Panasonic has recently opened new 3D labs at the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory in California in order to establish and develop their version of 3D Blu-ray, which they are calling "3D Full HD" (3D FHD). There, they will work directly with Hollywood studios to develop 3D Blu-ray titles, as well as develop consumer products to support those titles.
The company plans to develop a 3D Plasma display, a 3D-ready digital cinema projector, and a 3D-ready MPEG-4 decoder for consumer applications. For evaluation purposes, they will install a 380-inch screen at their facility, which is assumed to replace the existing screen in their evaluation room (which is a really nice set-up).
Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, Managing Director of Panasonic Hollywood Laborator, commented, "Panasonic recognizes that for 3D FHD to succeed, just like Blu-ray, collaboration on research, development and production with studios and content providers is absolutely essential. The creation of the new PHL Authoring Center will enable Hollywood to start trial production and ultimately create commercially available 3D FHD titles to realize a new window into reality, and elevate the level of High Definition entertainment that consumers can enjoy in their own homes."
Oh yippee, another format war! At least its for something nobody cares about for at least a few years yet. Let's hope all the competing factions get a clue before they run each other into the ground and confuse the hell out of consumers in the process.
I have a bad feeling about this. It smacks of too much too soon. How about they let Blu-ray bed in properly before launching another tech that *could* render much of our existing gear rendundant? Particularly in the current economic climate.
That's before we even get to disagreements over standards and possible format wars...
I was just wondering...is this the 3D you see at the movies where every once in a while an images appears to jump off the screen at you? Or is this something far more involved, where every object on the screen is 3D at all times? Either way, I think this is the last thing we need at this point.
I totally agree with sjy1969, they should let Blu-ray settle properly. Once Blu-ray has set in nicely,
then we can bring this 3D Blu-ray technology out.
This sounds more to me like an expansion of Blu-ray Disc technology, not a replacement for it, so I
don't see where a format war would come into the picture. To wit, the article states that "they will
directly work with Hollywood studios to develop 3D Blu-ray titles".
If the data needs of 3D FHD exceed that of current BD-50 discs, then they will likely try to expand on
the current BD-300 and BD-500 efforts, which would actually help BD technology mature. However,
they will be using BD to support and move forward from 1080p towards 3D, not to move away from
BD.
its a specific expansion for specific movies. seeing better 3D animated movies would be awsome. I think its a good move in the right direction. blu ray will only be ousted by some sort of a holographic display in the future. Upping the resolution more will be a moot point otherwise.
Haha - they're going from a 120" screen to a 380" screen.
That's seriously cool - I wish I had a room big enough for one of those...and that 2k projector they use which I'm sure will be getting upgraded too.
Sounds like it will make it so a movie like "My Bloody Valentine 3D" or "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D" will look like the 3D version you saw of it in the theater instead of the red/blue 3D version you got on the DVD's and Blu-rays of "Journey...", "The Polar Express", etc.
The huge downside is it looks like you will have to a buy a special display and player/projector to get any of these benefits. I see very few people being willing to do that.
I would put my money on the fact that this will fail, ruining Panasonic's reputation, and wasting TONS of their money, and ultimately delay Blu-ray taking over 50% of the market by confusing the average joe! People can barely afford Blu-ray now......why make it worse by introducing something that WILL NOT BE CHEAP, and cause people to not go with either one.....................way to go Panasonic........duh! (remember Samsung 3-d RPTV's?......another WASTE)
There is no downside. The tech will be backwards compatible while propelling BD tech forward.
As far as adoption, it's two pronged: regular people will move to BD eventually but the early adopter (some of the members on this site) will get 3D displays/projector/player.
If all the studios and CE's move to Panasonic's 3 D technology (they already have James Cameron's Avatar signed on), then all is good. There are other CE's with other ideas about how to do 3D in the home though.
Also, if it's not on 120hz 1080p LCD, I don't want it.
The whole point of setting it up in Holywood is that they can encourage Holywood to make more films in 3d.
Once they have all this 3d content, then it makes sense to sell 3d equipment into our homes.
If there's no 3d films, then no-one would buy a 3d tv!
(Stating the obvious really, but needs to be stated sometimes)
(oh, and personally, i'd like to see 100Hz+ first -forget 4k res and 3d!)
It will likely take 5 years to get this technology to market, blu-ray should be well established by then. The key to the success of 3-D at home will be to find a way of encoding the image on the disc in such a way that it will be compatible with multiple types of 3-D display. In other words, create a disk format that encodes both the right and left image and leave it up to each user's display hardware to make it 3-D.
This will, however, be a niche product for many years to come.
I don't understand why they are even bothering. There has not been any good 3D movies ever made. It just gives you a headache. Hear is a Idea, you can smoke some pot before wathing a 3D Movie and watch it in 4D
i dont think panny is going for the average joe. so i think what theyre doing is great. admit it, its a
technology thats been around for a while (remember jaws 3 in 3-d) but before it was the tip of the
iceburg now i think itll be way better. i think its a small piece to a bigger picture. best example is the
shrek show in disneyworld. they have the d-box chairs, then youll have 3-d, then youll have like fan
type things or water type things that interact with the movie. add them together and you have a very
interactive and fun movie. itll be a lot of money but im in.
