Posts Tagged ‘Active 3D’
What If They Gave A Party, But No One Came? – Pete Putman
- Published on Thursday, 11 October 2012 09:12
- Pete Putman
- 0 Comments
In a recent AP news story, writer Ryan Nakashima details how, despite millions of dollars in advertising and promotion over the past 3+ years, American TV viewers have basically ignored 3D TV.
According to the story, “…fewer than 115,000 American TV homes are tuned in to 3D at any given time. That’s less than a hundredth of the 20.2 million-strong audience that watched television’s highest-rated show, NCIS, this week.”
The AP story details that The Nielsen Company can’t capture any significant data about the viewing preferences of this tiny group of viewers. It would also explain the complete lack of ‘buzz’ about Panasonic’s August 3D TV coverage of the 2012 Olympics.
Audience indifference to 3D TV is why DirecTV turned n3D, its barely two-year-old 24-hour 3D channel, into a part-time 3D network, carrying only the rare original 3D broadcast. And it also resulted in AT&T’s U-Verse system dropping ESPN 3D from its channel lineup, citing the high $10 monthly cost for the full ESPN package of channels.
Tom Morrod, an analyst with research firm HIS (formerly iSuppli), was quoted as saying, “There’s very little direct consumer demand for 3-D. They don’t see a value with it. Consumers associate value right now with screen size and very few other features.” That observation, along with consumer disdain for 3D TV, has been backed up by numerous consumer preference surveys. The demand for larger, cheaper TVs above all else is mirrored in Canada and the United Kingdom.
Last November, the Leichtman Research Group polled 1,300 viewers who had watched 3D TV. Of that group, 38 percent rated 3D TV ‘poor,’ as opposed to just 8 percent who rated it excellent. Those numbers have been pretty consistent in several polls since the first 3D TVs came to market in early 2009.
A story that appeared on the CIO Asia Web site earlier this week, offering preview coverage of the annual CEATEC trade show in Japan, stated that “…TV makers appear to be shifting away from years of emphasis on 3D, a technology that has failed to capture the imagination of consumers, even as an value-added offering.”
The emphasis was on the emerging crop of 4K TVs from Sony, LG, JVC, Toshiba, and others. In the story, analyst Keita Wakabayashi at Mito Securities stated that “TV makers weren’t able to use 3D to boost the prices of their sets, so it has just become a drag on their profits. 4K technologies have much more appeal, though at current prices just for the wealthy.”
This inability to capture any premium for 3D means that support for the format will just become a standard feature in most TVs that can be accessed through the user menu. What’s not clear is whether TV manufacturers will continue to supply active shutter or passive 3D eyewear with new TVs to take advantage of that function.
My thinking is that, in an era of squeezed profit margins and red ink, they won’t for much longer. 3D glasses will transition to an accessory item as manufacturers shift their focus to raising consumer awareness of 4K TV. Currently, the latter sets are quite expensive, hovering in the range of $20,000 right now. That’s about what a 50-inch plasma TV cost in the late 1990s.
But we know those prices will come down. NPD DisplaySearch analyst David Hsieh, in a September blog post, stated that 4K TVs will make it to market faster than large OLED TVs and at a more affordable price before long. The yield issues with large OLED panels that have stumped LG Display aren’t a problem with 4K LCDs, even with oxide TFT backplanes still waiting in the wings.
Hsieh states that both AUO and Chi Mei Innolux have shown they can manufacture 4K x 2K LCD panels using a conventional amorphous silicon process, and that a 50” 4K x 2K LCD panel with conventional backlighting is priced at $800, compared to $400 for a 2K 50” panel with slim (edge) LED backlight. He also cites a price of $5,000 for the 84” 4K IPS panel that LG, Sony, and Toshiba are currently using.
Your takeaway? Simply that 4K has a much better chance of stimulating consumer interest than 3D ever did. And I say this knowing full well that (a) there is no 4K content currently available for home viewing, (b) the infrastructure to deliver it over Internet connections doesn’t exist at present, and (c) the early crop of 4K TVs and projectors are just too expensive for the masses for now.
4K TV has a big advantage over 3D, though. It provides an immersive, life-like viewing experience that you don’t need glasses to enjoy, even if you have an eye disorder like 20+% of the U.S. population does. 4K is scalable across a wide range of screen sizes, from 24” on up. All of the mainstream projector technologies (HTPS LCD, DLP, and LCoS) already support it, as do the mainstream direct-view platforms – LCD and plasma. And OLED will, too – when it gets out of the starting gate.
From the content side, there are demonstrable advantages to those who choose to shoot, edit, and finish productions in 4K; particularly with live sporting events and concerts. One 4K camera can cover a wider range of the field and stage, and downstream image processing is used to ‘extract’ multiple 2K segments of the captured images for replays and cutaway views – resulting in a savings in equipment and labor costs. (This approach has already been shown by NHK using 8K cameras).
Those advantages, coupled with more affordable pricing, will drive 4K acquisition and production. That, in turn, will stimulate solutions to home delivery of 4K content, which will consequently light the fire under consumers for 4K TV demand. And all of those underlined qualifiers I listed three paragraphs back will disappear.
