[popeye13]

Originally Posted by M60

They say holographic 3D is the next big thing, this won't need glasses once they get the technology right and that's when I think it will take off.

I presume all this Eurosport 3D stuff is going on to Sky's 3D channel or are they setting up a temporary Eurosport simulcast and EPG placement?

Sky 3D channel

[M60]

Originally Posted by popeye13

Sky 3D channel

Cheers, thought so.

[popeye13]

You're welcome

[derek500]

Originally Posted by White-Knight

I disagree.

Almost all new tv's now are 3D so its no more expensive than a 2D tv at purchase unless you want loads of pairs of glasses.

The main manufacturers are now following LG and going passive. No charging, no synchronising, no flicker, no headaches, wide viewing angles and glasses for less than a quid a pair. LG's come with seven pairs.

My 47" cost nearly three hundred quid less than I paid for my 42" Panasonic, three years ago. And it runs on 80w rather more than 200w of electricity.

[AndrewLG]

Originally Posted by derek500

My 47" cost nearly three hundred quid less than I paid for my 42" Panasonic, three years ago. And it runs on 80w rather more than 200w of electricity.

Now all you need is a Freesat box and you'd be very eco friendly!

[Phil Owens]

Originally Posted by AndrewLG

Now all you need is a Freesat box and you'd be very eco friendly!

>[Like] <

[Schnable]

I can't afford a big TV as I have to pay out massive amounts to Sky every month.
I know, I'll cancel Sky and then I can afford a big TV!

Thanks for the incentive Derek.

[KDH]

Will also now be available on Virgin Media cable

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17753269

[icstm]

How does cable work, do all channels get fed down the line to the STB at the same time?
If so that is quite an impressive jump in HD channels and bandwidth to each home!

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by icstm

How does cable work, do all channels get fed down the line to the STB at the same time?
If so that is quite an impressive jump in HD channels and bandwidth to each home!

Virgin uses a fibre main distribution network that has a massive bandwidth capability. So much so they don't bother with H264 compression using instead the older less efficient mpeg2 system.

[White-Knight]

Originally Posted by derek500

The main manufacturers are now following LG and going passive. No charging, no synchronising, no flicker, no headaches, wide viewing angles and glasses for less than a quid a pair. LG's come with seven pairs.

My 47" cost nearly three hundred quid less than I paid for my 42" Panasonic, three years ago. And it runs on 80w rather more than 200w of electricity.

Passive is not renowned for being a good experience although I can't comment on LG tv's.

Passive generally suffers from poor stereo effect and it also has sweet spots corresponding to the focus points of the lenticular lenses. For this reason as well, traditionally the viewing angle was reportedly very narrow requiring you to sit directly in front of the tv.

I'm confused about your passive statement and then the glasses for a pound a pair, as passive doesn't need glasses, that's why its passive.

Anyway, I personally fail to see the problem with glasses. I've tried a Panasonic 50" tv with 3D shutter glasses and a 50" Samsung with polarising lenses and on both sets the glasses were entirely comfortable and didn't cause after effects or headaches and in both cases the 3D was real blow your mind stuff with the depth going back into the wall.

I can't comment on other tvs or cheaper brands but certainly these two systems were comfortable and good.

[BKM]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

Virgin uses a fibre main distribution network that has a massive bandwidth capability. So much so they don't bother with H264 compression using instead the older less efficient mpeg2 system.

That's not entirely true!

The cable to any users home is normal coax cable (NOT fibre) - and this is used as if it was connected to an aerial. The frequency spectrum on the cable (from about 50MHz to 900MHz) is divided up into 8MHz "PAL TV channels". "Cable broadband" is then implemented by using some of these 8MHz channels for data rather than TV .

There ARE bandwidth limits on cable - but they have quite a lot of headroom yet.

The reason why they use MPEG2 is that their older boxes won't do H264!!! Tivo WILL and, once all the old boxes are gone, they are expected to convert.

[martine93]

Originally Posted by BKM

The reason why they use MPEG2 is that their older boxes won't do H264!!! Tivo WILL and, once all the old boxes are gone, they are expected to convert.

That is not entirely true either !

The TiVo boxes , Samsung V+HD box and the Cisco V HD box support MPEG4.

The SA V+ box does not support MPEG 4.

