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Electronista: Electronics giant Philips is drawing a close to its public efforts in 3D imaging, a Dutch site reports.

The company is noted to be closing its 3D Solutions division entirely, and putting an end to the production of displays using its WOWvx technology.

The technology is unique in the industry for simulating 3D on an LCD TV, without requiring viewers to wear special glasses. The cost and/or inconvenience of such glasses has traditionally been a major obstacle to the adoption of 3D displays.

The end of Philips’ 3D efforts is being attributed not only to a global recession, but a slower adoption of the technology than previously hoped for.

Though the company says it may eventually return to the field, the profitability of 3D is believed to be too minimal to justify present activity. Past WOWvx products have included a 22-inch commercial screen and a 56-inch prototype.

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Gizmag: Gizmag has talked previously about the difference between stereoscopic and autostereoscopic 3D systems. To quickly refresh your memory, the former involves slipping on a dorky pair of glasses, which can end in headaches, while the latter you simply watch, without the need for any extra eyewear.

A number of companies has invested considerable resources into developing autostereoscopic 3D TVs, confident that they will be the “next big thing.”

Gizmag examines some of the best 3D TV design concepts out there, in an attempt to sort what’s truly possible from what’s pie in the sky.

University of Arizona’s rewriteable holographic display
Many of the holographs that surround us – such as on phone batteries or credit cards, for example – are made from photopolymers, materials that record laser light and display it so as to create an illusion of depth from certain angles. Photopolymers have a large storage capacity and can sustain an image for a prolonged period of time – highly attractive qualities in 3D technology.

In the past, however, photopolymers haven’t been used for television because they can only display the image that was originally encoded, which is why they work so well for bank notes and batteries. In February’s Nature magazine, Dr Nasser Peyghambarian outlined a rewriteable holographic display made from photorefractive polymers, the photopolymer’s more useful cousin. Photorefractive polymers possess many of the traits of photopolymers. They can hold a large amount of data and display an image for an extended time and up to three hours in the dark. Unlike photopolymers, photorefractive polymers can be erased and rewritten with a new image, making them capable of producing basic animation.

The University of Arizona’s prototype holographic screen is 10 cm x 10 cm, and can record and display a new image every few minutes. The university research team hopes that eventually the display will provide television-quality pictures – which would still require great leaps in size, image quality, and speed. Dr Peyghambarian says: “At present, the picture is effectively static, because it takes two minutes to write each new image. To get into the area of 3D movies and videos, we would need to write the information much faster – dozens of images per second. That’s very possible, but we have to make the material respond much faster … We’re talking about the next two to five years to work on these. I think we’ve already cleared the big hurdle – the quantum leap.” Dr Peyghambarian’s team claims that holographic TVs based on their technology could hit shelves within 10 years.

Philips and WoWvx
Electronic giant Philips’s WoWvx displays works on multiview lenticular lens technology. In the 2D-plus-depth format, pixels are bundled with information that indicates their depth, using 256 grayscale shades. A microlens in front of the LCD panel then uses that information to provide nine different views for each pixel, projected to various viewing angles. This set-up ensures that each eye receives a slightly different picture, which is interpreted by the brain as a depth cue. The different views for each pixel also ensure that viewers are relatively free to move, reducing the “sweet spot” phenomenon that plagues less sophisticated systems.

The 2D-plus-depth format only increases the bandwidth of the signal by 5-20%, which is unlikely to be seen as much of a hurdle for the industry. Philips has been demonstrating the WoWvx systems at expos for a few years now, showing off the dynamic color and large screen sizes. The last one was 52 inches, with full HD 1920×1080 resolution (although the linear resolution takes a hit when presenting multiple views). Forty-two-inch 3D displays are already on the market.

The shape of the future
Most other companies interested in 3D TV, such as Samsung and Holografika, are working on models similar to Philips, and ignoring laser-recorded holographs as a display medium. This means if 3D TV launches onto the consumer market before 2020, it’s likely to be based on multi-angle pixel projection. The more experimental 3D technologies, such as Dr Peyghambarian’s and the projector-based Cheoptics360 system are most likely to find selective applications in medicine, the military, and engineering.

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BBC: “It comes off the screen right at you! “, screamed the poster for the 1953 schlock-horror film The House Of Wax 3D.

Audiences, filled with anticipation for the first major studio 3D movie, flocked to cinemas to see the ghoulish spectacle of…. a man bouncing a paddleball into their faces.

This gimmicky showboating set a template for 3D cinema which endured through the medium’s two big boom periods in the 1950s and 1980s.

Films like Andy Warhol’s visceral Frankenstein 3D brought “horror right into your lap”, while the sixth instalment of Nightmare On Elm Street splattered viewers with Freddy Kreuger’s bloody entrails.

Bwana Devil, released the same year as House Of Wax, went so far as to ask the question: “What do you want? A good picture, or a lion in your lap?” It turned out to be the former.

Audiences dismissed 3D as a cheap parlour trick… if they hadn’t already been put off by the poor image quality, headaches or nausea. So why have some of Hollywood’s biggest names suddenly gone crazy for the technique?

Stephen Spielberg and Peter Jackson are filming the Tintin trilogy in 3D; Animation giant Pixar is retooling Toy Stories 1 & 2 with added depth; and James Cameron is making his first feature film since Titanic in full 3D.

“There’s a great pioneering wave of filmmakers who are looking at this technology and saying, ‘wow, that’s got huge potential,’” says Daniel Glennon of the Odeon cinema chain. “The advances in the technology are staggering,” agrees Mark Dinning, editor of movie magazine Empire. “It’s so much more sophisticated now.”

