News & Analysis
LG plays the health card to win a 3-D TV battle
Junko Yoshida
1/6/2011 11:07 AM EST
LAS VEGAS – LG Electronics has flung the gauntlet at the fledgling 3-D TV market by citing potential health hazards with active shutter glasses 3-D TV sets. The move unveiled at CES on Wednesday (Jan. 5) is intended to promote LG’s own newly developed Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) 3-D TFT-LCD technology.
Since the commercial 3-D TV rollout last year, the consumer electronics industry has called the active shutter-glass the best available technology choice. It’s been promoted almost unanimously by all the major brands including LG – until now.
Although active shutter glasses-based 3-D TV may have helped the TV industry kick start a yet-to-blossom 3-D movement (while potentially harming consumers’ health), it’s now clear that the 3-D technology battle is far from being settled.
The competition is now moving onto 3-D using passive polarized technologies; while glasses-free 3-D HDTV also looms on the horizon.
The hottest news at the CES is that LG is betting the farm on film pattern retarder (FPR). Meanwhile, RealD made a pre-emptive strike here this week by announcing that the company is teaming up with Samsung to push yet another 3-D display technology called RDZ. This is also a passive polarized solution but adopts active shutter technology on the display. It essentially takes the shuttering technology used in the glasses and places it in front of the LCD. Toshiba, in contrast, is pushing glasses-free 3-DTV as previously reported in Toshiba’s glasses-free 3-D panel: Worth the wait?".
Said Young Soo Kwon, president and CEO of LG Displays: “We believe that the shutter-glass technology based 3-D TV won’t be successful, because consumers are concerned about health issues, and it is too costly.” In contrast, he noted, “Film patterned retarder can offer good quality 3-D at a reasonable cost.”
LG will stop supplying shutter glass-based 3-D TV “in a short period of time,” Kwon said. LG will launch FPR-based sets in April.
LG’s decision to bet so big on FPR, while being so vocal at CES about the potential health problems with current 3-D TVs, hit the industry with a shock wave. Chris Chinook, president of Insight Media, a market research firm focused on the emerging segments of the display industry, called LG’s move “bold, very bold.”
The idea of a “patterned retarder” used in FPR is not new. Pioneered by Arisawa Manufacturing in Japan, patterned retarder, using a passive polarizer, delivers 540 lines to the left and right eye, reducing flicker and crosstalk. However, proponents of competing 3-D technologies tend to dismiss patterned retarder technology as “half HD, not full HD.”
LG’s invention in FPR lies in the replacement of the glass by film. FPR is said to cost only one quarter of the glass-patterned retarder technology. With a sizeable investment, LG Display built a plant, tested its film technology, and is ready for full production, Chinook said.
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Etmax
1/6/2011 5:51 PM EST
The problem with 3D shutter technologies is that the right and left eye see their respective images at alternate times. Although the better sets use 200Hz frame rate the actual displays struggle to do better than around 120Hz changes, which then equates to a 60Hz flicker rate. If both eyes see the same frame flickered the brain isn't stressed, but with an image alternating between eyes at this rate many people develop eye strain and headaches after a time shorter than the average movie. Potential for epileptic fits comes to mind as well.
What LG is suggesting sounds like a sensible way out, as a typical 50" TV has a vertical pixel size of a little over 0.5mm. Alternating lines gives a 1mm pixel which at a 3-4m viewing distance is hardly a distraction from HD.
All that being said, I see 3D going the way of Blueray/HDDVD these competing formats so muddled the waters that the surviving Blueray is now struggling to gain converts. Blueray needs 3D to become as prevalent as DVD, if it's not to become another SACD, yet the marketers of 3D technology are fragmenting the market yet again. Will those bozo's never learn?
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Andrew.Green
1/6/2011 8:54 PM EST
The 3D market isn't fragmenting. 3D display technology is separate from 3D content distribution formats. The 3D content formats were just recently agreed upon in 2010. The 3D displays will convert the 3D content in order to display it with the technology the display uses.