This won’t happen overnight – HDTV took 6+ years to become a mainstream production and viewing format – but it will happen. DisplaySearch is currently forecasting that 4K will account for 2% of LCD TVs in 2017 – five years from now – and 22% of the 50”+ TV market.
Most importantly, 4K TVs don’t have to contend with nearly four years of active vs. passive vs. autostereo format wars, battery-operated shutter glasses, film-patterned retarders, critical viewing angles, and half-resolution frame-compatible content; issues that have haunted 3D TV and turned off consumers.
No wonder there are all those empty chairs, unused party favors, and stale slices of cake over at the 3D TV party…
Product Review: A Tale of Two (3D) Televisions
- Published on Friday, 14 October 2011 18:27
- Pete Putman
- 0 Comments
The great 3D TV debates continue as 2011 winds down. “Active 3D is best!” cries one group. “No, passive 3D is better!” replies another. “Don’t jump in yet, wait for autostereo TVs!” warns yet another group.
Here are the facts. At present, there are a handful of manufacturers of active 3D TVs, including market leaders Samsung, Panasonic, and Sony. On the other side of the street, we have passive 3D TVs available from LG, Toshiba, and Vizio.
There are other companies playing in the 3D space to a lesser degree, including Sharp (active 3D) and JVC (passive 3D). And Toshiba is trying to be all things to all people, supporting a few active models and also announcing that they will bring a 55-inch autostereo TV to the Japanese market this fall.
All of this back-and-forth volleying is accomplishing one thing, if nothing else: It’s confusing the heck out of potential buyers. No one wants to sink a few thousand dollars into a 3D TV system and realize belatedly that they picked the wrong horse in the race.
Problem is; no one can say for certain which horse will win that race. Active 3D has its detractors for using expensive, battery-operated glasses that can create eye fatigue in certain individuals from flicker. However, an active 3D TV delivers all 1920×1080 pixels for every video frame in both 2D and 3D mode. And there are no patterned barriers attached to the screen surface to affect 2D viewing.
Passive 3D has simplicity and lower cost going for it – you can use the same circularly-polarized glasses you brought home from the local Cineplex – but presents a visible artifact in the form of horizontal patterned film retarder lines when watching 3D content and sitting closer than 2x the screen diagonal. And passive 3D TVs have very narrow ‘usable’ viewing angles, compared to active 3D TVs.
As for autostereo, let’s just say right now that it’s not really ready for prime time yet, based on what I saw at CES 2011 in the Toshiba booth. The appeal of glassless 3D is easy to understand, but it makes the design of the TV much more complex. Plus, there’s a tradeoff: The more ‘views’ you have on an autostereo TV, the lower the overall resolution of each view.
SEEING DOUBLE
In my tests of 3D TVs, both active and passive, I look very carefully for evidence of ghosting, or double images. Ghosting is caused by insufficient suppression of opposite-eye images, and results in double vision (and often, headaches).
The ability of a 3D TV design and its associated eyewear to suppress ghosting is called its extinction ratio. The laws of physics say that active LCD TVs will have a harder time suppressing ghosts than plasma TVs, and that’s because of all the polarizers used in a typical LCD TV: They interact with the polarizers used in 3D eyewear and can cancel each other out.
There is even an inconsistency among active 3D TVs. Samsung and Panasonic use dual polarizers in their active eyewear. Sony, however, opted to go with a single polarizer for two reasons. First, the resulting images are brighter. And second, it helps to minimize flicker and eyestrain. But there’s a trade-off, and that is a lower extinction ratio and lots of ghost images with small head tilt.
Passive 3D TVs don’t get a free pass here. One set of polarizers is mounted on the TV screen surface (those afore-mentioned film patterned retarders) to work with the other set in the ‘el cheapo’ passive glasses. At certain narrow viewing angles, their extinction ratio is quite high. But at comparatively small offset viewing angles, the double images are apparent, as I’ll demonstrate shortly.
TWO FOR THE MONEY
I decided to see what the fuss was all about with passive 3D TVs and lined up a pair of 47-inch models to see what they could do. LG’s 47LW6500 ($1,399) is at the top of their 3D TV line and comes with four pairs of passive glasses. It’s a 240 Hz LED-backlit LCD TV with four HDMI inputs (1.4a compatible, of course), plus a host of network functions (Smart TV) and other bells and whistles.
Figure 1. LG's 47LW6500 3D LCD TV
Figure 2. Toshiba's 47TL515U 3D LCD TV
Toshiba’s 47TL515U ($1,299 SRP) just came to market and offers much the same goodies as the LG Set. (I’ve been told it even uses LG Display panels.) This is also a 240 Hz LED-backlit LCD TV with 4 HDMI inputs, Net TV, and one leg up on the LG set: It’s equipped with the new InstaPort HDMI connector. That means fast switching between HDMI sources.
To be honest, there’s not a whole lot of difference between the two TVs. The LG scans TV channels faster; the Toshiba changes inputs faster. Both TVs have multifunction remotes, but the Toshiba remote is far more complicated and difficult to use. There are just too many small buttons, and the navigation mousedisk is mounted coaxially inside a second navigation ring, which also has four pushbuttons on it. You can’t use this remote easily even with the lights on.
