3D Ready TV Guide

With all the buzz surrounding the recent announcements by a host of consumer electronics giants regarding their upcoming 3D Televisions, the one question on many people’s minds is – What is a 3D Ready TV?

If you’re one of the people wondering the same thing, then look no further as this article will explain everything you need to know about what ‘3D Ready’ really means.

3D Ready is similar to the previously well known “HD Ready” label that was associated with any new HDTV purchase over the last few years. The idea behind such a label is to reassure you, the consumer, that a TV that you are purchasing will be capable of meeting the hardware requirements so as to display HD or in the case of 3D Ready, 3D content without requiring any additional hardware or upgrades.

Will my 3D Ready TV be able to display any 3D Content?

That is a very good question, and unfortunately the answer to that is both Yes and No. I can already hear you groaning, but don’t worry, I’ll try to explain as concisely and clearly as I can so that once you are done reading this article you will know exactly what you are getting when you decide to purchase a 3D Ready TV. So let’s dive into things by first going over a few of the basics of how 3D television sets work. If you’re curious to learn about the details, then do refer to my article describing how 3D displays work.

A 3D display works by using some technology (it doesn’t matter what the technology is) so that it can deliver a unique image to the left and right eye of the viewer. The images that are sent to each eye are meant to correspond to the left and right eye perspective of the same scene so as to trick your brain into believing that it is actually perceiving this scene in 3D. This works because our visual cortex uses visual cues from the slightly different perspective we get from the image from each eye so as to reconstruct a 3-dimensional understanding of our view.

Now that you understand the basics of how a 3D TV works, let’s look at what 3D Ready really implies.

3D TV Size

At the moment there are no upper or lower bounds on the size of a display for it to be 3D Ready. You can purchase LCD monitors that are 19-22 inches in size for 3D Gaming or you should be able to buy 3D Ready TVs that are larger than 60 inches in size sometime later in 2010. So when it comes to TV Size, you can pick whatever size fits your budget and your TV room

Refresh Rate for 3D Ready TVs

The refresh rate of a TV defines how quickly or how often the image displayed on the screen is updated or refreshed. The higher the refresh rate, the faster the image is updated and as a result this usually leads to a smoother viewing experience. Refresh rate is measured in Hz (Hertz) which is basically one over seconds. So if the refresh rate of a TV is 60 Hz, it means that the screen is refreshed with a new image every 1/60 or 16.7 milliseconds.

When it comes to 3D TVs, almost all the current technology involves the sequential display of images (frame-sequential) on the TV wherein one frame is meant for the left eye and the subsequent frame is meant for the right eye. Then by using some type of eye wear such as active shutter glasses that is synced with the 3D TV, only one eye is allowed to view the image on the screen that is meant for it while the other eye is prevented from seeing it by the shutter glass (the corresponding eye-piece on the shutter glass turns opaque to prevent that eye from seeing the image). As you would imagine, if the TV has a refresh rate of 60 Hz and each eye is seeing only half of the 60 frames per second in an alternate fashion, then each eye is experiencing a net frame rate of 30 Hz. If you remember using crappy CRT monitors from a few years back, then you will know that 30Hz is far too low and will cause a lot of flicker in the image and give you a headache after a few minutes of viewing.

To counter this effect, 3D TV manufacturers have proposed increasing the refresh rates of 3D TVs to a minimum of 120 Hz so that each eye experiences a refresh rate of 60 Hz. This is far more acceptable although a small number of people (including myself) can perceive and be affected by flicker even at 60 Hz. This is why manufacturers are also looking to ship improved 3D Ready displays that have refresh rates of 240 Hz (120 Hz per eye) or even 480 Hz. So a 3D Ready TV will possess at the very least a Refresh rate of 120 Hz. However, if you’re looking for a better, smoother 3D experience or are very sensitive to flicker like me, then you would do well to choose a 3D Ready Display with a minimum refresh rate of at least 240 Hz.

So, Will a 3D Ready TV be able to view all 3D Content?

Unfortunately there hasn’t been any clear cut 3D specification that content providers are planning to follow so it is a bit hard to answer this with absolute certainty at the moment. However, given the thrust by the industry towards 3D, it would be very surprising if they did not come to a common consensus on a 3D standard. Also you should keep in mind that the actual display technology used by the manufacturer to display 3D content in stereoscopic 3D to the viewer need not be uniform across all manufacturers. What needs to be specified and standardized is the specifications of the 3D content in terms of the frames per seconds of the video, allowed resolutions, whether the left and right eye frames will be interlaced or sequential, etc. Once this is fixed, then irrespective of the 3D display technology, each TV will be able to decode the incoming 3D content into the component left and right eye channels and process it accordingly based on the technology it uses to display the 3D content.

The good news however is that the Blu-ray 3D specification has indeed been finalized. It will involve using Multiview Video Coding which is a variant of the widely used H.264/MPEG-4 AVC Codec. Regarding compatibility, the specification supports playback of 2D discs in the upcoming 3D players. What is also pretty neat is the fact that newer 3D Blu-ray discs will still work on older Blu-ray players and will display a regular 2D version of the 3D movie. This focus on backward compatibility will certainly help with the adoption of 3D Televisions.

Given the fact that we already have a 3D Blu-ray specification that the industry has agreed upon, and with recent announcements by ESPN, Discovery Channel and Sky regarding upcoming 3D channels, it seems that it is a matter of time before a common specification is agreed upon for regular over the air/cable 3D Content. The manufacturers have invested far too much into this new technology to go and shoot themselves in the foot by fragmenting the market and bickering over multiple 3D formats.

The fact that these specifications are Display agnostic is actually a great advantage as it will prevent innovation in 3D display technology from stagnating and will give manufacturers a big reason to develop the best 3D display technology so as to differentiate themselves from the rest of the market.

I’m still confused, What does ’3D Ready’ really mean?

Obviously I’ve been doing a terrible job if this is your current state of mind . To summarize very briefly – 3D Ready means that the television will possess a minimum refresh rate of 120 Hz and will be capable of displaying 3D content that is made available in the future. It does not guarantee what the display technology itself will be (It could use active shutter glasses, or polarized glasses, etc) but it does provide reassurance that the television is capable of displaying content in 3D.

The Catch

You’ve probably been waiting for it, so here it is! This is something that I think everyone of you guys should be aware of before you go looking to buy a 3D TV. Not all 3D Ready TVs come with a method to display 3D content. This is especially true of TVs and monitors sold in the last couple of years as 3D ready. These displays have the required refresh rate of 120 Hz or higher, but they lack any active shutterglass integration or the ability to use polarized glasses to view 3D content.

So how in the world do you use them for 3D content? Well, in the case of those particular displays you will need to buy separate hardware involving shutterglasses and a syncing unit that connects to the TV and also communicated with your glasses. This means additional costs for you. However with the new range of 3D Tvs that are on the horizon, this shouldn’t be something to worry about as almost all 3D Ready TVs should come with a syncing and 3D processing unit integrated with the TV along with a pair of complementary 3D glasses. However, consider yourself warned, so make sure to check up on exactly what your 3D Ready TV actually comes with as there might be some unscrupulous manufacturers who try to take advantage of customers in this manner.

So there you have it. Everything you needed to know about 3D Ready displays. I’ll be sure to update this guide as and when more news is available. I hope you found this useful. Do share your thoughts and leave a comment below.