Value of 3D display in a handheld *spawn

[Npl]

Well the funny thing is, announcing the product now but with an unknown release date could indicate that Sony have sourced a 3D screen and are working to release with one. Why else would they announce the details of their product just before the release of the 3DS if not to say to people 'wait for us, we have a better product'? I doubt it would actually make sense to just come out with 'we have PS3 graphics on a handheld' unless they truly haven't learnt anything from this generation.

Better product doesnt necessarily mean 3D Screen. Might be something "revolutionary" like this: http://www.scentsciences.com/products.html.

I mean just imagine how pathetic Nintendogs would look vs Sonydogs with authentic smell during walks. Or how the social aspect of gaming is raised to new heights, now everyone in the room will instantly know if you are with the orcs, humans or transgender fairies in "World of Playcraft" - without even looking at you.

Just throw alot of hype at it and it will sell... atleast thats what I learned from this generation.

 

[Lazy8s]

Stereoscopic 3D is a novelty. It won't go away but it won't become a display standard for computing devices.

Bring on holographics like that old SEGA arcade game.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Stereoscopic 3D is a novelty. It won't go away but it won't become a display standard for computing devices.

Wow, you sound so sure of yourself!

 

[Lazy8s]

Stereoscopic 3D movies and games can be a lot of fun, but that kind of 3D display doesn't evolve the core interactivity. Therefore, it will remain a side show for mobile computing devices.

PSP2 must obviously be A9 quad core and either 543MP4 or MP8. I'd rather them cut back on the ARM to ensure MP8, but whatever they do with the CPU is fine if they leave headroom for MP5, 6, 7, or 8. As for the CPU, a custom, new MIPS would've been just fine, too, though they didn't go that route, apparently.

 

[Xmas]

Are there any autostereoscopic displays that have a reasonable level of optical efficiency? A simple parallax barrier would just block half of the pixels from each eye, thereby cutting the amount of light reaching each eye in half. That substantially increases the power draw to achieve the same perceived brightness.

I guess that in theory you could even turn the limited viewing position into an advantage and reduce the power draw by focusing the light towards each eye using light guides, but I don't know how far research in that area has progressed. Ideally you'd also want the light guides to be variable to accomodate different inter-ocular/viewing distances as well as a full resolution, wide viewing angle 2D mode.

 

[Teasy]

We've yet to have one consumer device that has not only proven that the technology works and that there's a consumer demand for it.

Probably because there's never been a consumer device with fully working 3D and loads of 3D focused content at an affordable mass market price, 3DS will be the first. But I'd say that the amount of 3D movies out and about and the take up on 3D TV's (despite their unreasonable price) proves there's a demand for it.

 

[JohnH]

Personally, I'd question the value of any "innovation" that leads you to have a screen resolution that is only 400x240 pixels irrespective of it being "3D".

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Personally, I'd question the value of any "innovation" that leads you to have a screen resolution that is only 400x240 pixels irrespective of it being "3D".

If a company suddenly launched a consumer-oriented personal jetpack, approved by governmental policies, with a decent amount of battery life, etc. Something that could actually be used as an alternative means of transportation, like Segway.
Would you call that an innovation?

Now let's say the aforementioned jetpack only allows a max. speed of 20Km/h and a max height of 5m, but all the previous functionality still aplies.
Would it be less of an innovation to you, just because we have motorcycles that reach 280Km/h?

 

[JohnH]

If a company suddenly launched a consumer-oriented personal jetpack, approved by governmental policies, with a decent amount of battery life, etc. Something that could actually be used as an alternative means of transportation, like Segway.
Would you call that an innovation?

Now let's say the aforementioned jetpack only allows a max. speed of 20Km/h and a max height of 5m, but all the previous functionality still aplies.
Would it be less of an innovation to you, just because we have motorcycles that reach 280Km/h?

When you have a so called inovation that results in a significant compromise in another important area then yes, it is entirely questionable. Perhaps a better way of looking at this is that inovative does not always equate to useful, particularly when it comes at the cost of large compromises in other important area.

