The Custom Integrator Show Installment 01A is live.  This installment is the first of two providing an overview of the different 3-D technologies.  While still an emerging market without set standards, there is a lot of activity in the 3-D space.  It is difficult to get a handle on any specific standards for 3-D in the home, but there are several approaches to delivering 3-D to theaters, which eventually will make it into the home.  Ian I eye take a look at some of these as a way to prepare our designs to accommodate 3-D in the future.

[mp3]http://blip.tv/file/get/IanDixon-TheCustomIntegratorShow1A533.mp3[/mp3]

Direct Download – Subscribe via RSS – Subscribe via iTunes – Subscribe with Zune

It is very difficult to discuss 3-D without a lot of images and graphs.  However, I opted to list the technologies we discuss as part of this series as an attempt to make sense out of the various approaches.  As with most of the topics we discuss, it will require a lot more research to really get up to speed and to be conversant on the topic with your clients.  Consider this a starting point.

Some of the approaches to delivering 3-D

  • Spatial Compression

     – Sub-sampling L & R eye images and compressing them into a single 2-D frame

     – Packed top/bottom, side by side, line/column interleaved, or as a checkerboard

     – Problem – loss of resolution (half) and compatibility with current 2-D displays

  • Time Multiplexing

     – Multiplexing L/R eye images in the time domain

     – 3-D content becomes 2-D with 100% increase in the frame rate

     – Full spatial resolution for each eye

     – Bandwidth and bit rate could be an issue

  • 2-D + Depth Map/Delta/Metadata

     – 2-D images with 3-D depth map metadata for each image

     – Standard left eye image with difference data or a delta map is used to encode the right image as a function of the left

     – Uses standard compression techniques (MPEG-2 AVC) for distribution

     – Can be decoded by a standard STB and the depth data is ignored

     – New devices can decode the 3-D data

  • Color Coding

     – Color-coded images for each eye – the Anaglyph method

     – Only method for 3-D on a 2-D display using a pair of color-coded glasses

     – Poor quality and not a good experience

Some of the 3-D display technologies

  • Checkerboard format

     – Multiplexes L/R images into a checkerboard format

     – Can display L/R streams using standard bandwidth

     – Half the resolution

  • Wobbulation technique

     – Two sub-frames with half the pixels in each sub-frame

     – Uses diamond-shaped pixels instead of square

     – Optically shifted (wobbulated) between the two

     – The display internally converts the 3-D into time sequential for use with Liquid Crystal Shutter (LCS) 3-D glasses

  • Micro-polarizer

     – Uses a special optical filter over an LCD screen

     – Alternate rows are polarized

     – L/R eye images are multiplexed onto the odd and even rows

     – Half the resolution

     – Limited viewing angle

     – Good for gaming market

     – Some use a black mask to reduce crosstalk (called Xpol)

     – Costs about 4 times as much as regular displays (for the larger ones)

  • Dual panel LCDs (mostly for gaming)

     – Polarizer glasses

     – Back panel as a light valve

     – Leverages liquid crystal as a polarization rotator

     – Can use passive polarizing glasses

     – Full resolution

     – High amounts of crosstalk though

Some of the different glasses in use today

  • Passive polarized (theaters)

     – Won’t work with conventional displays

     – Requires an optical filter (not field deployable)

  • Active LCS (potential wiring or IR transmitter implications)

     – Do not work with conventional displays

     – No blanking period (no time when there is an entire image on the display for shutters)

     – Conventional plasmas – all pixels are updated simultaneously, but persistence causes ghosting

     – Can only be driven at 60Hz so it would flicker too much

  • Infitec (Dolby 3-D) glasses

     – Used in Dolby 3-D cinemas

     – Uses interference filters to divide the color spectrum into 6 bands (R1, R2, G1, G2, B1, B2)

     – All 1s for Left eye, 2s for Right eye

     – Conventional displays cannot modulate wavelengths at a fine enough scale

 

As you can see, there is a lot to take into account when considering 3-D for your clients.  However, it is only a short amount of time before they will want it in one form or another, so there is not time like the present to prepare.

In the follow up installment (01B), we will take a look at some of the implications 3-D has when choosing video cards for the Windows Media Center PC in addition to wiring for the new displays or projectors you will need for delivering on this new trend.

  =D-

Leave a Reply