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Sony Teases 3D Playstation 3
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Jan 09, 2009 06:20 AM
from the next-big-gaming-revolution? dept.
from the next-big-gaming-revolution? dept.
Ars Technica has a brief report from CES, where Sony demonstrated the work they've done to bring 3D technology to the PS3. Quoting:
"The idea was just to show the technology to people, to see if they would be interested in sitting at home, wearing a dorky set of black glasses, watching content in 3D. I couldn't pry details about how the 3D affect was achieved, or if the display could turn any source into 3D, but what's clear is that, glasses or no, the 3D affect is amazing. Sony showed off Wipeout HD running in true 3D, and I was ready to whip out my credit card right there. Frank and I both agreed, this was one of the best demos of 3D technology we have ever seen."
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Hardware: Sony To Launch 3D TVs By Late 2010 249 comments
eldavojohn writes "The Financial Times is reporting that Sony is announcing 3D TVs for late 2010 at the IFA technology trade show in Berlin. It's another glasses-based technology with "active shutter" being employed (the same stuff teased at CES as well as employed on NVIDIA's glasses). Expect to see 3D Bravia television sets, Vaio laptops, PS3s and Blu-ray disc players compatible with this technology."
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Hopeful (Score:2)
I'm hopeful that Sony pulls this off and manages to get 3D-TVs to be the norm. Starting with gamers is a good way to do that, too.
Of course, if they have patents on this technology and nobody else can do it, it'll die an early death... Especially since Sony TVs are so heavily overpriced to begin with.
Re:Hopeful (Score:5, Interesting)
Do we really need to move on from HDTV already?
HDTV lag has yet to be solved, meaning tons of old game consoles must be played with input delay. HDTVs are also still too expensive for many people to afford. And once you buy an HDTV, you need something that outputs in HD, digital cable, a Blu-Ray machine, a PS3, those aren't cheap either.
I still use my SDTV for gaming or watching DVDs as upscan converters or scalers look horrible on my HDTV. Because HDTV lag and upscaling are problems I am forced out of necessity to keep an SDTV around to play old video games without lag.
I would rather see HDTVs perfected than a move to 3D.
Parent
Re:Hopeful (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we really need to move on from HDTV already?
I'd say we haven't moved to HDTV at all.
Not a lot of people I know actually have an HDTV. They are indeed still expensive, but more importantly, they don't really offer anything that people need or want. The difference between standard TV and HDTV is just not large enough for people to actually care about.
HD-DVD is already dead and Blu-Ray doesn't seem to be doing all that well either. More evidence that people just don't care.
What I'm hoping for is some actual innovation when it comes to television. On-demand streaming content, where I am no longer dependent of the exact time a tv show is aired, is a feature I'm missing. 3DTV sounds interesting to me as well. I'm certainly more likely to buy a new TV for those new features, than just to get crappy reality tv shows in a slightly higher resolution.
Parent
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On-demand streaming content, where I am no longer dependent of the exact time a tv show is aired, is a feature I'm missing.
Checked the TV networks webpages or your local bittorrent tracker lately?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Not a lot of people I know actually have an HDTV.
This may be in your country, at least in sweden it's pretty much impossible to buy a TV set not capable of at least 720p. Most people I know already have at least 720p.
They are indeed still expensive
Expensive compared to what? Have you managed to find a non HDTV on sale somewhere. Are you sure that wasn't a firesale.
, but more importantly, they don't really offer anything that people need or want. The difference between standard TV and HDTV is just not large
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This may be in your country, at least in sweden it's pretty much impossible to buy a TV set not capable of at least 720p. Most people I know already have at least 720p.
In my country (the alleged disposable consumer driven hell of the USA) most (by a HUGE margin) people have TVs over 5 years old, so even though 720p has been pretty much the only option for any non-really small TV for a couple of years, still the vast majority of people have SDTV.
4 years ago my parents purchased a 30" SDTV for $299, 2.5 years
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sorry but someoen is going to have to show me actual end user purchase rates for blueray vs population and dvd vs population over time before i will even moderatly entertain the idea that bluray is catching on faster than dvd did from vhs
Re:BluRay's Amazing Success (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Karma to burn (Score:2)
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i do not belive that only 5% of homes in the US have a DVD player while 7% have a blueray player..
Who is trying to get you to believe that? Did you bother to read the title of the chart? It's the number of homes that have it after 3 years of the technology being released. It's pretty easy to believe that for example 5% of homes would have a PS3 and another 1 or 2% would have dedicated blu-ray players, that kind of thing.
Mod up (Score:3, Interesting)
Damn I wish I had some mod points. Cue me getting twenty in the morning.
