3D Vision Blog

You can consider this as the next logical step – integrating the infrared transmitter for the 3D Vision shutter glasses inside the frame of the laptop’s screen, so that you will no longer need to carry with you a separate transmitter, just the glasses. And Asus just did that in their updated G51JX-3DE gaming laptop with integrated 120Hz LCD panel that is already starting to hit the market, so you can purchase it even at the moment should you decide you need a 3D capable notebook.

Apart for the integration of the Nvidia IR transmitter for the active shutter glasses there are not a lot of changes as compared to the previous versions of the G51 series with 3D capabilities. In this 15.6-Inch laptop you get a 1366×768 LED-backlit 120Hz LCD display, Intel i7-720QM Quad-Core processor at 1.6 GHz with Turbo Boost up to 2.8 GHz, Nvidia 360M GTS graphic card with 1GB DDR5 video memory, 500GB 7200RPM hard drive, Blu-Ray Combo Drive which can be used for Blu-ray 3D movies playback with the right software player, 6GB DDR3 1066MHz system memory along with Windows Home Premium 64-bit Operating System.

The good news is that Asus won’t be the first and only one to integrate the IR transmitter inside the laptop, others will do the same and there is some information going around that Acer will very soon also have a new 3D-capable 3D Vision laptop with integrated IR transmitter too, but we’ll have to wait and see if it turns out true.

- The Asus G51JX-3DE 3D-capable laptop is currently available with a price of $1,686.99 USD…

It has been a while since the last update for the 3D Vision Video Player was released, but the new version 1.6.2 brings some new features along with improvements and fixes, so you should update it now. Among the more interesting new features is the addition of support for MXF files of Digital Cinema Packages and the JPEG2000 video decoder, along with support for 3D Vision Surround mode. Of course when in 3D Vision Surround mode the video gets played on the center screen only and not stretched to all screens, unless maybe if it is with wide enough resolution, however this is better than the player just crashing as it did in the older versions when using Surround setups. You can see the full lists of changes in the new 3D Vision Video Player version 1.6.2 on the official download page linked below.

- To download the latest Nvidia 3D Vision Video Player version 1.6.2…

August is almost over and apparently we are not going to see the Nvidia 3DTV Play software available as previously expected, but now the Nvidia guys are talking about a September release date to journalists, so the wait is almost over. According to Pocket-lint Nvidia told them that:

Nvidia’s 3DTV Play software will be available as a standalone product for around £30, with the software available for now to existing Nvidia 3D vision kit owners. It will also be bundled in with all kits sold from the date of its release, which we were told will be September.

Personally I’m a bit disappointed because of the recent long waits after the official product announcements for both Fermi, 3D Vision Surround and now the 3DTV Play. Actually I would’ve preferred to get a late product announcement soon followed by the actual product than to have an early announcement and wait for months for the products. Waiting for too long just gets your hopes higher and higher with every passing day and after that when you finally get the actual product you expect it to be much better than it actually is and this way comes the actual disappointment. I’ve already seen the 3DTV Play software in action on a short demonstration and I liked it, but I’m pretty sure that when it finally becomes available there will be more things to be desired despite the long wait. For example HDMI 1.4a support which added a few more features to the S3D specs in the format as apparently the initial 3DTV Play software release will only support HDMI 1.4 specs as reported by some people that also had the chance to play with the software during some demos. Hopefully in September we’ll all finally have a good reason (hopefully) to get a new 3D HDTV for playing PC games in stereo 3D mode on a big screen as with the current level of 3D content available for 3D HDTV owners they still do not seem that attractive.

- To read about Engadget’s first hand experience with the 3DTV Play software…
- To read about Pocket-lint’s first hand experience with the 3DTV Play software…