The LG remote is FAR more user-friendly, with big, white buttons, large blue volume and channel controls, and a simpler mousedisk for navigating through menus. In addition, the LG’s 3D on/off button is nestled between the volume and channel rocker switches and clearly marker “3D” in bright red. In contrast, it took me a while to find the 3D mode button on the Toshiba – it’s part of a row of four tiny black buttons near the bottom of the remote.
Figure 3. Which remote would you rather use? And can you find the 3D buttons?
Figure 4. Here they are!
MENUS AND ADJUSTMENTS
The menus on both TVs leave a bit to be desired. Toshiba’s menus appear as rotary icons near the bottom of the screen. You scroll (spin, rotate) left or right to bring up the desired menu, then hit select and start making your choices or adjustments. It’s a bit different than the usual horizontal bar menus, but you’ll get used to it quickly enough.
On the LG set, pressing the Home button brings up a master screen that shows Smart TV icons, a settings icon, and an input icon. Whatever you’re watching on screen is reduced to a small window. You then have to navigate to the ‘Settings’ button and select it to get into any menus. It’s slightly annoying, but you shouldn’t have to adjust it very much.
I usually go into more detail about menu settings here. Suffice it to say that both TVs give you a full range of adjustments over images, with the exception of 3D. The 47LW6500 has two ISF Expert modes in addition to Intelligent (ambient light sensing), Vivid, Standard and Cinema presets, and you can get the TV’s white balance very close to the BT.709 target of 6500 degrees pretty easily. Ditto the 47TL515U, which also has an ‘expert’ mode for calibration, and offers two Movie modes, Sports, and Autoview (ambient light sensing) presets.
As mentioned earlier, both TVs offer 240 Hz scanning and de-judder circuits that can convert a film look to live video, along with automatic contrast, adjustable gamma, and black level settings. All routine stuff and all things you should shut off if you want to calibrate either TV to work at its best. The digital noise reduction circuits are handy if you are viewing video content that has been over-compressed. That shouldn’t be much of a problem with HDTV programs, but is quite common with standard-definition programming.
TUNING THEM UP
What I was interested in seeing was how well each TV worked in 2D mode after calibration, and what happened to image quality when 3D mode was selected. Here’s where the biggest difference was found between the two TVs – the 47LW6500 will not let you make ANY adjustments or access any menus in 3D mode, while the 47TL515U will. And if you think that’s not such a big deal, have I got some histograms for you…
Figure 5a. Here's the gamma curve for the 47LW6500 after calibration - a beautiful 2.31 arc.
Figure 5b. And here's the corresponding after-calibration 2.44 curve on the 47TL515U.
Figure 5a shows the final gamma curve for the Toshiba, while 5b shows the LG gamma after calibration. Both curves are consistent coming out of black and mimic the performance of a CRT. Where things get dicey is when 3D mode is switched on. The LG TV switches to a much brighter image with higher black levels and an S-curve gamma, which measures approximately 1.5 – and there not a thing you can do to fix it.
On the other hand, the Toshiba set exhibited a remarkably consistent gamma after its 3D mode was turned on, with a curve similar to 2D mode that measured 2.36. AND you can go back into the menu and tweak it if you want to.
Figure 6a. Yikes! What happened to the LG's gamma performance?
Figure 6b. Toshiba maintains its gamma settings even in 3D mode.
How about color temperature? Figures 7a and b show grayscale tracks for both sets in 2D mode, and they’re looking pretty good, eh? But switch to 3D mode, and as you can see in figures 8a and b, the 47LW6500 jumps way above 9300 degrees, while the 47LT515U doesn’t move nearly that high (about 6800 degrees) – and again, you can fix it.
This is what you don’t hear about 3D TVs: Their 2D calibrations usually go out the window when 3D mode is selected, and most of the time, you can’t do a darn thing about it. Fortunately, Toshiba does preserve your ability to compensate for any shifts caused in 3D mode.
Let’s talk about color accuracy. HDTV content for television and released on Blu-ray disc is supposed to conform to the ITU BT.709 color space, which produces colors that are somewhat less saturated than the full color gamut of LCD and plasma TVs. So to be ‘precise,’ any TV ought to match that color encoding as closely as possible.
Guess what? Both TVs do just that, as seen in figures 9a and 9b. LG gets the blue ribbon for coming closest to the desired RGB and CMY coordinates and both sets provide color management software (CMS) to fine-tune the x,y locus of each coordinate. Note that the coordinates shift on both TVs when in 3D mode (why is that???) and the shift is more noticeable on the LG TV, as evidenced by the green, cyan, magenta, and yellow targets.
Figure 7a. The 47LW6500 tracks a stable grayscale in 2D mode...
Figure 7b. And so does the 47TL515U.
Figure 8a. Switch to 3D mode on the LG, and all bets are off with respect to color temperature.
Figure 8b. Meanwhile, everything is rock-steady in 3D on the Toshiba.
Figure 9a. Here's the 47LW6500's color gamut. The dark outline is the BT.709 color space.
Figure 9b. And here's the 47TL515U's color gamut, mapped against the BT.709 color space.
