Toshiba is one of the first major TV manufacturers to come out with a 3D TV set that will let users view it without special 3D glasses. TCL in China is thought to have already launched such a product, but it is extremely expensive, whereas Toshiba plans to hit the mass market with this device.
It is called the 3D REGZA GL1 Series and will be available from end of December this year, but initially only in Japan, in 20 inch and 12 inch TV sets, aiming for the middle to low end of the market, with prices starting as low as $1,400, or the local currency equivalent. There is no information when Toshiba will take this to the US or Europe.
Here’s why it’s difficult? Toshiba is using raw processing power, derived from the Cell chip that was co-developed with IBM and Sony, originally for the PS3, and uses it to create not two images, but 9 separate images for each TV screen. What it’s doing relates to parallax, where you can get several parallel views, for instance when viewing something through a full water bottle, where one curved surface delivers light at one point, and another, next to it in parallel.
By creating 9 of these views and distributing them through what is called a perpendicular lenticular sheet, it is offering each of these images to a curved lens inside the sheet, and the one that is selected to leave the screen aimed at your eye is the one which hits that lens at right angles exactly to where your eye is.
The creation of the 9 separate images is carried out from a single image, so suddenly all HD content is 3D content. But it will need a lot of processing power. When you move your head from side to side, your eyes will pick up slightly different parallel images, and your other eye, will pick up an image the two inches or so to the side, which creates the illusion of 3D. The same principle is used in static images which appear to move when you move your head.
In the past these systems have suffered from there only being one optimal position in which to view the image. This new approach using 9 images will allow multiple people to watch the screen and each get a 3D image. However there will still be an optimal viewing distance we reckon, and the viewers will have to sit side by side, roughly the same distance from the TV in order to get 3D images, because the parallax calculations would have to be slightly different from different viewing distances and the 9 images created slightly differently. Toshiba here is referring to a ‘viewing zone,’ but has not specified how far from the screen this is.
This is perhaps the reason that Toshiba is delivering a single user (12 inch) or two user TV set (20 inch) because it is early days for this technology. Even so it has to deliver about four times the pixels of a full HD panel, around 829 million pixels in order to create a final 3D image with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (720p quality).
We worry that moving your head will make you dizzy watching this kind of TV set, but we’ll see after December.
Toshiba says it will both bring larger screens to market using dedicated
glasses and continue with personal use TVs without glasses.
It is very difficult for any other suppliers to follow because the Cell chip delivers 8 slave, highly parallel (MIMD) processors, working for a single organizing CPU, with fantastically fast data highways between them and off chip, all on a single piece of silicon.