One of the barriers to making 3d TV’s more consumer friendly has been glasses. 3d glasses are still very expensive and work only with the TV you bought them with. Also, many consumers say they don’t want to put on glasses every time they want to watch 3d content. Or if they want to go grab a beer from the fridge, they have to take them off, for example. What a hassle, huh? Please. Or maybe they’re too cool to wear glasses while watching TV.
Glasses free 3d tv is considered the “holy grail of 3d”. If someone could figure out how to do it right and not cost a gazillion dollars, they could ..make gazillions. I thought we were at least 5 years away from glasses free 3d TV. Toshiba is getting close or at least closer than any other barrier based glasses free TV I’ve seen.
There was a long line at CES to check out Toshiba’s glasses free 65″ TV. It was worth the wait. Each of the display monitors had three sets of footprints where we were supposed to stand to watch. I tried all three spots and even outside the spots. The attendants didn’t like that.
I did notice some ripple distortion and a bit of ghosting, when I was outside the sweet spots, but not as bad as other glasses free 3d displays I’ve seen. Toshiba has figured out how to reduce those artifacts to a minimum. However, I feel some of the depth I expect to see in good 3d was lost. The 3d is very comfortable to watch, but not impressive. The resolution is still not great and you still get vertical lines around the edges of objects as a reminder that you’re seeing the image through a lenticular filter.
Toshiba, you’re very close, but no cigar. Consumers, if you want to watch good 3d, you still have to use either passive or shutter glasses displays. The search for the “holy grail of 3d ” continues, but Toshiba is leading the way.