3D TV

I have seen a few 3D DVDs on the market, but somebody told me you need a special 3D TV and 3D DVD player to play them.

Why would this be? 3D these days is done with polarized light (sfaik) and wouldn't that just be a signal encoded on the disc? I have a couple pairs of polarized glasses I stole from 3D movies I attended in theaters. Can I just play the discs on my HD TV?

Quote :

current 3D TVs work by combining a pair of powered glasses (called "active shutter glasses") with a television that has an infrared emitter. When the TV plays a 3D movie, it alternates between displaying an image for the left eye and displaying one for the right; its infrared emitter instructs your glasses when to dim the left lens and when to dim the right lens to create the illusion of 3D.

This method is significantly different from the one used in movie theaters, by the way. Most 3D movies use glasses that are polarized (kind of like sunglasses) differently in the left and right lens; a special filter fitted to the movie projector allows it to switch rapidly between images for your left eye and images for your right. In principle, it's similar to the red-and-blue 3D system, except that it keeps the color intact (though the polarization does dim the image a bit).

In any case, if you forgot to return your movie glasses after watching Avatar, you won't be able to use them with a 3D TV, since it uses a completely different display technology.

Why???

Huh.

Quote :

Q: What's the difference between "active" and "passive" 3D TVs?
A: The first wave of 3D TVs released in 2010 were all active 3D TVs that used shutter-type active 3D glasses. In 2011, most 3D TVs are still active, but some TV makers have also introduced passive 3D models.

Active 3D — Active 3D TVs require viewers to wear battery-powered active shutter glasses to see the 3D effects. These shutter glasses feature LCD lenses that alternately block the view of the right eye and left eye in response to sync signals beamed wirelessly from the TV. Active 3D TVs provide full 1080p picture resolution for each eye. However, the glasses are expensive and usually bulkier than passive glasses, and some viewers are bothered by their high-speed flickering.

Passive 3D — Passive 3D TVs provide a 3D experience that's very similar to watching a 3D movie in a theater. For passive 3D TVs, the screen is doing almost all of the work. Not only are two video images being displayed, but there's also a special screen coating that works with the polarizing passive glasses to create the 3D effect. Passive 3D glasses are lightweight and inexpensive and require no batteries — they're virtually identical to the 3D glasses handed out in movie theaters. Passive 3D provides a picture that's crisp and bright and free of any traces of flicker. Passive 3D technology is less sensitive to a viewer's viewing angle or head movement, which makes it easier for several people to enjoy convincing 3D effects.

I'm still not clear on what a special "3D Blu-ray Disc" player does, or what a special "3D TV" does, that can't be done with my normal HDTV.  I may buy a "passive" polarized light 3D disc just to prove to myself that it really doesn't work.

The 3D disc won't play on your non-3D player in 3D. The 3D files use a different codec.

Why? Couldn't the differently-polarized images be played simultaneously if they were encoded that way on the disc?

Well FA Q 2!

You try to help.
You buy them books.
You send them to school.
And what do they do?
They eat the teacher.