VIEWING 3D
For my viewing tests, I used a Blu-ray copy of Avatar, played out from a Samsung C6900 3D BD player. Since both TVs use circular polarization in their eyewear, I was able to watch with many different pairs of glasses and saw no difference in the results.
First off, 3D images seemed to have more depth on the Toshiba. Can’t tell you why that was, but I definitely noticed it. Not to say that the LG set didn’t do a good job – it did, but the Toshiba 3D images seemed to be more realistic, especially in the scenes with people gathered around the sacred trees, campfires, in the lab, and in the war room.
Color quality was better on the Toshiba for the reasons enumerated in the previous section. It doesn’t jump that far out of calibration in 3D mode. The LG TV does get considerably brighter and colder in color temperature, and the overall picture quality isn’t as pleasing to the eye.
Both TVs seem to switch on their motion de-juddering circuits in 3D mode, so you need to make sure that function is disabled completely if you want a true ‘film’ look when watching 3D Blu-ray discs. Look for a menu function that shuts down 240 Hz mode. (And make sure you’ve shut off ALL other picture enhancements like dynamic contrast, auto black levels, etc.)
Now for my viewing distance suggestions. I generally counsel people to shoot for a seating distance equal to 1.3 – 1.5x of the screen diagonal, in order to get a more immersive 3D effect. That rule of thumb works great with active shutter TVs, and also holds true for 3D front projectors, but it doesn‘t hold up with passive 3D TVs.
The reason? You’ll see the FPR lines, which appear as thin, horizontal black bands. Close one eye or the other, and there they are! In fact, you’ll see them with both eyes open, and it’s like the old ‘screen door’ effect with low-resolution LCD projectors from the mid-1990s. Kinda distracting, in my opinion.
So it forces you to sit farther away from the 3D TV, which is exactly the opposite of what you want to do! The best 3D experiences come when the screen fills 50% or more of your field of view, and you’ve removed as many distracting 3D artifacts from outside that field. That’s one reason why 3D works so much better in movie theaters than at home – there is practically zero ambient light and the screens are big, so your brain locks onto the 3D illusion much more quickly.
Practically speaking, you need to sit about 2x the screen diagonal (94”, or about eight feet) to minimize the FPR lines. I’ve tested this viewing distance with a variety of viewers, young and old, and it holds up. And that, in my mind, is the big strike against passive 3D: You want to sit closer, but you can’t because of this picture artifact.
The other artifact you’ll notice from time to time is crosstalk. It depends on your viewing angle and the type of content, but it is most often seen with titles, high contrast fine detail, and angular objects on light backgrounds. I created a few test patterns to check for crosstalk and you can see the actual results in figure 10a. Both TVs suffer from this problem – it’s a direct consequence of using FPRs.
Figure 10a. Here's what crosstalk looks like on a passive 3D set.
Figure 10b. Here's the view through one eye of a passive 3D image. You can see the FPR lines running horizontally along the walkway in the foreground and across the railroad tracks.
Figure 10c. Here's a close-up view of the FPR artifact.
THE WRAP-UP
Did I mention that both TVs make some beautiful pictures in 2D mode? No FPR artifacts are seen here; just full-resolution 1080p images with good contrast and color saturation. In fact, the 47LW6500 is one of the better 2D LCD TVs I’ve tested recently, and the 47TL515U is right up there with it.
The devil is in the details, and in 3D mode, the 47TL515U is clearly the better performer. Just the fact that it lets you fine-tune image settings while in 3D mode is a BIG plus in my book. It is nice to know that all of your hard work in 2D mode won’t be lost, and you’ll see some really good-looking 3D as a result.
With the 47LW6500, you are out of luck. 3D pictures will be a lot brighter, black levels will elevate, and white crush will be present… and you’ll just have to live with whatever the TV shows you. If there’s any consolation, you’ll get into 3D mode a lot faster with the LG TV ( that big fat 3D button is a great idea) and the Toshiba isn’t as user-friendly when it comes to the remote control.
By the way, both sets support all standard 3D formats, including side-by-side and top + bottom frame compatible, and the frame-sequential Blu-ray format is recognized automatically by both TVs. (You can also horse around with converting 2D to 3D, if you have nothing better to do…)
Product Review: Mitsubishi HC9000 Diamond 3D Projector
- Published on Thursday, 07 July 2011 13:00
- Pete Putman
- 0 Comments
While 3D TVs have been available for over a year, the first crop of 3D front projectors are shipping now. The models I’m aware of use either digital light processing (DLP) or liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) imaging technologies, and all of them are engineered to operate with active shutter glasses, with the exception of LG’s $15,000 CF3D, which works with passive eyewear.
Mitsubishi’s HC9000D has been in development for the better part of a year, and I had the chance to see it in the prototype stage a few times prior to this review. Those earlier versions were underpowered, making the 3D footage they projected unusually dark.
Now, Mitsubishi has started shipping a fully-powered chassis with some interesting bells and whistles inside. It comes with power zoom, focus, and lens shift, plus multi-step gamma correction and a two-position IR emitter for synchronizing its active shutter glasses.
Figure 1 – The HC9000D is definitely a ‘looker!’
