!44: How Does 3D TV Work? Active Glasses Add Another Dimension to Television Viewing

!±8± How Does 3D TV Work? Active Glasses Add Another Dimension to Television Viewing

With the popularity of new 3D Televisions many people are asking just how does 3D TV work?

Natural depth prospective is created by comparing the images received by your right eye with the images received from the left.

3D TVs replicate your natural depth prospective by displaying independent images for each eye, to control which eye sees which image active glasses are used to alternately black out the lens of either eye.

Unlike the 3D you may have seen at the cinema which displays 2 images & separates them using polarized lenses or 3D created with color filtering lenses, Active Glasses sometimes referred to as Shutter Glasses allow for only one image to be displayed at a time. This means the displayed image can be presented in full 1080p not detracting in any way from the TV's 2D image quality.

To display consecutive left & right images & black out alternate lenses at speeds unperceivable to the viewer, each image needs to change 50 to 60 times a second requiring 3D TV's to be a min of 120hz.

At these speeds accurate synchronization with the shutter glasses, is critical if inadvertent viewing of the opposing images & loss or distortion of the 3D image is to be avoided.

Synchronization is achieved via one of 2 methods

DLP Link

DLP 3D Ready TV's & Projectors display a transition image between the left & right frames, a receiver on the DLP Link Shutter Glasses synchronizes with the transition image & switches the viewing lens.

IR Transmitter

Non DLP 3D TV's use an Infa Red transmitter on the TV to send a signal to the Shutter Glasses. Viewing angles are limited to the signal area although external IR transmitters are available.

The Future

3D Television is here & it is here to stay, European broadcasters are already transmitting sporting events & movies in Full 3D, with American Broadcasters & ESPN not far behind.

If you have been to the Movies lately you will already know that many of the new movies have been made specifically for 3D viewing & are now being released on Blu-ray disk without a 3D TV you will be missing 1/3 of the action!