As an example Mitsubishi TVs have had 3D support for years well before 3D formats were standardized. These TVs use a checkerboard pattern where all odd pixels are for the left eye and even pixels are for the right eye (shutter glasses still required). Mitsubishi provides a box that converts the latest 3D content to the checkerboard format so that their older TVs can display the latest 3D content.
Likewise FPR, RZD, and even as-yet-uncreated 3D display technologies will be able to convert the standard content formats to their proprietary display formats.
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Etmax
1/6/2011 9:19 PM EST
I stand corrected on fragmentation at the source, thanks for explaining that. Interestingly if the pixels alternate their content you have only half the horizontal resolution. I wonder why LG didn't have their filter separate horizontally like the source?? Any ideas?
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ost
1/7/2011 3:04 AM EST
The technology is not the only problem. The content needs to work as intended as well.
I know that a major computer graphic cards manufacturer - when outputting active stereo - does not render left and following right frame at the same "space-time". They actually move stuff around a frame-period before rendering the next eye. Of course the brain will get stressed when things are moving. The faster movement, the more stress.
And also, interference with room lighting has a big impact on stress. Fluorecent lamps are not kind to shutter glasses.
I have been working with stereoscopic displays for more than 10 years now and very few systems have control of the important details. And I don't trust any of the old research material, cause I don't know if the details were in place when they did it.
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MSimon
1/6/2011 8:08 PM EST
Edison proved AC electricity was no good. How? He designed the electric chair to prove how dangerous AC was.
And the Westinghouse/Tesla patents on 3 phase electricity retarded the market until the patents ran out.
These technology wars are nothing new.
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yalanand
1/7/2011 11:47 AM EST
Hey nice analogy...I hope you are right in this case. Lets hope we will find some innovative way such that 3DTV health hazards doesnt kill the growing 3DTV industry.
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Robotics Developer
1/7/2011 10:31 AM EST
While I find the news about competing technologies interesting, I am still not inclined to invest in an expensive / emerging system. Is there enough 3D source to make the cost worthwhile? I am not a doctor but it would seem to me that the flicker would stress the user's eyes, I know from working in offices with fluorescent lights that my eyes are often tired at the end of the day. In natural sunlight (as it at home with a window) I do not have the same tired eye syndrome. So, I will wait for the dust to settle on 3D and then maybe consider it for the home if the movie / TV content is there.
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kkersey
1/7/2011 12:09 PM EST
Just got back from CES - I got to view many competitor's 3D displays. I went in with an open mind, and came out believing that LG's passive approach is head-and-shoulder's the best (I have no affiliation with them). The active glasses of others give weird "shimmery" effects, and subliminally "feel" wrong (probably the rapid lens switching causing subconscious nerve confusion). Some glasses-free displays looked OK, but only at ONE distance. LG's looked great at any distance. Kudos, LG.
Also, Fuji's 3D snapshot camera (the W3) was very well done. The camera had a lenticular (glasses-free) 3D viewfinder LCD and was easily toggled between 2D and 3D.
Overall, I'm still unclear whether 3D displays add enough value to become mainstream - but I came away with more postive feelings about it (with LG's approach) than before.
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hm
1/7/2011 11:04 PM EST
I had a chance to experience the 3D technology at local Best Buy store. However, with 3D glasses, I found large screen TV image looks smaller. Is this due to optics or some other reason? Or does it happen to me only?
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selinz
1/10/2011 7:30 PM EST
With ESPN now broadcasting a 3D channel full-time, I'd be likely to buy a 3d version if it is close in price to the non-3d, even if it's an off brand (which I consider LG, although they are big).
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elctrnx_lyf
1/12/2011 9:49 AM EST
I think the 3D is definitely poised for a big growth in the future. Like what we have seen in the 2D LCD display technologies like TN to IPS we will see much better performaing technologies will be available. I will wait till the technology actually matures before buying one 3D TV.
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