what consumers want. “

Riccitiello noted that all of EA’s games are built in 3D and the company doesn’t need to make a fundamental shift in production technology to do 3D, in contrast to the TV industry. He acknowledged that 3D can make for a better entertainment experience. But consumers aren’t yet willing to dish out a lot of money for it.

He noted that Nintendo launched its 3DS handheld with glasses-free stereoscopic 3D and it was heralded as “the next big thing.” But there have been complaints of 3D causing headaches and nausea. And it hasn’t sold as well as Nintendo liked, Riccitiello said. In fact, Nintendo cut $80 off the $249 3DS last night.

EA isn’t interested in investing in the 3D game market as a result and it is instead putting its money into mobile, social and online game opportunities.

 

[RobertR1]

Smart move my EA. Banking on 3D is a fasttrack to the poor house. The small percentage of the people who like it are not enough to justify the fiscal commitment.

 

[patsu]

The 3D industry will need to ease in better technologies at a lower cost.

http://gamasutra.com/view/news/36176/Ocarina_Of_Time_3D_Surpasses_1M_Shipped.php

Nintendo has revealed lifetime sales figures for a number of its biggest titles, noting that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is now the third Nintendo 3DS game to surpass 1 million sales.

The critically acclaimed remake has seen approximately 1.08 million unit sales worldwide, with 270,000 total sales in Japan and 810,000 units sold in the U.S. and Europe.

Previously Super Street Fighter IV 3D was the first 3DS game to ship one million units, and soon afterwards Nintendogs + Cats also managed to hit one million.

...

 

[Rangers]

I wouldn't mind a 3DTV as the prices are plummeting (I see 42" 3D Vizieo's in the 600-700 range, similar to what I paid for my non 3D 42"), but I hate the graphical downgrade that's going to come with 3D games.

I guess a lot of people consider glassless 3D HDTV's as the only way forward, but I have to wonder wont that have some of the same headaches problem as 3DS?

 

[patsu]

LG's Cinema 3D TV (Based on passive 3D) seems to be selling well according to their financial report. Active 3DTVs will drop in price as new models roll out.

For general viewing discomfort, the vendors have commissioned studies to improve their technologies and content creation techniques.

e.g., Samsung funded this study:
http://www.journalofvision.org/content/11/8/11.full

Recent increased usage of stereo displays has been accompanied by public concern about potential adverse effects associated with prolonged viewing of stereo imagery. There are numerous potential sources of adverse effects, but we focused on how vergence–accommodation conflicts in stereo displays affect visual discomfort and fatigue. In one experiment, we examined the effect of viewing distance on discomfort and fatigue. We found that conflicts of a given dioptric value were slightly less comfortable at far than at near distance. In a second experiment, we examined the effect of the sign of the vergence–accommodation conflict on discomfort and fatigue. We found that negative conflicts (stereo content behind the screen) are less comfortable at far distances and that positive conflicts (content in front of screen) are less comfortable at near distances. In a third experiment, we measured phoria and the zone of clear single binocular vision, which are clinical measurements commonly associated with correcting refractive error. Those measurements predicted susceptibility to discomfort in the first two experiments. We discuss the relevance of these findings for a wide variety of situations including the viewing of mobile devices, desktop displays, television, and cinema.

...

3DS has a little more problem since the user needs to switch between the lower 2D screen and the upper 3D screen quickly. The developers will have to take note of it.

The thing is once I saw a good 3D screen and content, I could tell what's missing in "2D" contents after that. If there is an affordable and acceptable solution, I wouldn't mind paying a little extra to experience the environment/show. For companies like EA, they will wait for the sweet spot to arrive since 3D content creation is expensive (and still an art).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Having just bought an HD camcorder, the thing I want most in digital (cinema)photography is HDR capture. I'd take stills with better exposure across the whole scene over 3D images that still can't capture what the human eyes see any day. In fact HDR video footage with director and user adjustable exposure sounds interesting. The director/chief photographer would set up their choice of exposures for any given scene, but the user could override it during playback to focus on different content...

 

[patsu]

My family usually deal with exposure issues using Photoshop or equivalent. ^_^
Our needs are not sophisticated.

EDIT: Aren't there HDR cameras on the market already ?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

My family usually deal with exposure issues using Photoshop or equivalent. ^_^
Our needs are not sophisticated.

You can't fix overexposed images though, and can only push underexposed pics so far before noise becomes an issue.

EDIT: Aren't there HDR cameras on the market already ?

There are stills cameras with an HDR mode that combines images of different exposures. You can do that in software too taking photos with different exposures. HDR video cameras are in their infancy and won't be available at the consumer level for an age. TBH the optical choices decided by Hollywood confuse me. They've gone with low framerate, low light quality, which are far more important for realism than 3D.

 

[patsu]

You can't fix overexposed images though, and can only push underexposed pics so far before noise becomes an issue.

True enough ! We usually retake if the photo is overexposed.

