Primer: The Principles Of 3D Video And Blu-ray 3D

Very informative primer. Lots of information that was easy to undertsand.

Unfortunately I am one of those who recently purchased a new TV. It will be quite some time before I upgrade.

Nice article, but I think there's a few issues with regards to the overall balance of the information being put forth.

I understand the author's preference for shutter glasses (especially since it's a certain product's preferred method of choice) even if I don't share it, the major limitation is having to buy a pair for all your friends coming over, which gets impractical until they are more commonplace.

Also polarized solutions are not limited in resolution if they are set-up beyond just the example provided in this article (like they do in the theatre with dual projectors ) and may have an improving single source future with 2K and 4K displays on the horizon. It's a question of preference, but it seems like the full story wasn't explored on that subject.

Now on to a pet peeve: I love the part about "While set-top Blu-ray players will need to be replaced, PC-based Blu-ray player software can be upgraded." as a subtle product benefit plug.

Unless it's a free upgrade, you are still replacing the software, not upgrading it (it's not a plug-in), and you're likely forking out nearly the same amount of money for the 1/100th of the cost to produce that software update, so it's not like it's a major advantage. Especially when upgrading requires a FULL upgrade to the most expensive model Power DVD (version #) Ultra 3D, and I can't simply add it to my existing PowerDVD bundles thus potentially changing my backwards compatibility (Ultra 9 already removed my HD-DVD support from Ultra 7 that I upgraded on my LG HD-DVD/BR burner

, until then it's $99 (or $94.95 for loyal saps) vs $150-200, plus with the set-top route now I have a second BR-/DVD player for another room or to give to a friend (the BR software on its own is useless to give to someone else without a drive), and that's not even compared to the free PS3 upgrade.

Also can someone explain this statement;
"Blu-ray 3D video decoding solutions can be expected for ATI Radeon 5000-series graphics in the future."

Didn't Cyberlink already show their BR-3D solution on ATi hardware last year? So what's the issue?

Also why is it limited to "GeForce 300M-series mobile graphics" when often the core is the same a previous generation 200M series (example GTS 350M / 250M )?

And this section "Full-quality 120 Hz frame-sequential 3D video (such as Blu-ray 3D) is only supported through a High Speed
HDMI cable to a HDMI 1.4-compliant TV. " seems to miss the DVI dual-link to monitor option currently being used for 3D on PCs, and also the dual 1.3 input monitors/TVs.

A nice little article for people unfamiliar with 3D, but there's a subtle under-current of product preference/placement in it, and far too many generalities with little supporting information. :??:

well done. I would of liked more detail on the hdmi 1.4 spec, specifically framepacking and the mandatory standards (no mandatory standard for 1080p60 framepacking).
also some info on AVRs and how a 1.3 hdmi AVR might pass on 3d video and still decode bitstream audio, or not - do we need 1.4 hdmi AVRs to decode audio from a 1.4 source? we shouldn't need 1.4 receivers since the audio standards haven't change, but I'm understanding that in fact we do neeed new receivers. :/

double post. good article.