Is 3DTV a Replacement of Digital Television? Would 2D Viewing be affected? — Community

#1 Mar 11, 2011 at 3:44 pm

I would like to start with a statement that I customarily make about 3DTV. 3DTV should not be regarded as a new TV system intended to replace the current digital H/DTV system, but should rather be considered as just one more advanced feature to occasionally view 3D content on an HDTV.

The amount of 3D content is expected to improve with time. The effects of prolonged 3D viewing may soon be confirmed by appropriate research. The existing over-the-air, cable, satellite, and IPTV transmission infrastructure, bandwidth, and equipment are being adapted to distribute 3DTV, although with certain limitations compared to the 3D quality of Blu-ray, such as half resolution per eye using frame compatible 3D formats (such as side-by-side or top-bottom 3D structures for the left/right images to share the same video frame), relatively high digital compression, lower transfer speed rate, and reduced audio quality using lossy codecs rather than the high quality lossless codecs of Blu-ray (such as DTS Master Audio).

The TV models featuring 3D capabilities released during 2010 are...

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#2 Mar 11, 2011 at 5:42 pm

Rudolfo,

Your article is right on!

The thought crossed my mind, what are people who are buying Blu-ray players looking at when they have older HDTVs that don't have PRM circuitry (Property Rights Management) built in. The HDTVs with the HDMI to DVI cables. Are they looking at SD images? Doesn't the HDTV need to have the PRM installed and compatible with the HDMI?

Just wondering.

HDTV Jim

#3 Mar 11, 2011 at 7:15 pm

HDTV Jim,

I am glad you found the article useful.

Early generation HDTVs that do not have HDMI or DVI (but should have component analog YPbPr inputs) will be impacted by the analog sunset of newly built Blu-ray players, which affect the way their component analog output transports HD if the content is protected, which may not be HD quality if the conditions of disc token protection, HDCP activated, player release date, and cable type combination are not on the right side of the moon for you.

I bought the OPPO 93 3D Blu-ray player as a pre-release unit just before Christmas before the analog sunset was put into effect, although I use it with HDMI/HDCP connections/scaler/projector.

Here is an article that will make you nuts if you are not already, but I hope it will put you to sleep instead:

http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/articles/2009/11/who-needs-content-protection.php

About 11 million legacy HDTVs without HDMI/HDCP inputs will be affected. Which ironically belong to the very same early adopters that paid a fortune for the sets and supported the HDTV R&D on their shoulders since day one (me included, $8K for my first set in 1999).

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra

#4 Mar 12, 2011 at 11:23 am

I totally agree and the 2D aspect was the first question I asked. The Samsung I reviewed had stellar picture quality in both 3D and 2D.

#5 Mar 12, 2011 at 10:22 pm

Regman,

I did not see your first question posted.

Samsung is probaly going to keep concentrating in active-shutter glasses 3DTVs. At CES 2011 the informal response was that they are not even working on auto-stereoscopic.

The 3DTV you reviewed should have been an active-shutter set and the 2D image should look as good as you noticed because its method to display 3D does not use extra layers on the screen to polarize the image for cheap glasses (a factor that affects 2D viewing), in addition to be at full resolution per eye.

Best Regards,

Rodolfo La Maestra