To the audience, the main change is aesthetic – those cheesebucket red-and-green glasses have been replaced by cool, durable Aviator-style shades. But the real breakthrough has been in digital projection.

Cinema staff no longer have the tricky task of positioning and synchronising two projectors – one for each eye.

Nowadays, 3D films arrive on a 500GB hard drive while a special adapter fits onto the front of a single projector to separate the left and right images.

The lack of moving parts gives the film extra clarity, and helps to eliminate migraines and motion sickness, explains Nik Blair, technical manager for Odeon Greenwich. “If you have a traditional 35mm projector, you’ve got motors running, you’ve got belts running, there’s cogs and there’s film being pulled through it – so, with all the good will in the world, you will always get some picture shake. “But 3D is picture perfect. It’s absolutely stable.”

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EngadgetHD: Deutsche Telekom, the parent company of the better known T-Mobile, has certainly made a name for itself over at the IPTV World Forum.

The outfit’s Chief Innovation Officer Christopher Schlaffer was quoted as saying that both 3DTV and holographic TV were definitely primed to take off within the next ten years.

His reasoning for such a bold assertion was this: “Storage capacity and processing capacity is exploding. There is no doubt that bandwidth is tripling every year, so ten years from now are we going to be looking at 1,000Mb connections in every home on average? I would say yes, absolutely.”

Granted, this is just one guy’s opinion on what may or may not happen, but given just how quickly the television viewing experience is morphing right now, we suppose it’s not all that far-fetched. Besides, some of this has to come true if we’re to enjoy the 2012 Olympics in 3D, right?

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Gizmag: Among the display of new camera models at PMA 2009 FUJIFILM demonstrated a compelling 3D photo and movie technology, that uses a dual lens/sensor camera to record 3D images.

These images can then be played back without the need for special glasses on a digital display, or even printed.

Both the display and prints generate their 3D effect by use of a special lenticular lens laminated to their surfaces. FUJIFILM is claiming that the prototypes shown could be commercialized as soon as this summer in some form.

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SlashFilm:No sooner has Blu-Ray seen off HD-DVD with it’s knobbly knocking stick than another format war starts brewing in, quite literally, the R&D labs. According to a report in Video Business, Panasonic are looking to launch their first 3D-ready HD sets in what they hope will be an industry-wide standard, and will do so as soon as next year.

It’s probably pertinent to tell you right away that while Panasonic aren’t the only manufacturers working on a 3D standard, they are the ones in league with James Cameron. That alone has very possibly won them any upcoming format war before it even reaches the shop floor. {…}

Here’s a run down of the 3 big players so far…

1. Panasonic’s system uses a Plasma screen and the same specs that you get at a Real-D screening. I know this system works, because I’ve seen it in action.
2. Samsung’s system has been around a while without much content. However, they also have a kind of conversion engine pending that will turn 2D into 3D on the fly – though this is likely to be very problematic and certainly won’t be the optimum solution, not least because it takes control of the stereo elements out of the hands of the filmmakers.
3. Hyundai’s system uses a polarising sheet over an LCD screen, which is likely to be the cheaper option and will also side step the various issues with Plasma screens (as well, of course, as the various benefits). This system is already on sale in Japan and will be running in Britain very soon with Sky TV planning to steadily ramp up their 3D output over the coming years until they can broadcast a very size-able chunk of the London 2012 Olympics in stereo-vision.

The closest thing to a set standard so far is in Panasonic’s pocket. They already started coding Blu-Ray discs with left and right eye fields and pledge to release Avatar on a 3D disc next year. At the moment, the Panasonic demo discs require a pimped up player that can tear through twice as much data per second than normal.

Hopefully this won’t be the case with the release software as asking consumers to replace their newly minted BD decks is simply not going to fly. Video Business have embedded a recent YouTube video in which Cameron briefly mentions collaborating with Panasonic on “high quality” 3D for the home. It seems to be software, not hardware, that wins format wars, but perversely, it’s the price of hardware that determines how far a media standard will infiltrate the marketplace. While Avatar is very likely to win the war for Panasonic, this success will be in vain if they don’t price-up for the Yous, Mes and Everyone we Knows out there. If you have the right kind of 3D glasses, the Panasonic logo that James Cameron is conjuring out of thin air at the top of this post will fly around room and poke you in the eye.

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Which: Sky has stated that it believes 3D TV could become available to UK consumers, ‘any time in the next two years’.

In a report in The Times, Gerry O’Sullivan, director of strategic product development at Sky, said that the launch of a 3D TV service is dependent of the results from ongoing trials and the availability of suitable content.

In December, Sky demonstrated the broadcasting of 3D TV to an imported 3D-ready TV set manufactured by Hyundai.

Such TVs aren’t yet available in the UK, however Panasonic has reportedly confirmed that it will be selling 1080p 3D TVs by 2010.

Sky believes that 3D-ready TVs are unlikely to cost much more than an HDTV to manufacturer, although The Times believes that the cost to the consumer is likely be higher due to manufacturers attaching a premium. 3D glasses will also be required.

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Gizmondo: Following our earlier report that 3DTV could be here sooner than we think, Grundig has released their Tharus 3D flat panel which lets you watch 3D TV without special glasses.

Made for DVB high definition broadcasting, Tharus 3D uses a system where the footage is first acquired by a stereo HD camera. Its two pictures are transmitted to a special 3D converter set-top box that turns those two angles into eight perspective views, displaying them on this flat panel.

Pricing and release date were not announced.

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