HDTV Almanac - Samsung’s 50″ 3DTV for $1K

[alfredpoor]

How can an analyst predict the future if the manufacturers accelerate time so much that the future is here before we can even finish our speculation?
That’s about what has happened in the 3D segment of the flat panel HDTV market. I’ve been saying that making a current set “3D capable” really does not add much [...]

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[videograbber]

Alfred,

thanks for the information. That really was pretty quick, especially for a plasma set in the 50" class. But I think I may have to disagree with you on one point .

> chances are good that you’ll be sitting so far from it that you wouldn’t be able to see the extra detail of a 1080p set from that distance anyway <

Normally, this would be correct. However, with 3D, if they're using broadcasting (not Blu-ray) with the over/under method, that drops the effective vertical res down to 360. Which may very well be a quite visible performance hit, even if you're NOT sitting close up. For material encoded with over/under, you want as much vertical res as possible, or the 3D simply won't look HD anymore.

At the very least, I'd be cautious, and either wait and see how it looks with 3D for myself, or make sure I had a good return policy. But if you buy the set now, without any 3D content to test it with, but expecting that all will be fine, by the time you find out how it really performs it could be too late. (Blu-ray won't suffer from this, since it's "full" 3D HD, vs. the other methods that are all effectively half-res HD. Side-by-side methods however won't degrade in the same way, especially since we're less sensitive to resolution on the horizontal axis than the vertical.)

- Tim

[alfredpoor]

Tim, you're correct that some systems transmit 3DTV images by interleaving half-resolution left and right images, but some systems use full resolution for both frames. In any case, almost all home 3DTV systems use shutter glasses, so even the half-resolution images get scaled up to full screen before they are presented to the left or right eye. And the scaling only happens in one dimension; the other has the full high definition detail. So even with scaling, if you sit too far from the screen, you won't be able to see all the available detail.

Alfred

[templau]

The underlying PN50C430 retails for $749 against a retail for this set of $1109. That's still a 50% price premium for 3D despite the smaller dollars involved. Then there's the cost of 3D glasses...

[alfredpoor]

Good point. I guess what I should have said is that the 3D feature is moving down in the product line, and is no longer limited to premium models.

In any case, 3D is a lot less expensive a lot sooner than I expected.

Alfred