3D Vision Blog » 3d glasses

Oskav, a new Brand for Designer Passive 3D Cinema Glasses

Bloody — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:00:51 +0000

Oskav is the name of a new UK-based brand specialized in making passive 3D movie glasses with style and at an affordable price. The Oskav 3D designer glasses offer the perfect combination of classic style, sunglasses-quality frames and high density circular polarized lenses at a price that everyone can easily afford (£19.99 UK pounds or about $31 USD). Currently there are three different models available with worldwide shipping (free shipping in UK) that are intended for use by adults, but a specially designed range for children is also expected to be released soon. The designer 3D movie glasses made by Oskav are intended to be used in movie theaters using RealD 3D projection technology, but they are also compatible with a lot of passive 3D-capable HDTVs and could also work with some passive 3D computer monitors as well…

I’ve already mentioned here that I like more the classic designs for 3D glasses and the Oskav 3D glasses’ style is just ideal for every one else with such preferences, but it is not all about the design. The passive 3D glasses made by Oskav have very good technical specifications as well that ensure optimum quality. The use of thicker polarizing filters with 10 composite layers constructing each of the lenses means that you get no image distortion and the lenses are more durable. The optical characteristics of the lenses have been optimized to better light transmittance and to minimize the negative effects such as crosstalk, so that you can get the best experience watching 3D movies. And you can also soon expect a review of the Oskav 3D glasses…

- For more information about the designer 3D cinema glasses made by Oskav…

LG With New More Stylish Passive Cinema 3D TV Glasses for 2012

Bloody — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 06:25:07 +0000

LG Electronics its newest collection of 3D glasses, including a pair designed by the eyewear designer Alain Mikli, that will be introduced in the first quarter of 2012. The new line of passive 3D glasses will offer more stylish looking products – the F310, the clip-on F320 and the Alain Mikli F360 – are lighter and more comfortable to wear on one hand, and on the other the new design also offers features such as curved lenses and clean frame structure. So it seems that LG is apparently starting to move the focus from offering only cheaper passive 3D glasses, to offering affordable and good looking 3D glasses for its range of Cinema 3D TV passive 3D-capable television sets . Because the currently available range of passive 3D glasses that LG offers are not only cheap in terms of price, but also look cheap in terms of design and production and are not very sturdy and durable. Of course the new line of better-looking passive 3D glasses introduced should not be much more expensive than what the company already offers on the market, although prices have not yet been revealed…

The new LG F310 passive 3D glasses are characterized by a distinctive design that combines soft lines within a slim frame. Unlike many previous 3D glasses, the lenses have been curved to better accommodate the shape of the user’s face, as well as to improve the overall 3D viewing experience. The F310 glasses’ weight about 13.5 grams, making it about 20 percent lighter than LG’s previous design. The new LG F320 will be clip-on 3D glasses that are going to be even lighter at a weight of just about 5.5 grams, but these are of course designed to be worn over a pair of prescription glasses, so they need to be lighter. And the third new model has been developed in collaboration with Alain Mikli, the LG F360′s half-rim frame design is sportier and has a weight of only 16 grams. The lenses of the LG F360 passive 3D glasses have been curved and cover most of the user’s face, for a deeper immersion and better stereoscopic 3D experience. Besides being compatible with the Cinema 3D TV range of 3D-capable TV sets from LG, the new passive 3D glasses are also compatible with some 3D movie theaters that use RealD projection technology, as well as other compatible passive 3D displays.

Comparing the Lens Size and Weight of the 3D Vision 2 3D Glasses

Bloody — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 20:21:09 +0000

We know that with 3D vision 2 active shutter glasses Nvidia has increased the size of the lenses used by 20%, but what this means in terms of the increase of the width and height of the lenses? On the photo above you can see 3D Vision 2 (left) compared to MonsterVision Max 3D glasses (right) with the Monster glasses being the ones with the biggest lenses I’ve seems so far among active shutter glasses. On the photo you can see that Nvidia’s new 3D glasses are almost catching up to the Monster’s 3D glasses in terms of size, so here is the width and height of the visible size of the lenses between these three 3D glasses, measuring roughly the size with the minimum and maximum height and width:

3D Vision:
Lens height – 26-32 mm
Lens width – 36-54 mm

3D Vision 2:
Lens height – 30-35 mm
Lens width – 36-58 mm

MonsterVision Max 3D:
Lens height – 30-41mm
Lens width – 38-58 mm

And since the lenses of the glasses are not with an exact rectangular size it is harder to confirm these 20% size increase between the first and second generation 3D Vision, but let us believe Nvidia on this one. I was personally more interested by the fact that the lenses of the new 3D Vision 2 glasses have roughly the same width as Monster’s 3D glasses, although they are not as high. This is a good news, considering the fact that all 3D Vision ready 3D LCD monitors are wide aspect ones, but with 3D projectors there are still quite a lot of models with 4:3 or 16:10 aspect ratio and for these bigger not only in width, but also in height lenses can be considered better.