OUT OF THE BOX
This is not a small projector, nor is it particularly light at 32 pounds. But it does have that cool gloss black finish that disappears into the darkness, plus an aerodynamic housing with all of the connectors along the left side, and not in the back.
The imaging engine for the HC9000D may be a surprise to you: It uses three .61” SXRD LCoS chips, just like the previously-mentioned LG CF3D and of course, both of Sony’s 3D front projector offerings. This is Mitsubishi’s first foray into reflective imaging, and LCoS offers a much lower cost than 3-chip DLP engines.
3D projectors need lots of light to overcome all of the polarization losses in active shutter glasses, so Mits has equipped the HC9000D with a 230-watt short-arc lamp. The supplied zoom lens has a ratio of 1.8:1, adequate for any home theater set-up as it easily lit up my Da-Lite Affinity 92” screen at a distance of 12 feet.
The input connectors include a pair of HDMI 1.4a inputs that also support ten different standard digital computer resolutions, and there’s also an analog VGA PC input connector for everything from 640×480 to 1080p/60. Mitsubishi has also provided a single component video (YPbPr) input, plus composite and S-video jacks. (Question: Why are manufacturers still supporting composite video on high-end 1080p projectors?)
The interface panel is rounded out by a pair of 12V triggers for powered screens and anamorphic lens adapters, an RS-232 jack for remote control, and another DIN jack that connects to the EY-3D-EMT1 IR emitter through a short (1 meter) or long (15 meter) cable. The emitter can be attached to the lower front panel of the projector, or positioned under your projection screen.
The supplied remote control is identical in function to all previous Mits remotes (I inadvertently turned on my Mits HC6000 a few times with it), except that it has a black housing. You can directly access any input, jump to preset picture modes, operate the powered lens functions, and step through the iris settings. The only exception is that the STANDBY button now toggles between 2D and 3D display modes.
MENUS AND ADJUSTMENTS
Mitsubishi 3LCD projectors are known for high image quality and part of the reason is the detailed menus provided for in-depth calibrations. That protocol continues with the LCoS-powered HC9000D. Four different picture preset modes (Cinema, Video, 3D, Dynamic) are provided for viewing, along with three USER memory slots.
Gamma correction is also possible through five presets (Cinema, 2.0, 2.1, 2.2, 3D, and USER), and the USER gamma adjustments offer detailed adjustments of white, red, green, and blue at 15 grayscale steps. That is a tremendous amount of tweaking at your fingertips, if you are that fanatical about precise gamma response.
Color temperature and white balance adjustments are also available for each USER mode, or you can select from one of six presets, including 5800K, 6000K, and 6500K. None of these are completely accurate, but will get you into the ballpark. There are also a set of color management controls for all six primaries that I suggest you avoid playing with, as they don’t exactly work as intended in their current implementation.
The menu complement is rounded out with three different levels of black set-up (0, 3.75, and 7.5 IRE), a ‘cinema filter,’ 3:2 frame rate conversion or ‘true’ (native) frame rate selections, and various adjustments for noise reduction and detail enhancement. The former will soften the image to hide digital noise artifacts, while the latter may enhance edge transitions too much. I’d leave ‘em both off if possible.
The HC9000D also has image warping software (referred to in the owner’s manual as ‘Anyplace’ control) built-in. It lets you re-map the pixels on a projected image to correct for off-axis projection, such as a severe high and wide angle. While it works quite well, it does impact image resolution as it decimates pixels to correct for trapezoidal distortion. (It can also fix lens distortions like barreling and pincushioning.)
You are much better off mounting the projector as close to the optical centerline of the screen as possible, and using the lens shift controls to move the image into position. Try to avoid any adjustments that manipulate pixels to correct for geometry!
The HDMI inputs have their own sets of tweaks. You can manually select the HDMI color depth (4:2:2, 4:4:4, or RGB), or let the projector configure it for you. There are also four different HDMI inputs modes – Auto, Standard, Enhanced, and Super White.
It’s best to leave this setting in Auto, as it will pick the correct color bit depth for each connected input. Enhanced is usually selected for PC input connections, but I have no idea what ‘Super White’ is intended to do: The manual just says, “Select when solid white occurs.” Any guesses?
There are also a few useful 3D image adjustments. The only 3D mode that is detected automatically by the HC9000D is the Blu-ray 1080p/24 frame-packing format, so called because it packs both left eye and right eye video into a single BD frame with 45 pixels of blanking for a total of 1920×2205 pixels. On the other hand, the so-called ‘frame compatible’ 3D formats (also known as ‘half-resolution’ formats) must be selected manually in the 3D menu, and include top+bottom (720p) and side-by-side (1080i).
You can compensate for light attenuation through polarization losses by boosting projector brightness in five steps, with 5.0 being the default setting. The sync pulse for active shutter glasses can also be reversed if needed in this menu. Normally, you should not need to play with either control (and as you’ll find out, a brighter screen will do you more good than the 3D brightness compensation settings!).
