Which tv should I get?

Post by **koshien** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:37 pm

Hi guys!
I wouldn' t say I'm new to stereoscopic 3D...but I' d like to make a decision about the tv I should get.
First of all, I'm from Europe and unfortunately the only tv 3D-ready I can buy here is a 50" plasma from Samsung. I'd like to buy it, and it is not even a cost matter (I found it online at a very good price)...it's just way too big for my bedroom.
I'm still a student in a very small bedroom...and if I could choose, I would take a 37".
I saw in the U.S. there is another 3D-ready plasma from Samsung, and it is a 42"...if only it was available here, I would have definitely bought it.
So here is the question (finally

):
-should I wait for a 42" release? Maybe I could find a way to make it fit...
I have some doubts also because of 100Hz TVs... these TVs are obviously already available here and in a few months I was going to get a 37" 100 Hz plasma from Panasonic...
Some guys from an audio-video forum here in Italy told me these TVs have not a "real refresh" of 100 or 120 Hz... but it's only about tricks to make the vision of movies "smoother" or something... so that wouldn't be good for the stereoscopic 3D vision I' d like to enjoy. If they are wrong though... will 100 Hz tvs be somehow compatible with shutter glasses?
BUT...I know also about Ridge Racer 7 3D, which should work on normal tvs (no 3D-ready)...maybe it will work with the 100Hz tvs...???
I ask this because I really would like to buy a new tv this summer (my tv is a 15 years old 14"...)...but 50" is just too big! If only 42" 3D tv from Samsung was available here in Europe

What do you suggest me? I'm not going to make the 42" tv be shipped here in Italy because of guarantee matters...
Thank you very much! I hope you can help me and clarify the 100Hz thing...

Post by **cybereality** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 2:19 pm

There is a Zalman 32" 3D screen that comes out in August and should be available internationally. However I think it retails for $1800 so that might be a bit much considering the cost of the Samsungs. Mitsubishi and Hyundai also have some 3D-Ready sets similar to the Samsungs. There is also the iz3D if you can be fine with a 22" screen. Note that the Zalman Trimon and iz3D are actual 3D sets (ie they come with the glasses and software). The Samsungs are 3D-ready, which means you still need to buy the glasses/drivers for an extra $50-100. There are some other sets available but I think that covers major big ones.

Post by **Freke1** » Sat Jul 05, 2008 4:05 pm

Flexy said there was some ghosting on the plasma version of Samsungs DLP TV's (unlike the non plasma).

Post by **koshien** » Sun Jul 06, 2008 6:58 am

Thank you guys

What about sponsored 100 Hz TVs? Would this feature be useful somehow?
On the samsung web-site some TVs do have 100 Hz, but they are not 3D-ready...
Something like this:
hd-ready: yes
100 Hz: yes
3D-ready: no
But I still hope 100 Hz might be useful somehow...I'm in need of a tv, and Samsung from Italy doesn't seem to be releasing a smaller size of 3D tv...
Zalman 32" monitor might be good...I'll look for it, but it's a little too expensive...let' s see...

Post by **Aztec** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 10:43 am

I have a samsung 42" plasma. Those are actually 60Hz, but if you use the tridef kit it looks very good. If you use the old edimensional 3D dongles it will just flicker too much.
I can use the tridef's glasses and ir emitter with the old nvidia stero drivers and the edimensional universal drivers as well setting the tv to vertical or horizontal 3D mode.

Post by **cybereality** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:09 pm

Aztec wrote:I have a samsung 42" plasma. Those are actually 60Hz, but if you use the tridef kit it looks very good. If you use the old edimensional 3D dongles it will just flicker too much.
I can use the tridef's glasses and ir emitter with the old nvidia stero drivers and the edimensional universal drivers as well setting the tv to vertical or horizontal 3D mode.

Are you saying that the Samsung 3D-Ready Plasma will work with the old Nvidia driver? I thought the Samsung's only worked with checkerboard format?

Post by **Aztec** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 2:49 pm

The old nvidia driver will work with samsungs dlps or plasmas using the patch found here: http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.p ... +dlp+patch. I used the 91.31 driver with a series 7 card.
The tv supports checkerboard, vertical and horizontal formats.
The horizontal format worked well with the universal edimensional driver (EDcontroller), the one supposed to be used with LCD monitors. I just played some shockwave 3D games with it and seen vrml files.

Post by **LukePC1** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:37 pm

right. The patch (made by some user) should make cheackerboard out of interlaced or interlaved NV formats (with xP). I'm wondering, if it could work for Vista drivers? Maybe if you can get the screen detected as Zalmann?
There was a number for the registry somewhere posted...

