The future of Displays!

[Xiaou2]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050417-4816.html

"In other display news, Toshiba recently announced a new 3D display technology that doesn't require special glasses to get the full effect.

    According to Toshiba, its technology enables the viewer to experience 3-D images that stand out several centimeters from the display's surface. The technology opens up new application for 3-D displays, including arcade games, e-learning, simulations of buildings and landscapes, and even 3-D menus in restaurants."


 Very cool!   Check out the links on ars for some interesting pics
 too : )

[gprime]

If I had 3D vision, I would care

[paigeoliver]

My bet is that it will NEVER catch on. Hard to get fundamental changes to such widely deployed technology to catch on. What did it take for color TVs to become the norm? 20+ years after they were introduced? HDTV won't REALLY catch on until they are the same price as normal sets (HD is a TEENY TINY percentage of the market, no matter what the best buy salesman tells you, they are selling 20 regular sets for every HD one). Audio setups more complex than stereo haven't really caught on either.

[Lilwolf]

Another company did this and had 20" lcds for like 6k.

I hear they are REALLY cool... but considering the car loan necessary... I'll probably pass.

Hopefully Toshiba bought the technology (or made their own) and will bring it down to an affordable level

[JODY]

HDTV won't REALLY catch on until they are the same price as normal sets (HD is a TEENY TINY percentage of the market, no matter what the best buy salesman tells you, they are selling 20 regular sets for every HD one).

I had a Circuit City salesman tell me the HD big screens were outselling the old sets 10 to 1 when I went to pick up a new 27" JVC regular set.  He said he didn't know what regular sets they carried and he didn't go down those isles much anymore.  A salesman at Ultimate Electronics flat out told me people were stupid for buying the regular sets.  Guess lying and making people feel stupid are now a common sales tactic.

[Xiaou2]

 Lilwolf,

  The other company used a technology that was limited in how far away you were from the screen, and in feild of view.

 This technology is sick.   It actually produced an image by shining light rays in all direction from that image point.  This way, you see the image
in all direction - in 3d space.   If you look at the majong pictures... the middle, you can see certain sides or faces that you can not see when the screen was rotated as seen on the 3rd picture.   

 I have no clue as to how they could make something like this work.  Well, partial... but my brain just goes overload with 'impossible'  : )

 My guess is that to gather the images for broadcasts... they would have to have some other type of camera system.   Maybe its some sorta infered system which captures the actual beams of lightrays from all directions?!

 Paige...  Main reasons color sets didnt take hold right away are many

1) lower population levels
2) only 3 channels
3) tv want that big of a deal as it is today
4) maybe little color content?
5) costs took long time to drop
6) there were no home computers that could use it

 Look at Dvd players and VCRs.  Both these came in and BAM!  Millions
sold everywhere. 

 I also disagree about the HDTV stuff too.   Most intelligent people will ask to see which tvs are better.  In doing so, and finding out that the regular tvs will not function soon into the future - in sure they would choose hdtv.   However, price is still an issue - and so is the fact that there still isnt full dominating broadcasts in it yet.

  Coupled with the fact that they will stop making standard tvs in very little time - if it hasnt happened already... they will  basically force you into the new standard technology.

  I do agree that 3d displays are a hard sell.  Mostly cause many only think 3d is that old style red/blue images.   Anyone whos seen an Imax 3d movie can attest to how cool the effect is - and would love if all movies were filmed in true 3d.

  It will take a push from people to ask for 3d to become a standard... and it will take people to develop enough content for it to become a needed thing. 

 3d has been problematic in that the technology dosnt adapt well with standard equipment.  IE: glasses, special projectors..ect.  This display might help solve those.   

 Still, when Imax can send an image 3ft from your face... it really makes you hope for something just as good if not even better : )

  PC wise - this technology would be perfect for.   Imagine building a 3d model... but being able to clearly see its depth while building it.   Imagine playing a game of Rollercoaster Tycoon, and seeing the coasters pop in and right out of the screen.   