The last control I should point out is the ever-present Iris adjustment. Dynamic iris controls are de rigueur for LCD and LCoS projectors to drop black levels and improve contrast on low-level video content. I have never liked these adjustments because of the non-linear effect they have on gamma curves, and prefer to leave them off and just work with whatever dynamic range the projector manufacturer brought to the table – which isn’t as bad as you might think most of the time.
If you must use the iris settings, you have four different presets (Open, 3, 2, and 1), plus 18 steps of irising in the User menu. My advice? Set your black levels correctly and adjust the contrast for best dynamic range, and just live with it. In 2D mode, the black levels may be a bit higher than you’d want, but in 3D mode, you won’t see them anyway with the glasses on.
ON THE TEST BENCH: 2D
For my tests, I used a combination of SpectraCal’s CalMan V4.4 software and ColorFacts 7.5 to take all readings through Spyder 2 and Eye One Pro sensors. All of my calibrations were done in 2D mode, as I was most interested to see what the projector did to these settings when switched into 3D mode.
All 2D test patterns were generated by an AccuPel HDG4000, while my 3D test patterns were custom-created in Photoshop and played back @ 1280×720 resolution from a Toshiba M645 laptop computer, using the top+bottom frame compatible format. Additional 3D content came from Samsung’s Blu-ray test disc and 3D Blu-ray movie clips from Avatar and How to Train Your Dragon, played back on a Samsung BD-C6900.
You will be surprised at how little tweaking you’ll need to do to get a stable grayscale out of the HC9000D. After minimal calibration, I measured 2D brightness at 635 lumens with a center color temperature of 6542 degrees. That color temperature reading varied by a maximum of just 230 degrees over nine points of measurement. So far, so good!
Brightness uniformity was lower than I expected at 69% to the average corner from center, and 55% to the worst corner. That’s bordering on hot-spot territory, as 50% is a drop of one full f-stop in brightness. Contrast measurements were much better than you’d expect with the iris off, coming in at 279:1 ANSI (average) and 538:1 peak. While those numbers aren’t as impressive as what JVC’s achieved with their wire grid dichroic design, they are still respectable for any other LCoS projector.
I mentioned earlier that Mitsubishi always does a superb job with grayscale and color temperature performance. Figure 2 shows an almost-perfect 2.3 gamma curve after calibration that’s as good as any I’ve ever seen on the best projectors. (And it was measured with the iris disabled.)
The secret? Very tight tracking of red, green, and blue levels at each luminance measurement. You can see just how tight those levels track in Figure 3, which is the RGB histogram for the target color temperature setting of 6500 Kelvin.
Figure 2 – The HC9000D produces a nearly-perfect 2.3 gamma curve after calibration.
Figure 3 – This RGB histogram shows tight tracking of red, green, and blue across the entire grayscale.
The HC9000D has a ‘ginormous’ color gamut, which (unfortunately) cannot be dialed back accurately. That means the colors you’ll see off Blu-ray discs and other HD content will be over-saturated. The color management controls will not help you here – de-saturating a color will result in incorrect display of other secondary colors.
The correct approach is to set the exact color coordinates at the factory for RGB and CMY, based on the standard used to master the content being viewed, something very few projector manufacturers bother to do. Figures 4a-b shows the full color gamut of the projector compared to the BT.709 HDTV gamut and P3 digital cinema gamut.
Figure 4a – The HC9000D’s mapped color gamut, compared to the BT.709 HDTV color space.
Figure 4b – And here’s how the HC9000D’s color gamut compares to the P3 digital cinema color space.
ON THE TEST BENCH: 3D
All well and good – the HC9000D is a top-notch 2D projector – but what happens in 3D mode? For starters, let’s see what happens when switching from 2D mode to 3D mode with glasses off and on.
To measure the changes in brightness, I placed a Minolta CL200 directly in front of my projection screen to take an incident light reading from the projector for this test. I started with a baseline (glassless) reading of 1124 lux and a measured color temperature of 6190K – a bit on the warm side. With 3D mode enabled on the projector, but no glasses in place, the readings changed to 1137 lux (3D brightness @ 5.0) and 6093K.
After positioning Mitsubishi’s active shutter glasses in front of the CL200’s sensor, brightness readings dropped to 419 lux with a color temperature of 6576K. Finally, I turned the glasses on, and saw brightness drop to 146 lux while the measured color temperature soared to 8529K. (Switching the lamp from its normal setting into HIGH mode increased brightness slightly to 66 lux.)
That’s quite a decrease! Comparing the final 3D reading with glasses to the calibrated 2D reading without glasses, the amount of light that finally makes it to your eyes has decreased by about 87%
So, what’s the solution? You will need a higher-gain screen to enjoy 3D images from the HC9000D, as it’s just not bright enough for viewing on low-gain screens with active shutter glasses – at least, not at the projection distance I use. I dusted off an older 82” Vutec SilverStar (6.0 gain) screen, and it made a world of difference with the HC9000D.
Here’s the conundrum: A high-gain screen doesn’t match up well to the projector’s 2D mode, as it will elevate black levels. Does that suggest you’ll need two screens? Maybe not, as Stewart Filmscreens just announced a combination 2D/3D screen that’s supposedly optimized for both modes. (They call it “5D” – I kid you not!)