A lot of people are proclaiming blu-ray as a success because of all the PS3s sold that no-one watches blu-rays on. Show us actual disk sales, not player sales. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if because of the PS3 including a blu-ray drive there have been more blu-ray players sold than blu-ray disks :P. Ok, that's not likely, but you can see how much the PS3 could skew the results by.
Re: (Score:2)
Apparantly the person who replied to him/her does, or that person wouldn't have bothered replying.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
My theory is that the success of HDTV and BluRay is entirely due to the ridiculously easy access to credit over the past few years. People get credit cards with huge limits and can suddenly "afford" thousand dollar TVs, so they go out and buy them.
HDTV and BluRay adoption rates will slow dramatically now that the credit market has collapsed, especially since HDTVs are still far too expensive for the average person to buy without credit.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, the lag problem has been solved. There are a number of LCDs that have 0ms lag. The problem is that most TVs haven't been designed with lag in mind, as it hasn't been much of an issue up to now. I've done plenty of gaming on my TV and never really noticed a lag before. I could play any sort of action or FPS game without a problem. However, now that I have Guitar Hero and Rock Band, those games are definitely a lot more timing sensitive, and I certainly did notice it. Hopefully the tremendous popula
Re: (Score:2)
What panel technology do most LCD TVs use?
S-PVA or what? Does all of them have input lag?
Re:Hopeful (Score:5, Informative)
For LCD HDTVs, most of the input lag comes from all the processing hardware, not the LCD panel itself. Many TVs now come with a "game mode" that disables certain processing features to decrease lag time at the expense of noise reduction, or upscaling quality, or whatever.
When I play Guitar Hero on my Sony LCD TV, I get about 60ms lag with the TV in its normal operating mode (as measured by GH's lag compensation feature). When I enable game mode on my TV, the lag effectively drops to zero. With game mode enable, many of the picture optimization features are not available, but that doesn't generally bother me since I usually disable them anyway.
Parent
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I'll second this one.
Although, I've stuck with Composite/Component/S-Video style connections except for TV (I guess I shouldn't count my 360 which is a newer console. uses DVI)
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pulls it off? Hell 90% of the tv stations in the USA dont even have HD equipment to broadcast their local news in HD now you want all of them to buy TWO cameras per cameraman as well as special editing gear and other crap to make it "3D" with goofy glasses?
How about getting broadcasters to use HD first.
Content (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh... don't you worry.
Movie industry is hoping [wired.com] that 3-D will be the "new colour".
So, more and more movies are getting a 3D treatment. [blogspot.com]
As for games... they are already 3D - just add a function that will render everything for both eyes and start creating games that rely on the actual 3-D content and immersion.
And then, there is all that old stuff [wikipedia.org] out there.
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Movie industry is hoping that 3-D will be the "new colour".
So, more and more movies are getting a 3D treatment.
This comment seems to be a repeat from the early 1980s, the early 1950s, the 1910s...
I know it is a kind of a new technology so... (Score:2)
See those underlined words in the post above?
Those are called "hyperlinks".
When you position your "pointer" on them, using your "mouse device", and "click" on them they will take you to another "web site".
There is text on these "web sites".
Read it.
Re: (Score:2)
Which is why this technology didn't catch on in the 90s, there weren't any monitors that could display it.
And it tried a bit to catch on a couple of years ago in PC gaming but everyone left the inferior CRTs for the advanced LCDs.
And IIRC those new HDTVs that claim to do 120 don't actually do it they just generates a frame that links the other two. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that though
Ze goggles ... (Score:5, Funny)
... they do something?
As a result, (Score:2)
Hang on... (Score:4, Insightful)
So is it just me or does this bear a striking resemblance to Nvidia's recent demo of shutter glasses combined with a 120Hz HDTV. To me the black glasses are a dead giveaway.
As far as the "any source" part is concerned, let's not be silly here, you need concrete depth information. Sure our brains can infer this information but the sheer processing grunt required for a computer to do this means it will not be done any time soon at least not in realtime on full motion video.
I am embarrassed for Ars Technica and more than a little disappointed.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
As far as the "any source" part is concerned, let's not be silly here, you need concrete depth information. Sure our brains can infer this information but the sheer processing grunt required for a computer to do this means it will not be done any time soon at least not in realtime on full motion video.
Maybe they meant "any game" which is how it works, for example, on a PC with LCD shutter goggles.
Nice to see that technology is rolling back around to the Sega Master System, though.
Maybe next they will use Vectrex technology to make black and white TVs display color :P
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Given that they are talking about 3D gaming on the playstation, surely it's obvious that "any source" refers to games, rather than some DVD movie.
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Given that they are talking about 3D gaming on the playstation, surely it's obvious that "any source" refers to games, rather than some DVD movie.