  In emulaiton... things like 3d mirror artwork should work great.
3d cabinets... 3d controler pics... so much more.
 
 And 3d games are that much more real.

[Veinman]

If I had 3D vision, I would care

Unless you lost an eye, you do.

[RayB]

I have no clue as to how they could make something like this work.

[Stingray]

I have no clue as to how they could make something like this work.  Well, partial... but my brain just goes overload with 'impossible'  : )

Same technology I read about in Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy (I forget which book) to make a cloaking device. They make you think it's not there, therefore you don't see it. Here, they use a technology that makes your brain think it's 3D, therefore you see it in 3D (but in reality you're just looking at a crude kid's drawing on paper). 

That would be an SEP field (Sombody Else's Problem). The field creates a scene so bizzare that the human brain refuses to take responsibility for it. "That's somebody else's problem, I can't see it".

The late, great Douglass Adams was a genius.

-S

[saint]

* saint waits for the obligatory 3D-porn jokes.

Nuh uh. It was not "bam". VCRs took a while to become mainstream and even then, the reason it succeeded was because of porn. People no longer had to sneak into a public theatre to view their smut. Porn leads the way in adoption of many technologies.

[gprime]

If I had 3D vision, I would care

Unless you lost an eye, you do.

My avatar has a very close resemblance to myself 

[Veinman]

Ahhh. Look on the bright side, you have WAY more hair than me.

[JB]

  A salesman at Ultimate Electronics flat out told me people were stupid for buying the regular sets.  Guess lying and making people feel stupid are now a common sales tactic.

I have to agree with him, actually. Though I wouldn't say stupid, just... uninformed.

NTSC broadcasts are set to die end of next year, with the bandwidth redistributed for other technologies. When that happens, your "standard" TV set will literally overnight become hopelessly obsolete. While "converter boxes" with DTV tuners that output NTSC signals will be available, you will get very little of DTV's advantages while using one.  Sure you won't get snow or ghosting(unless the cable between your converer box and TV is picking up noise), but you'll gain none of the benefits of the higher resolutions, or interlaced scan capabilities.

It just doesn't make SENSE to buy anything but a digital set.
Digital-ready is a good second choice, but I WOULD NOT EVEN CONSIDER buying an NTSC-only set at this point in time.

And while you're doing that, you may as well pick up a set that can display ALL DTV broadcasts, instead of only some of them(DTV has multiple display settings, and HDTV is the highest-quality ones).

[paigeoliver]

I am going to put my money on saying that it simply doesn't happen.

It will be pushed back, put off, or the stations will refuse to cooperate.

Anyway, not sure that part even matters, the percentage of US TV watchers actually using an antenna (actually receiving broadcast TV) is pretty darn small these days.

[quarterback]

NTSC broadcasts are set to die end of next year, with the bandwidth redistributed for other technologies. When that happens, your "standard" TV set will literally overnight become hopelessly obsolete. While "converter boxes" with DTV tuners that output NTSC signals will be available, you will get very little of DTV's advantages while using one.

[paigeoliver]

Matter of fact, I will be willing to bet that Best Buy still stocks a whole bunch of standard res TVs in 2007.

Do they even have HD vcrs yet?

I also think SVGA looks better than HDTV anyway, so meh!

[Daniel270]

It just doesn't make SENSE to buy anything but a digital set.
Digital-ready is a good second choice, but I WOULD NOT EVEN CONSIDER buying an NTSC-only set at this point in time.

Unless you're gonna use it in a MAME cab 

[Stingray]

NTSC broadcasts are set to die end of next year, with the bandwidth redistributed for other technologies. When that happens, your "standard" TV set will literally overnight become hopelessly obsolete.

I'll believe that when I see it. If a huge percentage of Americans woke up one morning to find that their TV no longer worked, there'd be a nationwide riot.

-S