IMAGE QUALITY
2D image quality is top-notch, as you’d expect with a projector using an HQV Reon processor. The adjustable frame rates are used to convert 24 fps filmed content to 96 Hz (quad refresh), while 60 Hz video is doubled to 120 Hz. Scaling of 720p content to 1080p is seamless and de-interlacing of 1080i channels showed absolutely no motion errors. The projector’s dynamic range is excellent (within the limits of its black levels) and my only complaint is that colors pop too much, for reasons I explained earlier.
You could be very happy just running this projector in 2D mode. In 3D mode, it’s a different story. Most of the content I looked at on my Affinity screen was too dark when viewed in 3D mode and exhibited desaturated colors with low contrast.
The Vutec gain screen helped considerably, but this projector needs to be cranking out at least 300 – 400 3D lumens after calibration to work with my screen type, size, and projection throw. If you reverse-engineer the numbers, that means almost 3000 lumens in calibrated 2D mode.
The best 3D scenes were observed with the daytime flying sequences in Dragon and the final attack sequences in Avatar. On the Vutec SilverStar screen, they punched up considerably with improved color saturation, and the viewing experience was quite enjoyable. The 24-96 fps frame rate conversion provides a smooth, bright image with absolutely zero flicker.
One problem I noticed was crosstalk in each lens. This popped up when the glasses were tilted even slightly, with the effect more pronounced in high-contrast scenes. For 3D to present correctly; crosstalk in the glasses has to be kept to a minimum. Otherwise, you will begin to feel eyestrain and may develop a headache after sustained viewing.
For comparison, Sony’s 3D active shutter glasses suffer from crosstalk problems because only one polarizer is used, while Samsung and Panasonic glasses use two polarizers and are much better at suppressing crosstalk. The Mitsubishi glasses also use dual polarizers, but their ‘extinction ratio’ isn’t as good as I would have expected. Figures 5a – 5d show sample 3D images where crosstalk is strongly evident and not quite as evident.
Figure 5a – This 3D text chart shows crosstalk (ghost images) around the letters and vertical lines.
Figure 5b – A ghost image of the center circle can be seen clearly in this photo.
Figure 5c – Crosstalk isn’t as evident when watching 3D movies, although I noticed it in this scene from How to Train Your Dragon. (Image © 2010 Dreamworks Animation)
Figure 5d – Subtle ghost images were seen along the edges of the mountains and the dragon’s wings. (Image © 2010 Dreamworks Animation)
You will clearly see double images in the test patterns, but the ghosting isn’t quite as apparent with the stills from Dragon. But it is there, along the jagged rocky cliffs and other background objects. It all depends on the angle of your head – if you tilt your head to either side, the effect becomes more pronounced. Ghosting is readily apparent with credits and other high-contrast text and symbols.
CONCLUSIONS
Mitsubishi’s HC9000D is a top-notch 2D projector, but underpowered for 3D with low-gain screens. It calibrates quickly and performs nicely, but those calibrations will shift noticeably when viewing with 3D glasses. You’ll definitely need a gain screen with this projector for 3D content, and it might be a good idea to choose one that has a slightly warm color temperature that will offset the higher color temperature in 3D mode.
More horsepower under the hood would help. As I mentioned earlier, something in the neighborhood of 3000 lumens would be required to (a) perform a full 2D calibration and (b) provide enough illumination in 3D mode to low-gain (1.0 to 1.3) screens in the 82-inch to 102-inch range, assuming a projection distance of 10 – 12 feet.
However, if you are sitting closer to a smaller screen, then you will be in better shape: The HC9000’s measured light output after calibration should be adequate for 3D viewing on a 72-inch screen at a distance of 6 to 8 feet, as you will wind up with 3x to 4x brighter images. And you DO want to sit closer to 3D screens to get the maximum impact: My recommended seating distance is 1x to 1.3x the screen diagonal measurement. That will make the 3D images fill 50% or more of your field of view, and give you that theater-like immersive experience!
3D At Home: No One’s Buying It??
- Published on Tuesday, 01 March 2011 12:10
- Pete Putman
- 0 Comments
Last week, the Hollywood Reporter reported (accurately) that a majority of the attendees at the 2011 Hollywood Post Alliance Technology Retreat believe that 3D in the home is ‘dead’ and will never catch on.
Yes, I know you’ve heard about and read several surveys taken in the past year that show little or no enthusiasm for 3D at home. However, when people who create and distribute movies and TV shows for a living give 3D at home the thumbs-down, that’s big news.
I’ve attended every HPA Tech Retreat since 2002 and presented at most of them. Last year, we had a 3D supersession where many attendees expressed skepticism that 3D at home was viable. This year, the number of naysayers was substantial, as evidenced by a show of hands during the Day 1 presentation recaps by HPA leaders Leon Silverman and Jerry Pierce. (This year’s Retreat had 450 registrants, by the way.)
The annual broadcasters’ panel brought forth more skepticism, with Fox saying that until there was a workable, viable ATSC 3D standard, they would stay on the sidelines. Those sentiments were pretty much echoed by ABC, NBC, Sinclair, PBS, and CBS.