And now for what is the weight of the old and new 3D Vision shutter glasses. As you can see from the photos, the 3D Vision glasses (on top) are a bit lighter at about 51 grams and the new 3D Vision 2 glasses (on the bottom) have a bit of extra weight for a total of about 56.2 grams. Not much of a difference, but the weight is increased a bit. According to Nvidia the new glasses should be able to provide you with up to 60 hours of usage on a single charge, the same amount of time you get with the revised version of the old 3D Vision glasses. As I’ve already mentioned in a previous post the new 3D Vision 2 glasses use a built-in 70 mAh lithium-ion rechargeable battery. And just as a comparison some of the 3D HDTV manufacturers have managed to reduce the weight of their active shutter 3D glasses to less than 30 grams (with less usage time on a single charge however), so there is more to be desired in terms of weight reduction for the next generation… ;)

3D Glasses in Movie Theaters and Should You BYO 3D Glasses

Bloody — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:34:06 +0000

In the last few days there has been a lot of controversy going on around the fact that Sony has announced that it plans to stop subsidizing the 3D glasses in movie theaters starting next year with the release of the movies “Men in Black III” and “The Amazing Spider-Man.” This has angered the National Association of Theater Owners in US that did not accept these news happily, and this was not the first try for big movie studio to stop subsidizing the glasses. It has happened with 20th Century Fox back in 2009, but they have renounced their plan to stop subsidizing the 3D glasses after the same thing happened as is now happening with Sony. Will Sony do the same as 20th Century Fox is still not clear, but it is clear that unless this happens as an industry wide move the movie theater owners won’t be happy at all. But you know, there are already quite a few placer around the world where movie studios are actually not subsidizing the 3D glasses. This can easily be arranged adjusting the profit distribution shares between the movie theater owners and the movie studios, however movie studios like Sony probably just want to move the cost for the 3D glasses to the theater owners. And this all could lead to a 3D ticket price increase or a decrease in the number of 3D movie projections, but it could also lead to a big market increase in one relatively new category of products – personal movie theater 3D glasses…

Buying and bringing your own personal (BYO) 3D glasses with you when going to a 3D movie projection is already something that quite a few people prefer doing, especially considering some of the side effects of the reusable 3D glasses you usually get in the theater. The reusable 3D glasses in movie theaters are usually being washed in between projections in order to have them cleaned, but how many times you’ve seen the lenses of these glasses scratched or smudged with some cleaning fluid or whatever? You usually have to carefully wipe them out yourself before using them, that is unless you carry your own personal pair of 3D glasses that you can take out and enjoy the movie. There are also some movie theaters that hand out what appears to be packed single-use pairs of glasses that get proper treatment before being repacked and distributed for the next projection… this is usually a better and more problem free solution for the audience, but is probably also more expensive. But you know, getting 3D glasses for a 3D movie projection is something you’d normally expect to get as a service from the movie theater, so should you also not expect to get a discount from the ticket when you BYO 3D glasses? This is one of the options and movie theaters could also start offering different brands of compatible 3D glasses with the type of projection system they are using. And this way they can even further increase their profit by offering different types of personal 3D glasses and in different price ranges, so that you will know when you spent some money for a personal pair of glasses you would then get a discount from the 3D movie tickets.

Having movie theaters offering different personal 3D glasses is probably the best way, especially considering the fact that there are multiple 3D projection systems in use that require the viewer to wear a different type of 3D glasses to see the proper image. These are mostly passive solutions – IMAX, RealD and Dolby 3D as well as some active ones such as XpanD, which is probably the most widely used active solution for 3D movie theaters. Obviously active and passive 3D viewing methods are not compatible, although you may be able to make a kind of an universal solution, but even the different passive solutions are not compatible with each other due to the different method of light polarization being used in each. When you look around you will see that pretty much all better looking and especially designer 3D glasses available are compatible with RealD’s projection system only. Sure you could pretty easily also find IMAX or Dolby 3D glasses, but these are usually the same not so practical and not so good looking type of 3D glasses that you get handed out when you enter the respective 3D movie theater. The IMAX 3D glasses shouldn’t be expensive and hard to produce, but most likely IMAX is not giving out license to anyone else to make designer 3D glasses compatible with their solutions, the same could also apply to Dolby 3D, although their glasses should be a bit more expensive and harder to produce due to the way their lenses work. This would of course need to change if the market of personal 3D glasses continues to grow and there is a big potential for that, although the presence of multiple formats makes it harder for the users. Depending on what format the local movie theaters around you use you may need to buy multiple different pairs of 3D glasses and if you go for more expensive designer brands such as Calvin Klein or Oakley it could turn out to be quite an expensive thing to do. And if you don’t go watching 3D movies that often it becomes even less attractive, even though there are a lot of options for personal 3D glasses that don’t cost over $100 USD…