[DragonQ]

Yes and presumably when they do eventually switch to H.264, the bit rates will be dropped to match what we currently get on satellite.

What about DVB-C2? Will Virgin Media switch to this at some point?

[Muzer]

Originally Posted by White-Knight

Passive is not renowned for being a good experience although I can't comment on LG tv's.

Passive generally suffers from poor stereo effect and it also has sweet spots corresponding to the focus points of the lenticular lenses. For this reason as well, traditionally the viewing angle was reportedly very narrow requiring you to sit directly in front of the tv.

I'm confused about your passive statement and then the glasses for a pound a pair, as passive doesn't need glasses, that's why its passive.

Anyway, I personally fail to see the problem with glasses. I've tried a Panasonic 50" tv with 3D shutter glasses and a 50" Samsung with polarising lenses and on both sets the glasses were entirely comfortable and didn't cause after effects or headaches and in both cases the 3D was real blow your mind stuff with the depth going back into the wall.

I can't comment on other tvs or cheaper brands but certainly these two systems were comfortable and good.

No, you're confusing passive and glassesless. Passive is merely glasses that have no electronics in (ie not shutter glasses, polarising ones).

[icstm]

Originally Posted by BKM

There ARE bandwidth limits on cable - but they have quite a lot of headroom yet.

what is the b/w? Are you saying that ALL channels plus b/w for internet is provided to each cable?

Originally Posted by DragonQ

What about DVB-C2? Will Virgin Media switch to this at some point?

Will the DVB-C2 specify MP4/H264 - I would have thought that switching to one would be the same as switching to the other.
ie when Virgin change, they fully change.

[DragonQ]

I'm sure DVB-C supports H.264, just like DVB-S and DVB-T do. So if they want to switch to H.264, they don't have to switch to DVB-C2. I imagine they would though.

[derek500]

Originally Posted by White-Knight

Passive is not renowned for being a good experience although I can't comment on LG tv's.

Passive generally suffers from poor stereo effect and it also has sweet spots corresponding to the focus points of the lenticular lenses. For this reason as well, traditionally the viewing angle was reportedly very narrow requiring you to sit directly in front of the tv.

You should try LG Cinema 3D passive sets. Practically zero crosstalk(ghosting) and a very wide viewing angle.

My TV came with seven pairs of glasses and we've had six of us watching at once, with no need to sit directly in front of the screen. The beauty of passive, it's family friendly.

Here's a clip from a test between Active and FPR Passive (what LG's Cinema 3D uses).

Based on our extensive lab measurements and visual test comparisons between 3D TVs with FPR Passive Glasses versus 3D TVs with Active Shutter Glasses, we found that the Passive Glasses TVs delivered substantially and demonstrably better all around 3D imaging, 3D Contrast and sense of 3D depth, better 3D sharpness, better overall 3D picture quality, immersion and realism, and freedom from 3D ghosting, image Crosstalk, and flicker. This was true in all but a small number of situations, all of which we document in the sections mentioned above.

http://www.displaymate.com/3D_TV_ShootOut_1.htm

[grahamlthompson]

Originally Posted by derek500

You should try LG Cinema 3D passive sets. Practically zero crosstalk(ghosting) and a very wide viewing angle.

My TV came with seven pairs of glasses and we've had six of us watching at once, with no need to sit directly in front of the screen. The beauty of passive, it's family friendly.

Here's a clip from a test between Active and FPR Passive (what LG's Cinema 3D uses).



http://www.displaymate.com/3D_TV_ShootOut_1.htm

The downside is that it's only half the resolution of active TV's, might be just OK with SBS broadcasts, but for full blu-ray 3D in my experience there is no comparison. It's like going back to SD just for 3D

[White-Knight]

Originally Posted by Muzer

No, you're confusing passive and glassesless. Passive is merely glasses that have no electronics in (ie not shutter glasses, polarising ones).

Yeah sorry I misread Derek's post as being about glassesless tv's hence the reason why I was confused about him mentioning glasses. I then went on about passive = no glasses myself when as you point out passive = polarising or other non active means whereas glassesless = lenticular.

It's lenticular ie glasses free tv's that haven't traditionally had good results.

Tv's with glasses, either passive or active do vary from brand to brand in the quality of the 3D experience, but the good ones are very good in my experience.

