Meant to be Seen

I've seen a few sites that sell polarized 3D glasses but they are almost all made of cheap paper, or are terribly goofy looking. Is there a place that sells decent looking circular polarized 3D glasses? Any tips would be great. I have a Zalman 22" and I'd like to get a few extra pair. The glasses that come with the Zalman are stupid looking but they work great.

If you live near a RealD theater you can always go to a 3D movie and just keep the glasses. They work great on the Zalman and come free with a movie ticket. I've got like 10 of them now. If you want to buy a pair you can go here:
http://www.3dstereo.com/viewmaster/glp.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scroll all the way down until you see the *circular* polarized glasses. Those ones should work, but I haven't tried them so don't quote me on that.

Real D (circulatly polarised 3D) glasses don't perform as well on the Zalman 22" Trimon as the original Zalman glasses that are actually provided with the Zalman monitor.
The ghosting is slightly worse with the Real D glasses, and has a slight colour tinge.
The reason for this is to do with the orientation of the circular polariser (circular polarisers are not perfect - in simple terms they are slightly eliptical rather than perfectly circular and orientation does matter).
In Real D glasses, the rear linear polariser layer is oriented horizontally in both lenses. (circular polarisers are made up of two layers - the back layer is a linear polariser, and the front layer is a quarter wave retarter, oriented at either +45degrees or -45degrees relative to the linear polariser)
In the Zalman 3D glasses, the rear linear polariser is oriented at +45degrees in both lenses.

If the polarising filters in the Real D glasses could be taken out and rotated 45 degrees anticlockwise, everything would be perfect.

Similarly, if you took your Zalman glasses to a Real D theatre, you would probably find that the Zalman glasses don't work quite as good as the Real D glasses in that venue.

Be that as it may, the Real D glasses will work on your Zalman monitor if you don't have any other glasses available, but just not as good as the original Zalman glasses. When you are giving a demo, I'd give the Zalman glasses to your guests, and use the Real D glasses for yourself (to give them a 3D experience with the least ghosting).

AWoods wrote:Be that as it may, the Real D glasses will work on your Zalman monitor if you don't have any other glasses available, but just not as good as the original Zalman glasses. When you are giving a demo, I'd give the Zalman glasses to your guests, and use the Real D glasses for yourself (to give them a 3D experience with the least ghosting).

Thats where you and me differ, my friend. I am most certainly giving guests the cheapo throw-away glasses and keeping the real ones in pristine condition. If Zalman sold replacements that would be one thing, but they don't so if anything happened to them thats it. Thats why I primarily use only the RealD glasses unless I am sitting down for a serious gaming session I will use the Zalmans. Yes, the Zalman has slightly better quality for sure, but in actual practice the difference is negligible.

Everyone to their own.

The Zalman 3D glasses and clip-ons are available separately here in Australia - list price AUD$33ea. (i.e. not cheap...)

The following post just appeared on linkedin:

Also ran into Dave Johnson of Microvision Optical, he showed his new line Circular Polar S3D Glasses. Very nice, they have about 40 Styles, Anti-reflection coating on both side of the lens, UV filter with Polarization, Base 6 lens, the best part is the glasses can be used outside as sunglasses as well. Really they would make good driving glasses since they have low tint percentage. But very good looking, you no longer have look like transplant from the 50"s with Wayfarers at the movies.

Hope this helps.
Let us know what you find.
It will be interesting to know what circular orientation they use.

AWoods wrote:The following post just appeared on linkedin:

Also ran into Dave Johnson of Microvision Optical, he showed his new line Circular Polar S3D Glasses. Very nice, they have about 40 Styles, Anti-reflection coating on both side of the lens, UV filter with Polarization, Base 6 lens, the best part is the glasses can be used outside as sunglasses as well. Really they would make good driving glasses since they have low tint percentage. But very good looking, you no longer have look like transplant from the 50"s with Wayfarers at the movies.

Hope this helps.
Let us know what you find.
It will be interesting to know what circular orientation they use.

So... any links? Can I buy these anywhere?

You know, it's pretty crappy of Zalman to not offer replacement glasses for their own monitors. I'm not impressed with that at all, and if I have to order replacements for 35 bucks from Australia I'm going to be pissed off. These glasses are cheaply made and are not worth that much money. They are also dorky as hell. I don't want to buy Real-D if the quality is not as good. I'm looking for something that will have really good quality picture/effect but doesn't look stupid. If this guy really has 40 types of 3D glasses I'd sure like to see them.