The Wired 3D Vision Active Shutter Glasses Still Hard to Find

Bloody — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 11:27:55 +0000

Do you remember back in June this year Nvidia announcing that new more affordable wired 3D Vision active shutter glasses are coming? Well, if you live in the US you are able to get these cheaper wired 3D Vision glasses for a while now for $99 USD, however if you live in Europe, where there are a lot of more price-oriented markets, you are still out of luck. It appears that the wired version of the 3D Vision active shutter glasses is still yet to reach Europe and most likely other markets as well. I did manage to spot some places offering the glasses, but only in Germany and even there it isn’t easy to get a hold of them, and as expected the price in Europe is translated to 99 Euro. So it seems that we are going to have to wait a bit more for the wired version of the 3D Vision glasses to become widely available in Europe. And until then you’ll have to wait for a review of the glasses comparing them to the already available for a while and more expensive wireless counterpart.

And while you may think that the wired version of the 3D Vision glasses may be more attractive for people that consider the wireless version a bit too expensive this is not the case. There are actually a lot of people using the 3D Vision glasses professionally and although there is already a wireless 3D Vision Pro version available targeted at them, they may still prefer the wired glasses. The reason for that is due to the battery having bigger chance to fail in about a year or two in a wireless version after 8-12 hours of nonstop daily usage. So for these people the wired version could be more convenient solution in longer term, regardless of the price, and having to deal with cables is not a problem as they tend to work in front of a PC all the time anyway. Of course from the profit point of view having professional users buy the cheapest consumer version instead of the more expensive professional model is not that great, but then there is the point of what people need. Which reminds me that there is still no easy way to get your damaged or failed 3D Vision glasses repaired, like for example if you break a lens incidentally or your battery fails, as there are no spare parts for being sold anywhere. So you ultimately have to buy a new pair of glasses and the general rule is that the more complex a product is the more likely is something to fail in it over time and this makes the simpler wired 3D Vision glasses more attractive for some people… ;)

Universal Bluetooth 3D Active Shutter Glasses Are Coming in 2012

Bloody — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:15:47 +0000

If you thought that in 2012 everyone will ditch the 3D glasses and go for glasses-free 3D products, than you were a bit too optimistic about the development of sterescopic 3D technology. Although autostereoscopic 3D technology is developing it will take at least a few years before it can compete in terms of price and features to what the glasses-based 3D products already offer. But that does not mean that the active 3D and passive 3D solutions that are already widely available, they too have some disadvantages, besides the fact that you need to wear glasses. And if we focus on the active 3D solutions, one of the most annoying things at the moment is the fact that there is no universal standard to make all glasses compatible with different hardware and pretty much everyone is making their own glasses that work only with their own 3D products. Another thing about the active 3D glasses is the fact that most of them rely on infrared signals for synchronization with the 3D HDTV or a 3D monitor. This means you need direct line of sight between the glasses and the IR emitter, the operating range is more limited, and you may get interferences in the signal from other infrared devices like from some remote control for a device for example…

Quite some time has passed and although there were a few tries to standardize the active shutter glasses for 3D products, so far we have been nowhere near achieving that important goal. The solution was for some third party manufacturers to make universal active shutter glasses that are compatible with multiple products, but that simply requires you to buy additional hardware. Things however maybe moving in the right direction after Panasonic Corporation, Samsung Electronics, Sony Corporation and X6D Limited (XPAND 3D) have announced their intent to collaborate on the development of a new technology standard for consumer 3D active glasses called “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative”. The first three are some of the top names in the consumer 3D product market at the moments and the fourth company is one of the makers of universal 3D glasses, so if we get a few more companies to join in and we are going to be almost there achieving the standardization of the active 3D shutter glasses.

The “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative” is targeted to be launched in September 2011, at which time the development of new standardization-applied active 3D glasses will begin, however the first universal glasses with the new IR/RF protocols will be made available in 2012. These new active shutter glasses will be using Bluetooth RF technology as wireless radio frequency medium for communication with 3D-capable display solutions, but will also be backward compatible with 2011 3D active TVs using infrared communication. If you remember a few months ago Samsung was the first company to start offering Bluetooth-based active shutter glasses that were compatible only with some of the latest generation of Samsung’s 2011 3D TVs. Hopefully this initiative will make the life of consumers using different 3D-capable products easier, but as I’ve already mentioned this will not happen before 2012, so there is still time.

