I’ve been (re)searching for a high quality 3D display the past years. This has lead to the first announcement of our xyZ 3D Display in the summer of 2008. Finally, we started introduction of the product last December. In the following months many people, including experts in the field of professional video and 3D had a demonstration. Almost without exceptions, all these people were amazed, demo after demo. And above all, most of those who already were aware of existing 3D Display products, where thrilled by the quality we showed!
3D Display technology is getting hotter and hotter. Each week new stories of (possible) applications seem to popup in the media. And the number of vendors has increased significantly the last years.
However, my analyses of the current available products uncovered something I hadn’t thought about before: the idea that “poor” products could seriously harm the complete 3D Display industry. Yes, my conclusion is that almost all products are of relative low quality. If, within a new marketspace, too many products are introduced that aren’t good enough, people might begin to think that the whole product concept is bad. In this case, there’s a serious threat, that the power of 3D Displays - in general - are getting misunderstood or under estimated. Result could be a total collapse of the 3D Display market and an end to this very innovative and promising technology. To avoid this from happening, I came up with 2 solutions:
- Companies that develop under performing 3D displays should shut down their activities
- Professionals and end-users that are interested in this technology should always compare multiple solutions, if possible also ours
Below you’ll find some tips for those who are exploring the possibilities to start with 3D Displays. The purpose of these tips is to avoid people from buying stuff they actually can’t use afterall AND to further increase the overall quality of the products in the 3D Display sphere…
- Ask for the brightness and constrast ratio values of the displays: many companies don’t publish these, because they simply don’t dare to.
- Never, ever, choose for a “barrier” technology, unless you’re just seeking for something cheap and want to use it in darker environments (if you have too much light in your environment, barrier lense based displays are almost worthless).
- Make sure the lense (barrier/lenticular) is attached in a slanted way (diagonal), to avoid the Moiré effect. The Moiré effect can easily lead to sickness and so.
- Watch out for too many “transition” zones. Transitions exist between the visible 3D zones of a 3D Display. It looks like a strange vertical or diagonal ‘echo’ through the display. You should be able to move your head a little left and right without seeing such an effect. In some cases there’s simple no viewing spot to find without one, two or even three of these transitions at once in the display (which is very very bad!).
- Check out whether the display is really multiview or not. Some displays need the viewer to stand exactly on one (or two) predefined spots to see real 3D effect, this might be unusable for your application.
- Before you even go visit a demo, make sure that it’s an autostereoscopic display, so you don’t need any 3d glasses to view the 3D.
- Ask how you can get your own 3D content, without proper content, your 3D Display isn’t of any value.
- Also ask about warranties, prices and other hardware you might need to get everything up and running.
- Be confident of the 3D effect, in the end, this is why you want to use a 3D Display in the first place!
I can assure you, that most of the companies offering 3D displays will fail on at least one, but probably even two or three of the things I pointed out above. Hopefully this article can help you to make the right decision and the market to become more and more professional and mature.
Afterall, it’s a delicate business.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Good to read this blog. It’s answered many of my questions and actually the ” I KNOW MY STUFF ” and ” I believe in my stuff” nature that you put your thoughts accross, tells me that you are not a fluke. This is serious stuff and you are sure of your product. Ques; how do you protect buyers from different charges for version 1 to nth? The reason why I am asking this question is that it seems to me that the development is still ongoing. Is it possible to list WHAT the current software can do NOW in a chronological manner. I know you have mentioned it but I am not very clear.
How can one be sure that there will not be version1.2.3 that does xyz and then within a year there must be an upgrade to version 1.3.3 that does the first version plus ability to flip or whatever?
Good job and I can’t wait to start using one of the 71″ screens here in Ghana!