I'm also supporting the idea of a 3-D future. I'd like to see not only movies make the transition but also 3-D video games (as shown by Sony at CES). I was pretty impressed with Journey to the Center of the Earth 3-D when I saw it in theatres and to a lesser extent on Blu-ray. Missed Beowulf in 3-D, but I'm told it was pretty incredible. So I'm all for any system that brings that experience closer to home.
I think a lot of people think of 3D as the old crappy kind. The new stuff is wicked cool! No distortion, no ghosting, no coloring and no headaches. I'm talking about the Dolby Labs 3D. It looks perfect even if you tilt your head, etc. If Panny can partner up with them, that would be awesome.
As for content, there's plenty of IMAX stuff, lots of old movies and more and more new movies. Plus, as we have seen, any movie can be easily converted to 3D. Let's not forget the Toy Story and Star Wars movies are going to be re-released in 3D!
I can wait. It took me a year to build a nice Bd collection. I have my HT sound system setup just the way I want it. I am planning on getting a 2D FHD1080p projector (probably a Mitsubishi, haha!) and a 100 in. screen sometime this year. I expect to get several years of enjoyment out of it yet. I not jumping on another bandwagon every time one comes along. I bet the price of the 3D FHD projector is going to be formidable. Panasonic's 1080p projector 2 or 3 years ago cost over $6K and now it costs about the same as a large LCD TV. I would expect the 3D FHD to cost perhaps somewhere in the $6K - $10K range when it first hits the market. The average jane or joe won't be able to afford that. So it'll be a niche market for while like 2D Blu-ray was. If 3D FHD Blu-ray makes it to the mainstream several years from now, I might consider it. In the mean time, I'll just sit back, relax, and enjoy what I have now.
Just to clarify, you need 3D glasses for this ... correct? Why would you need a special TV or player ... I don't get it. Thats how it is for IMAX. The video source off the blu-ray/DVD would determine whether it is 3D or not.
I think what they are selling is a projector or TV that can take regular blu-rays or DVD's and convert the video source to 3D. But you cannot see 3D without the glasses as well. Correct?
Isn't it feasible to expect that they could just release a Blu-ray later with both regular and 3D display modes. Pick up the special glasses and your good to go. No need for a new TV or projector.
This type of 3D requires a new TV because it's projecting 2 different images at the same time. It's not the red/green kind. That old kind just uses color filters to give each eye a unique perspective, but it's just one image. That's why it looks like crap. The new kind would use shutter glasses or polarized glasses, I'm not sure which.
I was just wondering...is this the 3D you see at the movies where every once in a while an images appears to jump off the screen at you? Or is this something far more involved, where every object on the screen is 3D at all times? Either way, I think this is the last thing we need at this point.
I was wondering that too. I took my daughter to see Coraline on Saturday and I thought it would be just stuff jumping out at you but the entire movie had a 3D effect. Even if you have to wear glasses I'm all in with regular movies having the same effects.
its not that hard to do actually, I watched how a 3D movie is filmed, and its pretty much 2 cameras side by side and then when putting them together put blue over top of one and red on the other. all it would take pretty much is to do the same thing and change the colors a little bit, maybe not such extreme colors like blue and red. not sure the specific colors but if they used the same colors as they did for the 3D movies at the theaters with the decent pair of glasses instead of the cheap ones, then that alone would suit me. Im anxious to see how this will be done, and when it happens I hope they rerelease friday the 13th part 3 in 3D, I bought it the other day on DVD and the not so good quality of the movie and then the red and blue glasses on top of that, gave me a headache watching it.
I'm not buying 3D. I love it at the movies but "Chuck" on TV, while amazing, made my eyes hurt. The
TV tech for 3D is too far off for me to put my money it anytime in the next couple decades
So fast! I've got a collection of 3-D comics, movies and gizmos. Can Smell-O-Vision be far behind? Technology continues to surpass creativity! Isn't this one of the signs of the end of the world? I thought the D-Box toilet was coming out first.
All I picture when reading this is a wave of complaints and returns after a bunch of people buy 3D movies on Blu-ray that "don't work" because they didn't know they needed special equipment. This better be *really* carefully planned out.
Question if anyone can answer. If this new form of 3D does project two images at once to gain its effect then logically not only will we need new televisions and players but correct me if Im wrong but wouldn't that mean full color 3D Blu-rays will need twice the bit rate of 2D high definition. If thats the case then we couldn't fit any 3D movie longer then 2 hours on a BD-50.
Panasonic has recently opened new 3D labs at the Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory in California in order to establish and develop their version of 3D Blu-ray, which they are calling "3D Full HD" (3D FHD). There, they will work directly with Hollywood studios to develop 3D Blu-ray titles, as well as develop consumer products to support those titles.