Personally, I'll always take a crisp hi resolution display over one that seriously compromises this for the sake of a gimmick.

 

[cjo]

If a company suddenly launched a consumer-oriented personal jetpack, approved by governmental policies, with a decent amount of battery life, etc. Something that could actually be used as an alternative means of transportation, like Segway.
Would you call that an innovation?

Now let's say the aforementioned jetpack only allows a max. speed of 20Km/h and a max height of 5m, but all the previous functionality still aplies.
Would it be less of an innovation to you, just because we have motorcycles that reach 280Km/h?

Its more like developing a car which would automatically drive you to your destination. But was only guaranteed to get you within 10 miles of your destination and you couldn't drive it manually. Its an innovation, just not one that is ready for market yet. Spend some more money, develop the tech further and then put it in a product.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

its not so much if you`d call it an "invention", but asking if it actually makes for a better product (questioning the value).

if someone "innovates" a motorcycle with both wheels rotated by 90 degrees would you

• buy it because its innovative
• buy a regular "uninventive" but better working one

it certainly would get more press than the regular bikes, and unfortunately that seems to be worth more than a good product nowadays.

That's a bit like saying that having a 3D screen wouldn't increase the viewer's immersion, which isn't really true by today's general opinion, is it?

Personally, I'll always take a crisp hi resolution display over one that seriously compromises this for the sake of a gimmick.

Well, the original DS compromised the higher resolution display for a secondary, touch-enabled display (something one would certainly call a "gimmick" back in 2004), and look at how much it sold over the PSP.




Just one more thing: we cannot really say it's 400*240. It's 400*240 for each eye and they're looking at different pixels, so the brain should interpret the acquired image as something like ~565*340 (twice the pixels at the same screen ratio).

 

[Npl]

That's a bit like saying that having a 3D screen wouldn't increase the viewer's immersion, which isn't really true by today's general opinion, is it?

Given that at the same time it cripples alot aspects like viewing angles and resolution then I`d say its far from an obvious answer. Am I the only one still remembering the 2 much hyped but failed attempts at 3D/virtual reality both in the mid 90`s and early 2000`s. A feature doesnt mean squat unless its good enough to be used.

Why is eg. switching to a OLED less important to you, when it increases several aspects of the screen without drawbacks ala 3D (well ignoring possibly shorter lifetime, I dunno how far the OLED technology has improved)... just because its less "innovative" by some standards????

reading text on a OLED screen is better than a regular LCD, and that in tun is better than reading text on auto stereoscopic screens.

 

[JohnH]

400*240 = 96000 pixels
400*240*2 = 192000 pixels (same resolution for each eye)

565*340 = 192100 ~= 192000 pixels

400/240 = 1,66666...
565/340 ~= 1,66666...


Same amount of pixels, same aspect ratio. That was my logic.

That doesn't explain how you get more vertical resolution, all you've done is come up with an aspect ratio with a similar number of pixels. You have side by side 400x240 images with a parallax barrier, the brain might see that as up to 800x240, but I don't see that the vertical resolution is going to change.

 

[Exophase]

Well, the original DS compromised the higher resolution display for a secondary, touch-enabled display (something one would certainly call a "gimmick" back in 2004), and look at how much it sold over the PSP.

Yeah, I'm sure the library of Nintendo games didn't have anything to do with that. Many of DS's most successful games only use the second display status and menu and the touch input for something completely trivial - check out New Super Mario Bros, the number one seller on the platform.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

That doesn't explain how you get more vertical resolution, all you've done is come up with an aspect ratio with a similar number of pixels. You have side by side 400x240 images with a parallax barrier, the brain might see that as up to 800x240, but I don't see that the vertical resolution is going to change.

The 400*240 images are not side-by-side, they're in the same place (at least that's how the brain interprets it).
Even if the hardware renders it as a single 800*240 image, the fact that each eye is looking at a different image (and the brain "joins" them into one) means that you won't perceive it the same way as if there were 240 vertical pixels. At least not with the slider up in 3D mode.



