3D HDTV Format War Intensifies
Greg Tarr,
March 16, 2011
5 min read
The war for consumers’ 3D HDTV dollars turned nasty this past week with LG and Samsung firing shots at each other in the form of advertising and official statements. We first reported the battle in January. It’s about the two ways to view 3D content at home, one using passive (unpowered) 3D glasses like the ones you get at the movie theater, the other, a system that uses frame sequential 3D with active battery powered shutter glasses. The two Korean electronics giants are pulling out all the stops in their home market and the fight is beginning to spill over into the US.
LG executives went ape last week over a Samsung print ad seen in Korea that touts the advantages of active 3D with a chimp wearing passive glasses. LG management took offense, accusing Samsung of portraying them as a simian. LG called a press conference claiming their technology is superior. LG then countered with another ad showing a person with passive 3D glasses lying on a couch and proclaiming “Finally you have a comfortable way to watch 3-D”
Claims?
LG promoted its Cinema 3D at January’s consumer electronics show as “Full HD” citing a test report by worldwide testing company Intertek in the UK according to its press release. HD Guru has obtained a copy of the report findings and contrary to claim, nowhere does the document use the term “Full HD” which would mean you can see all 1080 lines of resolution of each image by each eye. The film patterned retarder (FPR) LG uses provides alternate lines of resolution to pass left images to left eye and right images to the right eye resulting in one half of the full high definition vertical resolution of 540 lines per eye. We found the report’s conclusions impossible to understand, as it ambiguous and unclear. Here is a link to the Intertek report cover page and conclusions. We obtained the Intertek report from LG Display.
We contacted Intertek weeks ago for clarification and to date they have not provided response. One other minor discrepancy, LG Display’s CES press release stated the test was sourced by Intertek UK but the report is from Intertek Korea.
To add to the confusion,  a recent statement by George Mead LG’s UK  product and consumer marketing manager at pocket-lint.com. Mead comments about FPR’s Full HD resolution -“This is true to an extent, although Cinema 3D also delivers a full HD 3D experience, just not to individual eyes. It delivers 540 lines to each eye, resulting in a full HD 3D effect. We think that this point has been rather stirred up by third parties and competitors, whereas for us, the consumer experience is the most important thing, rather than concentrating too closely on stats or specs”.
HD Guru’s observations: FPR delivers 540 lines per eye resolution with 3D material. This is only 57 lines greater resolution than the old analog standard definition TV standard!
Taking it Lying Down
According to the LG Korean newspaper ad above as reported in a Wall St. Journal article, you can view 3D using passive glasses on an LG FPR TV while lying down with your head tilted 90 degrees.
Trying to use active glasses viewing on a 3D LCD (or LED LCD) TVs, the lenses darken as the glasses tilt toward 90 degrees makes the image too dark to view.
Yesterday in New York City, Samsung provided the press with a comparison between LG’s FPR LED 3D TV
Nano Delayed
LG sent out an email earlier this week to inform us its highly anticipated Nano LED TV (link) has been delayed from its spring release to the third quarter of 2011. The reason, LG has decided to abandon its active 3D capability in favor of FPR technology. This major change caused the push back. In addition, LG stated it will also change its upcoming 72″ TV from active to passive FPR technology, making the entire 2011 LED LCD 3D HDTV line passive. Only LG’s 2011 3D plasmas will continue to used active 3D glasses technology
Who Wins-Passive or Active?
HD Guru requested review samples of LGs FPR 3D LED and its 2D LED TVs so we can evaluate and compare their 2D and 3D performance. Stay tuned.
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8 Comments
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I am waiting for the announced Active Patterned Retarder, that will allow full 1080p resolution with Circular polarization glasses. Samsung already had a prototype at CES, and they plan to have a model out next year. They say it may be more expensive, instead of a Frame Pattern in the screen it requires a secondary active LCD panel that does switching polarization. I would rather wait until they perfect this then settle for a 540 line 3D picture.
So, what we really need then is 2160p (or greater)! Passive problem solved. The electronics giants now have an excuse for the next evolution beyond 1080p. For those who say it won’t happen, remember that obsolescence is good for business.
TV makers are not promoting 3D as just another feature. They are promoting it as the next great leap forward, not quite so big as the jump to HD but far bigger than any of the other features you list in response to my comment.
You don’t have format wars for technology that you think is just a nice extra.
You certainly don’t expect people with 3-year-old TVs to upgrade when you add a new motion-smoothing program, but TV makers clearly think (wrongly) that they can get people to upgrade with this feature that few people want.
This wouldn’t matter to me much one way or the other, but I think TV makers are now devoting so much R&D to 3D that they’re slowing the pace of other improvements and, worse, using this amazing new 3D feature to justify fewer price cuts.
To have a “feature” that’s actually a disorienting annoyance adding to price and slowing the development of OLED and other technologies that will really improve TVs one day AND make them much cheaper is vexing.
I’m glad to see the editing is better on HDGURU than on your sister site! Not only is the overall content poor and just simply boringly rehashed news stories from other sites, but the editor doesn’t appear to be able to spell his own job. Clearly not up to the same standards as HDGURU. Then again.. 3Ds never quite as good is it!?! Misspelled ‘editor’. Quality editing!
I can’t wait for 3D to fall flat on it’s face.
And yet no one on the planet earth cares about 3-D at all. It’s an annoyance that distracts you from what you’re watching rather than making it more immersive and everyone sees that. The general public is more enthusiastic about TVs that produce odors to make shows more immersive.
At the risk of repeating myself, 3D is a feature, as is stereo, video steaming and motion estimation/motion compensation (to name a few). Some will like it and want it and use it often, others seldom and others will have not desire for it.
Whether you like it or not, the 3D feature will appear on numerous big screen models in 2011 and 100% of the top of the line series of every major set maker.
HD Guru
I don’t follow your math. The old analog TV standard was 525i (minus a few line that were tossed out). Where as I understand LG is delivering 540i for HD TV but don’t you still get the full 1920 horizontal? So instead of 6 times better picture quality than SD, it’s only about 2 or 3 times better.
I’ve seen the picture produced by an LG passive display and I thought it was pretty good. The 3D was very effective.
The old analog system was 525i as you state minus the 42 inactive scan lines for the vertical blanking interval that gave time for the electron beam to go from the bottom right of the CRT back to the top left.
Our 1080p digital TVs take a 1080p source i.e Blu-ray disc or a 1080i source i.e CBS, NBC & others and deinterlaces it. In the case of 3D there are two 1080 line frames (one for each eye). The passive 3D FPR system throws out half the horizontal lines to provide continuous 3D with passive glasses.
3D cable and sat casts to date are usually side-by-side providing one half resolution (960 x 1080 per eye) with active glasses. The passive FPR 3D sets will provide 960 x 540 resolution with these sources which is one quarter “Full HD” resolution.
How important is this and what effect if any does FPR have on 2D and 3D viewing? These questions can’t be answered until we obtain review samples. When we do we, we will test and perform extensive comparisons and report our results. We also plan to have untrained observers chime in on whether they feel there is a big visual difference or not. As far as I am concerned, aside from the hard math, the jury has not seen the evidence. Like other competing technologies each will have their advantages and disadvantages and they will need to be studied and evaluated.
What we don’t like to see from any company are claims that are unproven or unsubstantiated. We believe our readers come here for accurate information and testing.
At the end of the day, as we like to say “It is what it is” and any technology should stand or fall on its own merits, not puffed up hype or misleading claims.
HD Guru