The basics of 3D TVs

You've probably heard the rumors about 3D TV's and how it may dominate the television industry. Within the next 9 years one market research firm projects the 3D TV market is going to grow nearly 300 times. Meaning almost everybody may be watching, sports, movies, etc on a TV that seems to make the images leap off the screen

Before you get a 3D TV you should know more about it. For example: Do you need a new blue-ray player to watch 3D movies? YES. Is 3D a lot more expensive? No not really. Can you watch 2D television (normal quality). Yes you can switch back and forth from 2D to 3D.

A 3D display on a 2D surface is basically stereo for your eyes. One left image one right. In fact 3D video and pictures is sometimes taking using right and left lenses that are slightly off set. How offset? Exactly off set as a pair of human eyes. About 7 centimeters or 4 inches. Its called stereopsis. The brain thinks its looking at a 3d object because its seeing 2 different pictures, from 2 different prospectives. The same 2 viewing angels as your eyes. It creates the illusion of depth. Right now TV companies can project those 2 pictures on to 1 screen at the same time without making them blurry and its to expensive to have 2 different TVs for each eye. So they came up with 2 main ways to trick your brain into seeing focused 3D pictures on 1 screen.

3D TVs currently falls into 2 different categories. 3D you watch with active shutter glasses and 3D TV you watch with polarized glasses.

Here's how active shutter works. The glasses are powered by batteries and our linked to an emitter tin your 3D television. The emitter sends radio or info-red signals to your glasses and tells each lens of the glasses to either open or close. Like a window shutter. This happens in-sync with fast flashing left or right images on the screen. This all happens over 100 times a second. This is why its nearly impossible to turn your LED TVs or a Plasma television into 3D. This refresh rate is also known as the HZ.

OK so you know about active shutter glasses, but that's not the only way to see 3D. If you've seen avatar or Alice in wonderland in the movie theater you were using polarized glasses. Like shutter glasses. Polarized lenses lets you see different slightly off-set images in each eye./ Tricking your brain into seeing 3D, but instead of flashing left and right pictures one at a time on the screen. Movie theaters project both left and right images at the same time with 2 different projectors. Its not blurry because the left lens only lets your left eye see only the left the left picture and the right lens only lets your eye see the right picture and remember polarized lens dont need to be battery powered or synchronized there passive.