There are stills cameras with an HDR mode that combines images of different exposures. You can do that in software too taking photos with different exposures. HDR video cameras are in their infancy and won't be available at the consumer level for an age. TBH the optical choices decided by Hollywood confuse me. They've gone with low framerate, low light quality, which are far more important for realism than 3D.

Probably for historic reason. The audience are already used to the film feel.

The CG movies should be HDR right ?

 

[Rangers]

LG's Cinema 3D TV (Based on passive 3D) seems to be selling well according to their financial report. Active 3DTVs will drop in price as new models roll out.

Is active or passive better? Never gotten a straight answer to that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The CG movies should be HDR right ?

There's no standard HDR video format AFAIK. CG movies are rendered out to standard 24 bit colour (whether in RGB or xvYCC or YPbPr or whatever).

 

[tabs]

Is active or passive better? Never gotten a straight answer to that.

Passive has cheaper and lighter glasses, but requires a more expensive display IIRC. I've only used active at home and passive in the cinema. I think they're about the same with regard to light loss and ghosting.

 

[Rangers]

From an article I read after I posted that, apparently the big thing is passive halves the resolution (so, 540P), active does not. They said this might not be too important on a under 65" TV. The editor preferred active in hands on, but acknowledged the benefits of passive.

 

[patsu]

LG's method is proprietary:
http://news.consumerreports.org/electronics/2011/05/first-look-lgs-first-passive-3d-tv.html

In particular, we wanted to check one of LG’s most unusual claims: That unlike the Vizio set, LG’s passive 3D TVs were capable of displaying true 1080p (1920x1080) resolution to each eye. That claim goes against our general understanding of the current passive polarization techniques, which typically cut vertical resolution in half. In 3D mode, these passive TVs essentially divide the display screen—and thus the 3D stereo image—into odd and even lines, each group having a different polarization. The matching polarization in the glasses then steers the odd lines to one eye and the even lines to the other eye, which means each eye only sees half the 1080-line vertical resolution (1920x540).

So how can LG claim 1080p resolution when each eye is forever blocked from seeing half the lines? For each single frame of incoming video, LG refreshes the image to each eye two times. For one eye, the first pass presents the odd lines of the 1080p image onto the odd line rows of the screen, followed by the even lines, which are also—and unusually—presented on the screen’s odd line rows (not on the even line rows).

While this method technically presents each eye with all the 1080p information, it does so by placing half the lines of video in the wrong row location, at odds with standard video processing practices. Since the odd and even line information is presented sequentially to each eye, but in the same line locations, at any given time each eye is still only seeing half the resolution. But we’ll reserve final judgment for our resolution tests, which are presented below.

...

1080p resolution—really?

We found that despite its claims, the LG LW5600 wasn’t able to produce true 1080p images to each eye in the 3D mode. The loss of resolution was apparent on our resolution test patterns, as well as on regular programming, where we saw course, jagged edges on objects that should have been smooth, and on broken lines that should have appeared continuous. It was especially visible on graphics and text, where we could see scan lines (see photo above). But on natural video (people, nature scenes), the lack of resolution and related artifacts were less apparent and never distracting.

In general, image artifacts caused by the lack of vertical resolution are definitely less pronounced on the LG than on the Vizio, whose jaggies and coarse edges are very prominent on most content. But it didn’t produce the clean, crisp edges we expect from true 1080p images, such as those we’ve seen on the best active 3D sets.

It should be noted again, however, that the ghosting and banding issues we’ve mentioned disappear when the TV is within the appropriate vertical viewing angle and proximity limits of the LG. Our initial evaluation leads us to believe that the LG set has a better overall image quality than the Vizio, thanks to the reduced coarseness in the resolution. But in 3D mode the LG does not provide 1080p resolution, though it may be good enough for all but the most discerning viewers.

Vizio has a passive 3D set too.

 

[V3]

From an article I read after I posted that, apparently the big thing is passive halves the resolution (so, 540P), active does not. They said this might not be too important on a under 65" TV. The editor preferred active in hands on, but acknowledged the benefits of passive.

Do passive in cinema halves the resolution too ? I find seeing 3D in Cinema the picture is more blurry. So normally I just watch in 2D if available. Odds are the film won't be in 2D until later though.

 

[Lucid_Dreamer]

Do passive in cinema halves the resolution too ?

Yes, unless they are using two projectors and two copies of the film playing just out of sync.

 

[tabs]

Really? I understood that the cinemas did in fact use two projectors, or at least a unit with two reels being projected each through its own lens. Some people even have home setups this way.

Why would they need to be out of sync? The point of passive is that you use polarized light so you can have both images at once.

 

[MfA]

It depends ... Sony has a lens which cuts vertical resolution in half (but it's for it's 4K projector so it's not that bad) and IMAX 3D has 2 2K projectors.

Master Image and Kodak have filter wheels (combined with a 144 Hz 4K projector these two are probably the best) and Real3D has a LCD polarization filter (which has some ghosting) ... these can do full 4K stereo in theory.