@ the TV: you could get a good and trusty old CRT TV. It won't be expencive and might be trash next year. By then you should be able to get a good 3D TV - even in europe

Post by **koshien** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 5:53 pm

LukePC1 wrote: @ the TV: you could get a good and trusty old CRT TV. It won't be expencive and might be trash next year. By then you should be able to get a good 3D TV - even in europe

I already have a 15 years old 14" CRT TV...
Let' s say I buy both a very powerful pc and ddd tridef software and glasses... would this all work with my crt?
I wouldn' t want to buy glasses made specifically for CRT and then again next year buying new glasses for the 42" plasma...
Could you explain me better what is your idea? And how much would it cost?
Thanks a lot

p.s. I actually own only a ps3 (and Wii) and I hope a firmware update from TDVision will come soon... I' d like to play in high def, but since in the living room we have a Bravia tv, I might go there to play for a while, waiting for 3D. Although, Panasonic Plasmas look so good to me... I have to be patient

Post by **LukePC1** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 6:11 pm

At first it was just to 'buy some more time'... A used CRT TV shouldn't be too expencive. And it would have a more normal size. 14" sound very very small - smaller than the smallest monitors... and very low resolution...

I'm not shure about the plugs of the DDD glasses... I think there might be a dongle missing, that you need to run it with CRT monitors. How it works with TV I could only guess...

The cheapest thing to get you started (with old games) would be
PC with GF7900GT or GTX
Win XP with Nvidia drivers
CRT monitor (maybe TV will work with tricks, too?)
Cheap shutter glasses - those xforce glasses for 9.95$ worked with Plasma, so it is no complete waste.
You could also get Elsa Revelators from ebay (10-20€ shipped in Germany) to test with a CRT monitor...

Advantages: It would be a cheap starter Setup
(if you have XP somewhere and look for good articles on Ebay it could be around 500€ or below for all components - most of it the PC. You could sell it afterwards for a little less, but it's not all lost.
Or you could keep it for guests or as a second PC for Lan gaming or in case you have broken parts...

Contra: You'll need to exchange a lot of parts (basically the whole PC, because it is a little slow for most modern games in S-3D).
- NV drivers are not supported any more, but you could try older games
- it is much more work, but you would know, what is important for S-3D

@ ps3: I think it's main use for S-3D is the blue ray player right now

Post by **cybereality** » Mon Jul 07, 2008 7:39 pm

@koshien: To get back to your original question about the 100Hz sets. I don't think there are any real 100Hz LCD/Plasmas available yet. The ones out there use internal sync-doublers. Its not of any use for S-3D, as far as I know of, since it can't accept a 100Hz input signal. I think there were some true 120Hz+ sets shown at trade shows, but nothing you can buy right now.

What kind of video card are you running? Also, are you using that 14" CRT for PC and gaming? If thats the case even an upgrade to a 22" widescreen would make a big difference.

Post by **koshien** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:25 am

Thank you guys for helping out.
Unfortunately I'm just a college student and I don' t even have a little job, so I can' t buy right now lot of things.
I have a ps3, a Wii and a 2 year old notebook (it's my birthday by the end of the month and someone might give me as a gift the basic version of xbox 360... since my buddies recently bought xbox360 because of the price-cut).
I used to play in the living room with a big 40" Sony Bravia tv, but since I wanted to play whenever I feel like, I moved ps3 and wii to my bedroom and plugged them to my old 14" tv. My notebook is not that powerful, so I don' t use it for gaming. I also have a 4:3 19" lcd monitor, but I don't think it's of any use.
For what concerns ps3...if they are bringing s-3D movies in blu-ray (as they are, with Hanna Montana 3D coming soon), I think it's a short way to get games involved in this, having the possibility to play them in 3D.

I' d like to wait for E3 and see what's going on...
Whatever happens I' d really like buying a 3D tv, saving money for a good pc whether consoles do not get updated to S-3D.
So you are telling me there are no real 100-120 Hz tvs out there (beside Samsung and Mitsubishi 3D tv I guess)...that' s what I thought...

But.... what do you think of these pictures?

It seems like Sony and Namco are using Xpol technology, developed by NTS NHK technical services, to convert 3D games to S-3D...and you just need a normal lcd or plasma hdtv (it' s clear by watching the pictures too...Sony hasn' t released 3D tvs and they are playing on a bravia tv....a "fake" 100 Hz bravia tv needed???).
This is the problem...I have the opportunity to buy a brand new 37" Panasonic Plasma for my bedroom, but I know about 3D tvs and I really care about playing in s-3D. But there are no 32" to 42" 3D tvs in Europe. Can you tell me something about this Ridge Racer 7?

p.s. I was also thinking about getting the "normal" hdtv panasonic plasma and then starting to save money to get a TDVisor 2 years from now...since I might go to Florida with my family sometime. That would be also great beacuse of good euro-dollars transition.

Post by **LukePC1** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 4:51 am

Personally I don't like consols:
- bad controller for me
- expencive games
- (nearly) no strategy games.
- only good for gaming...

So I never had a console and played poor on the ones of friends...
Also I S-3D for consoles are even less 'supported' than on PC. But who knows, what the future will bring (and when).

@ those pictures... it might be new Zalman 32" 3D monitors? The size would fit.
On 1st picture are polarized glasses, so I don't think it's anything normal

The link to the source and more info could help...