[derek500]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

The downside is that it's only half the resolution of active TV's, might be just OK with SBS broadcasts, but for full blu-ray 3D in my experience there is no comparison. It's like going back to SD just for 3D

LG sorted this in an algorithm update last Autumn.

http://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php...&id=1304582822

LG has now made some improvements to the TVs with Cinema 3D and all current users and future users will benefit from this update as it is a firmware update to the TV. LG says that they have changed the algorithm used to show 3D pictures.

Before the Cinema 3D technology worked like this: During a time period of 1/200 seconds the TV showed 2 frames; 540 lines for the left eye and 540 lines for the right eye.
The new algorithm shows 4 frames instead of 2 during the 1/200 second time frame. It shows 1080i for the left eye and 1080i for the right eye.

When these are combined the two pictures create a 1080p picture according to LG. LG believes that this update improves picture quality on their Cinema 3D TVs to compete directly with the active 3D TVs such as 3D plasma TVs. You need to turn off TruMotion to utilize the new algorithm. See the illustration below.

[derek500]

Originally Posted by grahamlthompson

The downside is that it's only half the resolution of active TV's, might be just OK with SBS broadcasts, but for full blu-ray 3D in my experience there is no comparison. It's like going back to SD just for 3D

Here's a recent review of LG Cinema 3D Passive PQ. It correctly agrees with you that passive (pre the new LG ones) was slightly better than SD. All changed now though.

We felt that passive lenses were an improvement on active shutter glasses because they did not flicker, but passive technology (until now) had it’s own set of drawbacks. Before circular polarization of light was employed, passive 3D televisions used the same 135º and 45º angles and polarized lenses to make 3D images. However, to achieve these angles, the screen was divided into a a crisscross pattern. It was hard to see with the eye, but every other line of pixels was removed to show a directional picture that could be filtered by polarized glasses. Removing every other line of pixels means a halving of the resolution. No longer can you see 1080p 3D images, the best you can hope for is something slightly better than standard definition. If you turned your head one way or the other, the polarization did not work because the angles were incorrect, and the 3D illusion would be ruined. Any amount of angle to your head would cause severe crosstalk because the angles for the wrong eye would creep into the glasses. Unless you wanted to watch your 3D TV with a protractor taped to your head, the image quality would not be worthy of the investment.

LG’s new circularly polarized images and Film Patterned Retarder (FPR) lenses combine to remove all of these disadvantages. There is no resolution loss, because pixels do not need to be cutout to make the angles for polarization, meaning you can watch 1080p 3D images. There is no flickering, and therefore no refresh rate loss. Due to the circular nature of the light waves, you can still see 3D images with your head off-angle (as a side note, the vertical angle is not very good. We recommend keeping your eye-level at the vertical center of the display). The crosstalk numbers are far and away the best we have ever seen, proving to be an extremely noticeable improvement when watching actual 3D content. The glasses are light and inexpensive, as well as fashionable. LG is working with designers to make combined UV/Polarized sunglasses that work with their 3D displays.

A final note worth mentioning is the area of depth LG has chosen. Often, we see 3D images using only the area in front of the television. We noticed that without the glasses, there is an area of the depth where the 3D images are not offset, the images are very clear, and look just like watching 2D television. This is because the plane of the television represents the middle depth of the 3D illusion. The foreground extends out the front of the television, and the background receeds into the television, with the TV itself used as midground. This is important because The Journal of Vision produced a paper about the dangers of 3D images and how they certainly produce eye strain. Their findings show that eye strain occurs because we are forcing our eyes to focus on two planes simultaneously: the plane of the television emitting the light we see, and the false plane of the 3D image. If LG is employing the plane of the television as the middle ground, then often your eyes are focusing only on one plane, while still experiencing 3D images. This should by all reasoning reduce eye strain and other possible dangers associated with 3D imaging.

Overall, this is the best 3D technology we have seen. We really like the images, they are mesmerizing and fun to watch. It does not get tiring, it is not sickening, or exhausting, it’s just 3D, the way you have always pictured it to work.

http://www.televisioninfo.com/conten...-Review/3D.htm

[White-Knight]

Details of LG's 2012 passive glasses line up:

http://www.whathifi.com/news/lgs-201...ands-in-the-uk