3DTV Without Glasses Adds a New Dimension to Future TV (But Don't Hold Your Breath)

I reposted yesterday I post I had done after CES because of the announcements this week of 3D TVs without the need for glasses. Those units are not ready for prime time, and I think the announcements run the risk of the classic Osborne Computer mistake of the 1980s: Osborne was the leader in portable PCs (before laptops), but they were not compatible with the IBM PC during the period when the PC began to gain an architectural lock software. Osborne rushed to announce their next model would be PC compatible, and customers held off purchasing the current model. The company went bankrupt.

The Osborne mistake is now enshrined in business schools as what not to do. So why did some of the big Japanese TV makers jump the shark on 3DTV?

Start with the dreadfully poor outlook for 3DTVs. In my CES post last January, I found the push for 3DTV premature for three reasons:

• too little content - HDTV could leverage movies while broadcast caught up
• too sketchy an experience - the look was not that compelling
• too burdensome to use glasses

Shortly after CES, the early results suggested that 3DTV would be a bust. It was thought to be a gimmick, an expensive feature seeking a market, not a need driven by consumers. Samsung had to add warning labels to their 3DTV sets, that drinking and 3D don't mix. I am not sure this is a real problem or over-anxious lawyering, but some people do report headaches or dizziness while wearing those 3D glasses.

About the same time, the big push by movie studios into 3D seemed to be missing expectations. After Avatar and Alice in Wonderland, the new releases were disappointments. Hollywood is in the doldrums and the studios have been pushing 3D as a way to increase ticket prices and hold theatrical revenues up even as ticket sales droop. Nonetheless, Hollywood is persisting, and recently it was announced that the highly-anticipated Hobbit movies will be in 3D. 

As with color and HD, it is believed that sports will drive 3D demand on TV. Some leagues like baseball and hockey are already streaming 3D broadcasts. (This may cause some bandwidth challenges, as 3D will have to coexist with normal HD.) ESPN launched a 3D channel just in time for the World Cup.

All well and good, and yet there has been no rush to 3DTV. It is coming too quickly after major upgrades to HDTVs, and is way behind in compelling content. And of course has those darned glasses. 

Big news then that this week several makers including Toshiba announced a 3DTV without glasses. When I was at CES I asked when this would be out commercially, and heard promises of "five to seven years." Naked-eye approaches have been known for a while, and are being developed across the TV makers. Here is a video by Toshiba showcasing their new naked 3DTVs:

The Toshiba models have modest sized screens, and need to handle nine viewing angles, which today requires lower resolution images - they are less than HD sets in 3D mode. They have very narrow viewing angles, and you have to get really close to see the effect. The Toshiba models are designed for niche markets, and may not even sell there.

In a nutshell, we are still a years away from commercial HD-quality naked-eye 3DTV sets.

My take: the Japanese often do this, to one-up each other, with less of an eye to the impact on consumers than they should. They launch inside their own echo chamber. The visibility to the consumer of a better 3DTV in the future may suppress 3DTV sales in the present, but the Japanese are probably betting these announcements will be little noticed. Instead, inside their echo chamber, they can use the promise of naked eye 3D to overcome the real problem: the dearth of 3D content for TV. The promise of these sets "soon" should sustain the development of more 3D content for TV.

Comments

[Wave Rust]

"The Osborne mistake is now enshrined in business schools as what not to do."

you fail to mention that Osborne rose from the ashes of bankruptcy to fame and fortune ,,,, and Ozzy has always been a 3D kinda guy. Why do you think he always wears those dark glasses?

wave rust

[yelnick]

wave, imagine biting the heads of chickens in 3D! awesome.

[Account Deleted]

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[Wave Rust]

yelnick

funny. was that a rubber chicken?

wave rust

[yelnick]

wave, I vaguely recall he used to do it on stage with live chickens, but who knows? maybe just Hollywood magic

[Wave Rust]

legends expand along with the universe, but facts never change, if you can figure out what the facts are. :)

From some wikipediatrician -
"On 20 January 1982, Osbourne bit the head off a bat he thought was rubber while performing at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Des Moines, Iowa. Rolling Stone magazine in 2004 ranked this incident number two on its list of "Rock's Wildest Myths."[67] While the Rolling Stone article stated the bat was alive, the woman who threw it onto the stage said it was brought to the show dead.[64] According to Osbourne himself in the booklet to the 2002 edition of Diary of a Madman, the bat was not only alive but also managed to bite him, resulting in his having to take rabies shots."

wave rust

[Wave Rust]

yel,
with the tech doubling ala Moore, I wonder if 3d TV, with or without glasses, will be outpaced by the newest 'new tech' of internet/mobile TV ,,,, and arrive on the scene, being pronounced DOA. Betamax redux

that would be sad, because i'm depending on the success of 3D TV to crush HD TV prices by 60 to 75% by then. :)

maybe HD goes to BOGO Free at the Dollar Store!

wave rust

[yelnick]

wave, extrapolations are treacherous. Music went 45 to LP to CD to ... mp3! A large drop in fidelty but a huge increase in convenience. The color to HD to 3D path is extrapolation, but what is taking off is online video, much of it crap fidelity. It seems the next trend is to expand venues for video, not deepen its quality. Many folk out here see blu-ray as the last physical media, to be replaced by streaming everywhere. TV sits in the cloud, access from any device, any venue, any time, any title.

[yelnick]

wave, love it! the truth is weirder than the urban myth

[Wave Rust]

yel
"Music went 45 to LP to CD to ... mp3!"

my music is still on 8 tracks in my little deuce coupe ,,,, you forgot about tape.

tape had its own era with auto-reverse signing off at tape's zenith.

ultimately, the consumer chooses the easiest tech and what they perceive as value.

a perceived value driven consumer! or, a "what will sell in Walmart" consumer. your super angel colleagues better have that view, or it's a betamax ROI in the graveyard of IRR.

wave rust

[yelnick]

wave, let me summarize: you still use 8-track and watch a tube TV. I cannot even imagine which phone you use. The good news is: the superangels are the walmarts of VC - they are the investors in cheap deals. They are funding projects that will get very rapid customer validation - or not. The traditional VCs are putting a lot more money in, which gives startups more time to chase their Betamaxes.