Coming back from shutter S-3D of years ago, what to expect?

[Neo42]

Many moons (years) ago I tried out some ELSA branded shutter glasses packaged in with an early geforce card. On a CRT monitor 60hz induced some flicker and eye strain. There were also noticeable (distracting enough anyway) ghosting issues.

My new venture is a 3d ready mitsu DLP (WD60C9 I believe is model) and IO Display Systems shutters. Should I see a reasonable amount of improvement from the old setup?

[cybereality]

I haven't seen the Mitsu myself but from what I heard it should be better than what you have seen in the past.

[Neo42]

That is encouraging. I am currently using this display hooked up to a Windows 7 PC running an ATI Radeon (not sure what series or model, nothing super hot as I don't play a lot of games) video card with HDMI output. Can I expect IZ3D drivers to work in this scenario? Any suggestions on free content to check out? If I get into gaming is there an affordable ($100ish) NVIDIA card that will yield positive results?

Thanks all

[cybereality]

Yes, IZ3D drivers should work with that setup and are free for ATI customers ($50 otherwise). In terms of video cards the Radeon HD 5750 is a decent card to get on the lower end and should beat Nvidia's low end offerings (plus the iz3D is free with ATI). In terms of free content, there are tons of game demos out there. There are also some nice videos over at: http://3dtv.at/Movies/Index_en.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[xhonzi]

I am also coming back after years...

I think I might have found an answer to this question, but I'm not sure:
I had the "Ultimate 3-D Collection" by Razor that included field sequential DVDs of Haunted Castle, Encounter in the 3rd Dimension, etc..." The wired shutter glasses worked at 60hz as directed by the sync box which was fed the 480i signal.

Is there any reason these glasses won't sync at 120hz or even 240hz? Is there a physical deficiency in the glasses themselves that don't provide for these higher sync rates? If so, why aren't $10-$15 crap technology like these being suggested as a cheap alternative to the new hotness which cost > $150?

Thanks!

[cybereality]

Those old shutter glasses could certainly work at 120Hz. The problem is driver support on the PC and hardware support for HDTVs. On the PC it is only Nvidia's proprietary 3D Vision glasses that have any modern support. Although the older cheapo glasses could technically work, Nvidia locks them out. On the HDTV end you have all these new HDMI 1.4 sets coming out that only work with the same brand of proprietary shutter glasses. So a Panasonic TV will only work with Panasonic glasses and so forth. There are a couple of older 3D-ready HDTVs like those from Samsung which still will work with older cheap glasses but that is the exception rather than the norm.

[xhonzi]

I'm obviously the rookie here, but:

How hard can it be to hack it? At the end of the day, aren't all of the glasses receiving a signal (in the case of the Razor wired glasses, +5 volts or something?) that tells them to darken? Some of you geniuses here (and I mean that term genuinely) can figure that out, right?

[cybereality]

Its not just about hacking the IR signal and emulating it. Its about having control of the source of the sync. For example on the PC in order to work with say the Nvidia stereo driver you would need low level access at the display driver level (meaning the driver source code). This is a big problem and is why IZ3D has not of yet been able to sync shutter glasses with their driver. I think ATI is going to be exposing hooks with their driver to do this though. So assuming you were doing this then you would need a custom USB IR emitter which used the 3D glasses sync signal. Seems like an awful lot of trouble to save $50 bucks; you'll probably spend more time and money just on the hack.

[xhonzi]

The glasses are wired, does that make a difference?

[cybereality]

What is it you are trying to accomplish exactly?

[xhonzi]

That's a really good question! Basically- I have a handful of these wired glasses and and any way I could save the $600 of replacing them is good. I haven't made a stab at what other equipment I'd be buying, so I don't know what I'd be trying to interface them into... I guess my main two options would be desktop PC gaming to start with an eventual 3D upgrade to my home theatre when the 120hz PJs come out.

So, I'm not trying anything specific right now, but if there were a way to use the glasses I already have- it would bring the cost of the PC solution down far enough I would probably go for it.

[Dom]

Are you using a crt monitor with your wired glasses? This is the most compatable and cheapest solution around. If you are worried about using the iz3d drivers syncing trouble why not just run a 7900gt or simliar nvidia card and use their 91.31 or 165.50 stereo driver combos along with winxp. It would be a real fast setup since its matured and the cost/vs quality is definetly there.

As far as the mitsubishi tv's go I heard they don't ghost and blurr at all and are supported by nvidia and iz3d.
For content to view, look for 3d ready games to play they are the best. Just cause 2 is out now and it is real dynamic.

[cybereality]

Well it really depends on what display solution you are looking to get. For example, the old 2007 era Samsung 3D-Ready displays will already work with wired glasses right now. However the 2010 Samsung 3D models only work with the Samsung proprietary glasses (and would require significant hacking to work with legacy glasses). I am not sure there are any projectors that support the VESA stereo sync plug (for wired glasses) although some may be able to do software page-flipping over VGA. So really I would wait until you decide on a display and then seek more info specific to that.