Vizio gives up on 3D glasses but not giving up on 3D

January 8, 2014 3DM Leave a comment

Expects to ship 4k glasses free 3D TVs in 2016: Actually, Vizio hasn’t given up on 3D TVs, but on 3D glasses — Tech News and Analysis.

But wants to get it right, first. Truth is, most of the autostereoscopic displays (that’s Latin or maybe Greek for glasses-free) are not as good as today’s polarized passive displays. 4k may give them sufficient resolution to do implement multiple viewing angles that actually look good. But we are not quite there yet, except maybe with Stream TV.

Business, Cameras

Camera sales, in charts

January 8, 2014 3DM Leave a comment

Vitaliy has posted some great charts on camera sales over on his web site: Camera sales, including Novemer 2013 reports – Personal View

You can readily see the drop off in camera sales from year to year. I think the December data point is bogus as the caption says through November 2013.

Second charts shows that DSLR unit sales are down slightly but mirrorless sales are up quite a bit.

3D Tech

Stream TV demos 2k to 4k upscale and 2D to 3D conversion

January 8, 2014 3DM Leave a comment

CES 2014: Stream TV presents 4KTVs with glasses-free 3D | Rapid TV News.

Due to the lack of 4k and 3D content, Stream TV networks provides an intelligent upscale conversion from 2k to 4k and a real-time 2D to 3D conversion.

Having seen similar technologies this past year, both can work surprisingly well – they exceeded my expectation.

Upconverting 2k to 4k and converting 2D to 3D in real-time provides useful content for early consumers of the new technologies.

3D Tech, Business

Vizio is not “ditching” 3D, sees glasses-free as the future of 3D

January 8, 2014 3DM 1 Comment

Vizio not giving up on 3D

Vizio is striving for competitive pricing and as they introduce their 2014 models, including Ultra HD (4K) TVs, they have stripped 3D features to keep their price down. They continue to sell older edition 3D TVs.

Vizio sees “glasses-free” technology as the future of 3D and is showing a 4K glasses-free demo/proof of concept with 14 separate viewing angles. Last year, several companies showed proof of concept glasses-free 3D TVs but only one (Stream TV Networks) had sufficient quality. Glasses-free displays that look really good are expected to hit retailers in Q2 of 2014.