Sony's Many Flavors of 3D

Last year's CES was 3D TV's great big debutant ball. The world was shown something kind of cool-looking and told, This is the future of home entertainment! Behold! Everyone oohed and aahed appropriately, then went out and bought tablets.

It's OK that 3D TVs still aren't exactly commonplace in the typical American living room. They're expensive, there's still relatively little 3D content, and you have to spring for a special pair of glasses for everyone in the room.

And replacing a large TV for any reason can be kind of a pain. It's this big, bulky thing that you can't (read, shouldn't) just toss into a dumpster. It's almost like getting rid of a refrigerator -- most people only upgrade when there's something very wrong with the one they have now, and not doing 3D doesn't quite qualify as "wrong" yet.

Even though 3D TV still might have a long road ahead of it, Sony (NYSE: SNE) is jumping into the concept with both feet. Nearly half of its massive booth at the Consumer Electronics Show is devoted to 3D technologies. What Sony has on display goes beyond the standard sort of 3D that early adopters have put in their homes in the last 12 months, and some of it may never actually reach production.

There are at least four flavors of 3D to be found in Sony's CES encampment. Perhaps the most prominent is the massive, super-wide-screen video that takes up the entire wall at the back of the company's booth. Sony reps were passing out free 3D glasses Thursday so attendees could watch a short demo without getting a splitting headache.

This variety of passive 3D uses inexpensive, polarized glasses to show each eye a different image. It's the same technology used at most movie theaters. It's good for allowing large numbers of people to see the same show without laying down five figures just for glasses, but critics of the 3D movie craze say it cuts down on the brightness one actually sees from the screen and turns the image into a murky wash.

Another variety, active-shutter 3D, is what's used in most home 3D TVs. The image on the screen alternates between two slightly different points of view over a hundred times per second. Meanwhile, the lenses on the glasses you're wearing alternate between transparent and opaque in sync, giving each eye its own set of images.

Active-shutter glasses per se may not get you around the dimness problem 3D movie critics complain about if you're using them with a rear-projection TV, but often they're combined with flat-panel LCDs. Pumping out more light from behind the TV screen, perhaps with an array of LEDs back there to help out, can make this sort of 3D appear much smoother, brighter and more colorful.

Still, those shuttering glasses are pretty pricey, especially since everyone in the room has to have a pair. The third flavor displayed at Sony's booth uses no glasses at all.

Autostereoscopic 3D TVs are able to actually show different images to each eye, no glasses required. It's similar to what's used in Nintendo's upcoming 3DS handheld gaming system, and I was able look at three different sizes of TVs using the technology. Sony was careful to label each "Future 3D Technology" -- in other words, experimental and not for sale.

First was a portable 3D Blu-ray player with a 10.1-inch screen displaying at 1,366 by 768 resolution. This thing drove me nuts. The slightest movement of my head killed the 3D-ness of the image, and sometimes the depth almost seemed reversed. Color looked drab. And the playback also seemed choppy, though I don't know whether that problem had anything to do with its 3D technology.

Next was a 46-inch model displaying at 2,000 by 1,000. Perhaps it was because the larger screen was playing in a darkened room (rather than under harsh show lights like the 10.1-incher), but the color and consistency of on the larger screen were greatly improved. Then it was on to a 56-inch set at 2,000 by 4,000. Even better.

However, the depth of field in all three autostereoscopic TVs, even the largest one, didn't appear to quite match up to an active-shutter system. Also, the audience in each room was carefully made to stand several feet back from the set and look from a fairly straight-on angle. Due to the way they send images in different directions, these TVs probably have next to no visibility when looked at from wider angles.

Finally, a fourth breed of 3D found at Sony's booth involves strapping on a piece of headgear that's half Daft Punk, half circa-1992 virtual reality getup. The so-called 3D Head-Mounted Display (also a "future technology") gets around the problem of having to make one screen show two images by taking two screens and shoving them right up to your eyeballs.

Sony's experimental 3D head-mounted display"

The results left something to be desired. Maybe I just don't like focusing on things that close to my face, but after 60 seconds my eyes went bleary.

Also, when pressed up this close to the screen, I became very much aware of how your focus is totally at the mercy of the cinematographer. For some reason, this is perfectly fine when watching 2D content, and it's not really a problem when observing 3D from a distance. But here you're looking at a 3D image while your eyeballs are locked inside this little cage with two tiny TVs ... the cinematographer suddenly pulls focus away from something you were concentrating on, and it almost feels like something snaps. Like you just tore an eye tendon.

The big-name TV makers, Sony included, want to apply 3D to more than just watching TV. Sony's PlayStation 3 already supports 3D content, and several games are in the making that will take advantage of that ability.

I was able to get in a few minutes of "Killzone 3" using a 3D set as well as PlayStation Move, the system's motion controller. The results were impressive -- good control, good depth, but perhaps a little dark. Then again, this was "Killzone," not "Super Mario Bros." Kind of an all-around dark game.

Sony PlayStation 3 with 3D version of "Killzone 3"

Finally, Sony's made it possible to make your own 3D movies with the HDR-TD10 camcorder, which records in full HD.

Judging from the monitors providing instant playback, the HDR-TD10 does a fine job of capturing 3D home videos. But I just could not agree with the in-camera display panel. It's supposed to let you view the action in 3D without glasses, just like some of the TVs mentioned above. Try as I may, I could not achieve a viewing angle that accomplished this. It was either a gray wash or some kind of oddly askew image that made my eyes feel crossed.

The Sony HDR-TD10 full HD 3D camcorder

Luckily, the camera's display can be set to regular old 2D mode.