Bastage wrote:So... any links? Can I buy these anywhere?

Do you want me to do all the work for you. A web search found this site: http://www.microvisionoptical.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
There aren't any 3D glasses listed on the site, perhaps you can email them.
Let us know what you find out.

Bastage wrote:You know, it's pretty crappy of Zalman to not offer replacement glasses for their own monitors. I'm not impressed with that at all, and if I have to order replacements for 35 bucks from Australia I'm going to be pissed off.

I provided an example that replacement Zalman 3D glasses are available in Australia because that's where I am located. They may well be available from local distributors in your area - but no guarantees. Make a few calls. AUD$33 is the list price - the street price may well be less than this. FYI: AUD$33 = ~US$28.50.

Bastage wrote:These glasses are cheaply made and are not worth that much money. They are also dorky as hell.

The Zalman 3D glasses are injection moulded plastic - just like the Real D 3D glasses and probably many others. I quite like the Zalman 3D glasses, they are light and fit well. Style is in the eye of the beholder though.

Bastage wrote:I don't want to buy Real-D if the quality is not as good.

The optical quality of the Real D glasses is fine - they're just not the correct circular orientation for the Zalman monitor for optimum performance. If there is a Real D theatre in your area, just go see a 3D movie and you'll get a pair of Real D 3D glasses included in the ticket price.

Thanks for the info, but the website didn't have anything pertaining to 3D glasses, that's why I asked.

That's why I said "There aren't any 3D glasses listed on the site, perhaps you can email them."

AWoods wrote:That's why I said "There aren't any 3D glasses listed on the site, perhaps you can email them."

You said that in your recent post, not the original one.

Anyway...
I ended up finding some nice looking ones on berezin.com, hopefully they will work well.

FWIW: the model numbers for the replacement Zalman 3D glasses are: ZM-SG100G (glasses type) and ZM-SG100C (clip-on type)

Availability in:
UK http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... 3d-glasses" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Japan http://www.amazon.co.jp/s/url=search-al ... =zalman+3D" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Australia http://www.megaware.com.au/index.php?ma ... s_id=81960" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Couldn't find any sellers in the USA.

thanks! I actually emailed Zalman and they told me they didn't sell replacements so, good to know I can order from overseas if I need to. I will be interested to see the quality on the ones I ordered are, they look nice.

http://www.berezin.com/3D/3dglasses.htm#Circular" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I just emailed with Steve Berezin (owner of Berezin 3D) and he said the circular polarised 3D glasses available from his site are available in both circular orientations.
If the customer doesn't specify, he provides them in 0 degrees orientation (the same as the Real D circular polarised 3D glasses).
My suggestion is that if you want to use them on the Zalman 3D monitor, it would be wise to ask for glasses with the 45 degree orientation - i.e. direction of the rear linear polariser layer is top right to bottom left). // vs. --
Hope this helps!

Woods,
Thanks for the details there, I didn't know there were 2 different orientation options for them. I sent Steve an email and asked him if he could send me the 45 degree circular polarized. I didn't see any options for 45 vs 0 when I ordered so, huge help and thank you.

Jeremy

http://www.gunnars.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Andrew, I met this company at PAX. The company was founded by former OAKLEY sunglasses engineers and had funding from Apple's Wozniak I believe. They told me they were coming out with professional quality Stereo3D glasses in a few months and had relationships with REALD. Perhaps you or someone else here could contact them and ask about if they could make thier new stereo3D glasses with the right polarizations to work with the Zalman.

Bastage, could you please tell us if the glasses that you bought from Berezin (if you did) are of good quality? What about ghosting, especially compared with the original Zalman glasses that come with the monitor?

I have recently bought a pair of circular polarised 3d glasses from i-3k.com and they are Real D compatible. Took them to see Shrek at the movies and they were better than cheap disposable ones. They have good quality lenses which makes a difference. Havnt tried them with the new passive TVs yet but they worked at my local bar on their LG 3d TV.

Bought my linear polarised glasses from this shop, they have RealD compatible circular polarised glasses too
http://www.stereomax.fr/shoppolar.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Delivery in the European Union and switzerland

You can browse huge selection of linear 3d polarized glasses (45°/135° and 0°/90°) and circular 3d polarized glasses at http://the3dmarket.myshopify.com/collections/polarized

Speaking of Oakley:

http://www.oakley.com/innovation/optica ... rity/hdo3d" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;