As I mention in another post, we had a great breakfast roundtable discussion on 3D in the home, and whether it was a flop, partially successful, or had any real future. We also discussed the relative scarcity of 3D movies, which led to a question about why Hollywood isn’t remastering more of their older 3D movie titles into the Blu-ray format. The reply was that the cost to do those remasters probably wouldn’t be justified by Blu-ray disc sales, let alone rentals.
Let’s face it; 3D TV stumbled badly out of the gate in 2010. TV manufacturers locked up the most desirable 3D Blu-ray discs as part of exclusive TV bundles, creating an instant shortage of compelling 3D content. Want to watch Avatar in 3D? Sorry, you’ll have to buy a Panasonic 3D TV. How about any of the Shrek movies? You’ll need to buy a new Samsung 3D TV. Despicable Me? You’re looking at a new Sharp Aquos, pal.
What’s that – you just dropped $2,000 on a new 55-inch 120 Hz LED LCD TV a year ago? Hmmm – that’s a problem.
How about the new 3D TV networks? Well, ESPN 3D is a barker channel during most of the day. The World Cup was fun, but half the shots didn’t benefit at all from 3D.
Last fall, DirecTV’s 3D pay-per-view channel was showing Journey to the Center of the Earth, followed by Journey to the Center of the Earth, followed by Journey to the Center of the Earth…well, you get it.
As far as 2011 goes, the outlook for 3D TV sales isn’t very sunny. Nielsen’s annual State of All Media survey, taken in Q4 of 2010, showed that “…76% of respondents ‘probably won’t or ‘definitely won’t’ buy a 3D TV in the next 12 months. 2% of respondents already own a 3D TV, while only 6% “definitely’ or ‘probably’ will buy one.”
The problem is compounded by VIZIO and Toshiba saying that consumers don’t need to buy expensive LCD glasses to watch 3D TV. VIZIO is leading a charge to passive (half-resolution) 3D TV, with the selling point being that you can use those same 50-cent RealD circular polarized glasses they gave you at the local multiplex cinema.
According to a news story in today’s TWICE magazine, LG showcased their new line of passive 3D LCD TVs – called Cinema 3D – at the Film Independent Spirit Awards last week. The TWICE story quoted LG Electronics USA president Wayne Park as saying, “We think we can take advantage of — at least in 3DTV — the leadership position for the whole industry…with our distinguishing 3D technology, we can bring a much more affordable and enjoyable experience to the consumer, so that our 3DTVs can leap ahead of the industry.” Also, “Park said he believes passive-glasses technologies will ultimately win out over active-shutter systems due to the many benefits that resonate with consumers.”
Toshiba’s claim that you can drop glasses altogether upsets the apple cart even more, and has apparently convinced the average Joe that there is a format war in 3D (shades of the 1080i vs. 720p battles ten years ago). Skipping past the technical details, what today’s consumers are hearing is that 3D is very much in the laboratory stage and that it is probably a smart idea to sit on the sidelines for a while until all of the details are worked out – and until 3D TVs without glasses are widely available.
So, what’s a TV manufacturer to do?
First off, it’s evident that consumers will NOT pay a premium for 3D functionality. There are simply too many 2D TV models available for less than $1,000, including a couple of 55-inch screens. Asking consumers to pony up an additional $500 – $1,000 just to watch a handful of movies and 3D networks is a waste of energy right now…particularly when you consider all of the people who bought new big-screen LCD and plasma TVs in the past five years.
Second, release the exclusively-bundled 3D Blu-ray discs immediately to the open market. If you want someone to buy a fancy new sports car, make sure there are plenty of gas stations where they can fill it up!
Third, drop the prices on 3D Blu-ray players to a level commensurate with networked Blu-ray players. Those are selling very well because consumers are using them as Internet TV set-top boxes to gain access to Netflix (20 million subscribers and counting).
Fourth, continue exploring marketing partnerships with content producers to create 3D channels that more people can watch. Currently, only the Sony-Discovery-IMAX 3Net channel and ESPN’s 3D channel are available to any viewer on any Pay TV system. 3D on DirecTV does nothing for a Comcast subscriber, or a Dish Network subscriber. Comcast’s new 3D channel is inaccessible to Verizon FiOS customers. Content drives TV viewership – HDTV started in 1998 but didn’t really take off until about 2004, when all of the major TV networks finally had a strong slate of HD programming to watch.
Unfortunately, the perceived format war between active shutter, passive, and autostereo (a really inferior way to watch 3D, if you ask me) is going to keep sales of 3D TVs down in 2011. Consumer enthusiasm is so low that most of the 3D demos at my nearby Best Buy appear to have been turned off for good. (Not that they could find any working active shutter glasses if they needed to…)
At this past Sunday’s Ambler Theater Oscars Party, I set up a Samsung PN50C8000 3D plasma TV with four pairs of glasses (fresh batteries in every one) and a 3D animated movie (Monsters vs. Aliens), smack in the middle of the concessions lobby. Plenty of people (young and old) came over to watch for a few minutes, were appropriately wowed, asked what the 3D set-up cost, said “that’s nice, but I can’t see having to wear glasses to watch TV” and then walked away to one of the three main theaters.
They’re just not buying it.