As video evolves in the home, so do your display technologies - and one of the most popular developments in recent years is 3D TV. While 2D and 3D displays are flat, 3D TV works to trick your brain into thinking the picture you are seeing is actually three dimensional and popping out of the screen. 2D televisions keep their pictures to themselves, providing visuals of what is displayed on the screen without the eye tricks.
How does a 3D TV work?
A 3D TV operates by tricking your brain into viewing the image in front of you as three-dimensional, when it is in fact flat. While most current 3D technologies use 3D glasses of varying styles and colours, some newer 3D TVs place lenses over each pixel, allowing them to reflect at various angles to give you the illusion of a 3D image.
When viewing any image, your brain takes into account how far together your eyes have to meet, as well as how far away the object is. Each eye will view an image from a different perspective. A 3D TV provides you with two images that, through the use of glasses or reflected light, your eyes will meet and view as a single image.
While your eyes don't necessarily focus in on the same point, this technology gives you the illusion that the image is close to you, when it is in fact being viewed from further away. These differing focal points can contribute to eye strain when viewing 3D TV for long periods of time.
What types of 3D glasses are there?
There are many different technologies that are used to make your 3D glasses, but they all effectively help to create two images that are slightly offset from one another. The difference lies in how the glasses are used to filter or translate what's being projected.
- Anaglyph glasses - These use red and blue filters to cancel out the duplicated images, one tinted red the other blue, on the screen. May sometimes distort the colour.
- Polarised glasses - With these glasses, each lens accepts light polarized in a specific way and will reflect light that's been projected to be compatible with the other eye. These glasses may require your TV to be coated with a special polarising filter.
- Active glasses - These glasses use one opaque and one transparent image, and connect wirelessly to your TV to actively black out the alternating images on the screen. This technology relies on a high refresh rate to seamlessly alternate between the two projected images.
What types of 3D TVs are available?
With the evolution of 3D technologies you can now choose from glasses or glasses-free TV displays when choosing your 3D TV. Having said that, every style will provide a different 3D experience, so to find out what's going to be best for your needs it's a very good idea to test and compare for yourself.
Likewise, as technology improves we're also going to see new innovations in 3D TVs, and, in all likelihood, a decrease in their price.