My Uncle?s Computer, Amiga, and 3D - Do You Get it?

[Neil]

Do you think Hollywood's adoption of S-3D is the education tool our industry needs? At what point do you think the misunderstandings and misinformation about S-3D will stop?

In your opinion, what will be our industry's equivalent of Windows '95?

Do you have a similar experience or story to share?

Regards,
Neil

[Tril]

S-3D for gaming will take off when some criteria are satisfied :

• Good ease of use
  Big screen size
  High resolution
  High picture quality
  Low annoyance factor

The annoyance factor as I call it can be :

• Flicker of shutter glasses
  Frame of glasses too small for the size of the screen
  Glasses that darken the screen too much
  Wearing glasses
  Games/apps that don't work in S-3D or that require going through hoops before getting it to work partially.
  Anything that's frustrating for the user

Overall, you have to satisfy the customer. I can't say I've always been satisfied with S-3D products I've used in the past.

From what I've seen this year, S-3D hardware and software is improving. If you look at iZ3D and TDVision right now, you'll see that they both have good hardware and software. They are both working on improving compatibility with games/apps. iZ3D with their drivers and TDVision with their TDVirtualCam (which I hope will get included in games to come) and plugins.

I also think that a good S-3D solution that would work in S-3D with consoles for one or many users at a time would be a hit. That requires the console and the game developpers to support it.

I started gaming on a commodore 64. I had many games. After that, I had the following (in that order) : pc with games on 5 1/4" disks, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Dreamcast, Xbox, Playstation 2. I upgraded the pc many times through the years.

[pixel67]

I think the watershed event for gaming would be console support and advertising "teaming" with Hollywood. The real shame here is that the PS3 is theoretically 3D capable now due to its 7900 based graphics core, we just don't have any native content or a good consumer level display solution that the average gamer could purchase (IZ3D, DLP3D, and TDVisor are good solutions, just too expensive). I imagine over 90% of consoles are connected to TV's and not PC monitors so there is a huge limitation that raises the cost of entry. Now if the TDVisor was PS3 compatible AND Sony started cranking up the marketing machine and establish a partership with them, then maybe, just maybe we would see something short term. You know how this type of "partnership" would work. TDVision, or some other HMD manufacturer, would actually have to sell the hardware at a loss so that consumers can afford the hardware. Then charge an extra 5-10 bucks per game to offset this and allow them to be profitable. DLP3D displays would also be able to take advantage of this type of program due to native HDMI support, but then we are stuck in the same old rut of developer support. Maybe a 3 way partnership would be in order (Sony, TDVision, EA)?

Now, what if Beuwolf were available in a 3D Video game and was released the same day as the movie. Even an in movie advertisement for the technology... Given the fantastic showing of this movie the last two days, do you would think consumers would flock to the local best buy and drop 500 - 600 dollars down on the latest 3d gear? A very high percentage of them would want to! Even more would be hitting e-bay like crazy over the holiday season. I paid a mint for my PS3 when it first cme out. Who knows, the PS3 is still young and maybe sony will wake up and smell the CA$H!

PiXeL