1 more question: can a (big) CRT monitor be used as a TV? It would have the right resolution and refresh rate and would fit to SG.

Post by **cybereality** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 4:57 am

I don't know much about RR7 in 3D, but I was able to find this little tidbit about the Xpol technology:
http://www.arisawa.co.jp/en/product/3d.html

Its not running on regular displays, Sony must have modified them for the demo. It seems like promising technology but who knows when it will be available?

Also, there hasn't been any confirmation yet as to what format S3D the Hanna Montana 3D Blu-Ray disc is going to support. Theres a good chance it will be anaglyph considering the market.

To be quite honest, it sounds to me like you just want an HDTV. As cool as stereo3d is, you really need a decent gaming rig to take advantage of it. If you just play games on the console then you are not going to be able to take advantage of the tvs capabilities. There are a few console games rumored to maybe support stereo3d, again, who knows when or if they will actually come out. Of course it always good to think ahead, but there are a lot of changes going on in the industry. Next year 3d-ready will be like hd-ready and the landscape could be completely different. In your situation it may make more sense to wait and see how things play out.

What you might want to do is pick up a pair of cheap shutter-glasses for like $10 ( http://www.xforce3d.com/ ) and play with those for a bit. You can get a good 21" CRT for like $50 or less these days. If you have a Geforce card on your laptop that should work fine for older titles like HL2 and UT2004. Not the most elegant solution, but its cheap and its something to hold you over until more 3d sets are available in your area.

Post by **koshien** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 5:53 am

cybereality wrote:I don't know much about RR7 in 3D, but I was able to find this little tidbit about the Xpol technology:
http://www.arisawa.co.jp/en/product/3d.html

Its not running on regular displays, Sony must have modified them for the demo. It seems like promising technology but who knows when it will be available?

Also, there hasn't been any confirmation yet as to what format S3D the Hanna Montana 3D Blu-Ray disc is going to support. Theres a good chance it will be anaglyph considering the market.

To be quite honest, it sounds to me like you just want an HDTV. As cool as stereo3d is, you really need a decent gaming rig to take advantage of it. If you just play games on the console then you are not going to be able to take advantage of the tvs capabilities. There are a few console games rumored to maybe support stereo3d, again, who knows when or if they will actually come out. Of course it always good to think ahead, but there are a lot of changes going on in the industry. Next year 3d-ready will be like hd-ready and the landscape could be completely different. In your situation it may make more sense to wait and see how things play out.

What you might want to do is pick up a pair of cheap shutter-glasses for like $10 ( http://www.xforce3d.com/ ) and play with those for a bit. You can get a good 21" CRT for like $50 or less these days. If you have a Geforce card on your laptop that should work fine for older titles like HL2 and UT2004. Not the most elegant solution, but its cheap and its something to hold you over until more 3d sets are available in your area.

Crap, I always thought RR7 would have worked on normal tvs... the pictures made me think wrong.
About tv... yes... actually I was going to buy a normal tv, but since I got to know about S-3D I would have liked to make a purchase that allowed me to play s-3d games. When? I don't know. But since it's a big purchase, I wanted it to be ready for 3D.
I don' t play on pc, but I might buy one in 1 or 2 years if console makers come up with nothing. I really want to play good s-3d.
I'll keep in mind the CRT solution though, and I'll look online how to do this.
Beside CRT, I would say I have 2 options:
-buy a panasonic plasma and then start to save money for pc and tdvisor.
-wait for a 37"-42" 3D tv to come up in Europe.
Probably E3 and the release of the Hanna Montana blu-ray will make me take the decision. I don't think Hanna Montana will use anaglyph...I think they will take advantage of Samsung and Mitsubishi 3D tvs...

Post by **cardinalstud08** » Sun Jul 20, 2008 4:09 pm

FYI, the 42" Samsung PDP only supports up to 1024 X 768 in 3D mode. If you want full 720p, you'll HAVE to go with the 50." If that's really too big for you, I'd just reccomend buying the 22" IZ3D monitor and sitting extra close to it

Game on!!

Post by **koshien** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:55 am

Ok, thanks....
Actually I'm thinking about it and I will probably get a "normal" plasma tv in a few days... after that, as soon as the HD TDVisor is available in Europe, I' ll go for it, especially if it' s going to be compatible with ps3. It might even happen I go to the U.S. and once I'm there I will buy it, let' s see...
I would really like the iz3d monitor, but once I'll have the plasma tv I will be ok for a long time, so I' m seriously thinking about the TDVisor.
Bye

Post by **pixel67** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:58 pm

Have you looked at the LED DLP sets on the market? better res than the plasma screens and last just as long...

Post by **koshien** » Tue Jul 22, 2008 6:52 am

pixel67 wrote:Have you looked at the LED DLP sets on the market? better res than the plasma screens and last just as long...

Not available in Europe unfortunately...also, it would have been too big. I'm pretty confident 120Hz lcd are coming (http://www.lesnumeriques.com/article-453.html), but I'm not willing to wait too much.
I guess I'll get a TDVisor later on