Active Sync glasses, let the battle begin!
Posted on 13. Dec, 2009 by "Mitch" in Glasses, Industry
Xpand, which is primarily the UK version of RealD in the 3D theater market, is planning on taking their technology into the home with S3D active shutter glasses. Xpand plans on showing off their wares at next month’s Consumer Electronics Show. Variety magazine has a story going about this “DLP Link” technology.
Company’s active shutter glasses have electronics built in that cause each lens in turn to darken to solid black, then lighten again, many times a second, so the viewer only sees out of lens at a time (a.k.a. “frame sequential”). The glasses pick up a signal from the projector to stay in sync with the screen. Imax 3D led the S3D revival in the 1990s with a similar active-glasses system.
Because there’s tech in the glasses, active-glasses systems require less tech in the projector or screen — and that is the key to Xpand’s play for the home space.
Coming at CES is the announcement of “DLP Link,” a new way of syncing active glasses with the screen. DLP Link will be built into all home-theater projectors with the Texas Instruments DLP chip. Xpand will support DLP Link with new glasses.
What the Variety story neglects to mention is that Nvidia already has its 3D Vision kit out on the market. Both products can work with most displays that have a refresh rate of at least 120 hz. Although it can work with other refresh rates in some cases, it is not suggested.
So as Xpand, RealD and other Theater and film based companies race to get hardware into the home they are going to read smack into the gaming world, and compete with the likes of Nvidia/Intel, AMD/ATI, Logitech, Sony and others.
Start looking for Xpand and RealD to partner up with companies like Logitech and Sony, to get their names somewhere on the consumer / home products. The battle for active shutter glasses and active shutter systems with headphones and microphones for console and pc gaming are just around the corner. We’ll be following this story every step of the way.
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