The headline Slashdot gave to this article is "Sony Teases 3D Playstation 3". There's no indication there that the subject refers exclusively to games, as the PS3 is not just a game console but also a Blu-Ray player, DVD player, and networkable media center.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a very good astute observation. When you think about it, the PS3 does have an nVidia RSX 'Reality Synthesizer' under the hood. Perhaps this is nVidia's technology being licensed to Sony given their previous partnership? The plot thickens!
Hard to say (Score:2)
To me the black glasses are a dead giveaway.
Why? Polarized glasses like you would get at a 3D movie are also shaded like that.
It's too bad they didn't look more closely. The telltale of a shutter would be if you could find some sort of transmission to the glasses to synchronize the shutter. The NVIDIA system uses IR which would be a piece a cake to spot using a digital camera. Alternately, if it was IR they would be able to block the receiver with their hand, stopping the 3D effect. If they were using RF, it would be harder to spot, although it is po
How to loose friends and alienate people (Score:2)
2) Release a console in the next generation that requires everyone to buy a new TV to support it.
3) ???????
4) Profit!
Re: (Score:2)
2) Release a console in the next generation that requires everyone to buy a new TV to support it.
Are you referring to the need to buy an HD display in order to actually watch HD content in... you know... HD, or are you implying that for some reason you need a new TV to watch 3-D content?
If it is the former - DUH! Same way you can SEE color movies on a black and white TV, you can watch HD content on a regular TV.
But same way a black and white won't show you colors - non HD TV won't really show you that HD everyone is talking about. Particularly the Joneses from across the street.
And if it is the later -
Once again... we have a failure to RTFA (Score:3, Informative)
Or even the title.
Sony Teases 3D Playstation 3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3#Stereoscopic_3D [wikipedia.org]
Stereoscopic 3D
In December 2008, SCE confirmed that they intend to support stereoscopic 3D games and Blu-ray movies in 2009.[186] This functionality will be introduced to the PlayStation 3 via a firmware update making the first and only games console capable of generating high definition 3D images.[187] This technology was first demonstrated publicly on the PS3 in January 2009 at the Consumer Electronics Show. Journalists were shown Wipeout HD and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue in 3D as a demonstration of how the technology might work if it is implemented in the future.
As for refresh rate and glasses...
HD does not go over 60Hz at the moment. And that only with 720p and 1080i.
And while 120Hz TVs are relatively new - 100Hz TVs have been around for a decade or more.
So, unless your TV's remote comes with a cord - there are pretty good chances it has a rather comfortable refresh rate.
Which is actually - irrelevant.
Those "no shutter job or anything" glasses are actually circularly polarized glasses [wikipedia.org].
In
Re: (Score:2)
See Sony fail in 3 D I M E N S I O N S!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Only Three? (Score:5, Funny)
When asked for comment, Mr Kutaragi noted that "Dimensions are but an illusion. Inside all of our souls is the true energy of dimensionality," before deep-throating the microphone and phasing back into the universe from whence he came.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice astroturfing (Score:5, Insightful)
At first I was only a little incredulous that someone loved Sony products so much, but then I saw the dead give-away:
You got greedy.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Godwin...
The Nazi's built the best, but fewer, military equipement during WWII, however, the US built TONS of junk... who won?
It's all just business, and im not necessarily saying its right.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying the US was the Zerg of WWII?
Re: (Score:2)
EPIC FAIL.
"The Nazi's built the best, but fewer..."
In this corner:
V2.
Me-262.
Sturmgewehr-44.
And in this corner:
Soviet T-34.
Supermarine Spitfire.
P-51 Mustang D.
The B motherfucking -17.
Pervasive use of submachineguns by Soviet infantry.
Ubiquity of the semiautomatic rifle for American troops: M-1 Garand.
The B "Smilin' Joe Fission" -29.
The American escort aircraft carrier.
I'm just saying...
Re:"if the display could turn any source into 3D" (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
There was a demo by NVidia for this kind of technology for any PC game earlier this week. It apparently uses the Z buffer information and glasses with active shutters. This is likely something similar.
Uh, what? nVidia has been doing this with any PC game for years. I can do it on my laptop (if I had goggles) which has Quadro FX1500M. LCD shutter goggles are NOTHING new for PC gaming. Practically any nVidia card with an S-Video output will do it.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
That isn't new, though, because you've been able to do the same thing for some time. 120 Hz LCDs are fairly new but 120 Hz CRTs have been around for some time and the "on a flatscreen!" thing is no more valid than the "on the internets!" patent suffix.
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Re: (Score:2)
Unfortunately, typoinsummary isn't correct. It should be typointfa or sitfa something similar. The summary is accurately quoting the article's inaccuracy. (Of course, the summary could be sprinkled with some "[sic]" markers.)
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