It's the same effect as the using the RealD cinema glasses.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Yeah, I'm sure the library of Nintendo games didn't have anything to do with that. Many of DS's most successful games only use the second display status and menu and the touch input for something completely trivial - check out New Super Mario Bros, the number one seller on the platform.

Cool, let's play that numbers game again.

Now go to the same page and look at the 20 best-selling DS titles. How many of those do NOT depend heavily on the touchscreen?
- New Super Mario Bros
- Mario Kart DS
- Dragon Quest IX

3, out of the 20 best-selling games, could be made without the secondary screen. Looking down the rest of the titles and except for half-a-dozen of J-RPGs, all the titles depend on the touchscreen.

Of course the games library was responsible for its success, but it was the touchscreen (by 2004, a "gimmick") who allowed the brain-trainings, cooking-mamas and wario-wares that launched the console into stardom back in 2005.

 

[Npl]

Cool, let's play that numbers game again.

Now go to the same page and look at the 20 best-selling DS titles. How many of those do NOT depend heavily on the touchscreen?
- New Super Mario Bros
- Mario Kart DS
- Dragon Quest IX

3, out of the 20 best-selling games, could be made without the secondary screen. Looking down the rest of the titles and except for half-a-dozen of J-RPGs, all the titles depend on the touchscreen.

Of course the games library was responsible for its success, but it was the touchscreen (by 2004, a "gimmick") who allowed the brain-trainings, cooking-mamas and wario-wares that launched the console into stardom back in 2005.

Yeah, looking at that list, touchscreen spawned tons of new, previously unknown genres like Pokemon, Minigames ala Wario ware and Tetris ... which would have never sold well without it /sarcasm
The only thing I can think of that remotely depends on the touchscreen as more than a gimmick is Scribblenauts.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Yeah, looking at that list, touchscreen spawned tons of new, previously unknown genres like Pokemon, Minigames ala Wario ware and Tetris ... which would have never sold well without it /sarcasm
The only thing I can think of that remotely depends on the touchscreen as more than a gimmick is Scribblenauts.

#2 most sold: How would you play nintendogs without the touchscreen? You'd pet the dog and throw stuff for him to fetch by pressing a button combination?

#3 most sold: How would you play brain training without the touchscreen? More than half the minigames evaluate your performance by how fast you write a result. You think giving the answers via a dpad-driven virtual keypad like the PSP would be even "doable" in a game like that?!


This argument is just being ridiculous now.


Sure, convince yourself that the touchscreen had nothing to do with the DS' success, and the J-RPGs and a couple of games launched 4 years after its launch are the biggest reason for Nintendo selling 130 million portable consoles with sub-par 3D hardware and small screens.

 

[JohnH]

The 400*240 images are not side-by-side, they're in the same place (at least that's how the brain interprets it).
Even if the hardware renders it as a single 800*240 image, the fact that each eye is looking at a different image (and the brain "joins" them into one) means that you won't perceive it the same way as if there were 240 vertical pixels. At least not with the slider up in 3D mode.



It's the same effect as the using the RealD cinema glasses.

Yes, the brain joins left and right images together, those images have a horizontal perspective shift not a vertical one, so you get extra resolution horizontally, not vertically.

RealD cinema glasses use circular polarisation to block out sequentially displayed left/right eye images, this is not the same as a parallax barrier.

 

[Xmas]

That's a bit like saying that having a 3D screen wouldn't increase the viewer's immersion, which isn't really true by today's general opinion, is it?

I'm not sure what "today's general opinion" on current autostereoscopic screens really is.

Just one more thing: we cannot really say it's 400*240. It's 400*240 for each eye and they're looking at different pixels, so the brain should interpret the acquired image as something like ~565*340 (twice the pixels at the same screen ratio).

I'm not convinced that's how human vision works. I've done some experiments with side-by-side glyphs (drawn slightly shifted thus using different pixel shapes, with a barrier in between). It feels really weird, and while you do get a kind of weak antialiasing effect, my eyes have trouble trying to focus on the edges and my brain mostly ends up discarding edge information from one eye.

reading text on a OLED screen is better than a regular LCD

Assuming the same subpixel layout and pixel density, the two technologies should be fairly equal for text display.