TVs That Will Suck Hollywood Into the Third Dimension By Brian X. Chen, January 14, 2010, Wired

LAS VEGAS — Piggybacking on the hype of 2009’s biggest blockbuster Avatar, major TV manufacturers are placing a big bet on 3-D video with special high-end televisions slated for commercial release this year.

Donning dorky glasses, Consumer Electronics Show attendees crowded into the booths of Sony, Panasonic, LG, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Samsung last week to gaze into the big-screen 3-D TVs on display. Wired.com toured the show floor to compile a photographic montage of the biggest 3-D TVs we could find.

Video companies are optimistic that 3-D TV will be huge this year. But would you buy one? Would you be into the idea of wearing ugly glasses to watch a 3-D football game after a long day of work?

 Before you contemplate the answer, it’s important to gain a clear understanding of what specifically defines a 3-D TV and what you need for a full experience. The 3-D TVs at CES all varied in different ways, but most of them shared some fundamentals. In order to display a full-frame image in 3-D, you need an extremely high frame rate, so usually the TV must be capable of a 240-Hz refresh rate. The TV also needs to support HDMI 1.4, the latest generation of HDMI, which will transmit the massive amount of data necessary to process and display 3-D images.

Most 3-D TVs also include a transmitter that can synchronize with the 3-D glasses. The transmitter, usually in the middle of the TV, synchronizes with active-shutter glasses so that the glasses’ lenses show and hide the left and right images at the proper frequency (120 Hz for each eye). The result: Each eye sees the image meant for it, and the onscreen image appears to pop out in 3-D. So don’t forget you’ll have to purchase extra pairs of 3-D glasses for each person who wants to watch the show. Pricing for these glasses has yet to be determined, but is probably in the $100 to $300 range, according to one company we queried (Mitsubishi). That can really add up if you want to host a movie night or a 3-D Olympics party with a large group.

As for content, you’ll need a 3-D-capable Blu-ray player or, some day, cable box. Manufacturers are quick to brag about whether their Blu-ray players can output 3-D properly, so just google the model of your player. (If you have a PlayStation 3 or a DirectTV box, you’re in luck: These devices will gain 3-D capability through firmware upgrades, according to their respective manufacturers.) Then you’ll have to buy special Blu-ray discs that are explicitly labeled to use the same 3-D tech as your TV and glasses. So far there’s only one 3-D Blu-ray disc available: Monsters and Aliens, which Dreamworks released with great fanfare last week. (There are other 3-D Blu-ray discs available, but they use the old blue-and-red glasses 3-D technology, which doesn’t look nearly as good.)

For television, you’ll have to wait for the video industry to pump out more 3-D content on cable channels. ESPN and Discovery, for example, have already established partnerships with Sony to create 3-D content; these channels probably won’t launch until 2011.

With all that said, manufacturers are confident that consumers will come along for the 3-D ride sooner or later. The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that 4 million 3-D TV sets will be sold in 2010, most of them in the fourth quarter.

To check out the future of 3-D, take the plunge into our photo collection of 3-D TVs from CES, courtesy of Wired.com photographer Jon Snyder. No glasses are required.

Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com