The Image Mill 3D 2011 Edition, a Large Scale 3D Projection in Canada

Bloody — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 10:44:27 +0000

The Image Mill is an architectural projection in Quebec City produced and performed by Robert Lepage and Ex Machina and it pretty much represents the largest scale projection on building ever done. The project uses the grain silos of the Quebec Harbour in the form of an oversized screen that is 600 meters wide by 30 meters high, and that is rally a huge size for a projection screen that also requires quick a lot of technology behind in order to make things work as they should.

The Image Mill was created as part of the festivities surrounding the 400th anniversary of Quebec City. Following the success of the 2008 edition, the work has been extended for another five years. And this year the event is called Image Mill 3D 2011 Edition as the projection will be done in stereoscopic 3D format and the viewers will be given a pair of 3D glasses to enjoy the show. So if you happen to live in Quebec City, Canada or visit it until September 3rd you can go and have a look at the about 50 minute long show.

- For more information about the project Image Mill 3D 2011 Edition…

Ingri:Dahl, a New Company Offering Designer 3D Glasses

Bloody — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 19:36:12 +0000

Don’t you hate it when you go to see a 3D movie and the pair of 3D glasses you are given looks like crap, isn’t comfortable when worn, is dirty although it was supposed to be washed and disinfected after the previous use and so on. Apparently a more and more people do mind that fact and prefer to come with their own personal pair of 3D glasses and not just the plain cheap glasses that you get in the movie theater, but with designer 3D glasses instead. And thus it is no wonder that a lot of big and popular companies making designer glasses started offering designer 3D glasses intended for 3D movie fans as well…

But there are new companies appearing on the market that are solely focused on making good designer 3D glasses and such is the case with the company called Ingri:Dahl that just recently introduced their first product. The first style of glasses being released by Ingri:Dahl has been inspired by classic Hollywood and is named “James” after James Dean, with the 3D glasses currently selling for 29.50 US dollars. These 3D glasses are compatible with all screens using passive 3D technology, meaning RealD and MasterImage theaters and the passive 3D HDTVs made by LG, Vizio, Toshiba, JVC and other brands.

When mentioning designer 3D glasses a lot of people usually ask why would anyone wear an expensive set of glasses in a dark movie theater when nobody will be able to see him… well, no need of vanity here, because it is up to you to choose your own style and wear what 3D glasses you like. If you like the design, find the glasses more comfortable to wear and want to enjoy better quality and longer lasting product why should you care what anyone else thinks or even sees what glasses you are wearing. I personally like the more classical Hollywood look of the “James” 3D glasses by Ingri:Dahl than what other more popular big brands are tying to push with more modern styles in their products.

And I’m still wondering why nobody has started offering designer 3D glasses for other passive 3D technologies such as Dolby 3D or IMAX 3D, these can also benefit from better design and some times even quality too, and why not even designer 3D active shutter glasses?

- If you are interested in the 3D glasses you can go and check out the Ingri:Dahl website…

New More Affordable Wired 3D Vision Active Shutter Glasses Are Coming

Bloody — Tue, 31 May 2011 17:36:11 +0000

Nvidia has announced a new more affordable model of the 3D Vision active shutter glasses that will be wired as opposed to the currently available wireless infrared version of the glasses and the wireless RF Pro version of 3D Vision. The new 3D Vision Wired glasses are going to cost $99 USD and they are expected to be available by the end of June, so don’t start looking for them yet if you are tempted by the lower price. In this new model Nvidia ditched the battery and the wireless communication, so now they connect directly to a PC’s USB port, meaning that there should be no more problem with synchronization or interferences if using more pairs of glasses in the same room. You can also forget about having to recharge a battery or about getting the battery dead after about an year or two of extensive use or actually I should call it extensive abuse…

Of course these glasses are not going to replace the wireless models, they are just going to go along with them for people that don’t mind wearing glasses that are wired to the PC, wanting more affordable solution (the wireless IR 3D Vision kit now costs $149 USD after the recent adjustment of the price from $199 USD). The wired 3D Vision glasses seem to be a great solution for work environments where you have multiple systems using 3D Vision or for LAN parties for example, not that you cannot also use them at home, but with the recent wave of 3D laptops and 3D monitors with integrated IR emitters for personal use you might just want to get an extra infrared wireless pair of glasses only for $99 USD.

The new wired 3D Vision active shutter glasses use the same shutters and are compatible with the same hardware as the wireless glasses (there seem to be just some design improvements implemented in the frames) and I suppose you should not have any trouble using them both at the same time on one system (this needs to be confirmed). Of course there should be an official driver update to add the support for the wired 3D glasses as well, so we should be getting that probably in the next WHQL driver sometime in June. The new wired 3D glasses are going to be coming with 10 foot long USB cable (around 3 meters) that should be enough to cover the need of most people using a 3D monitor, although the length of the cable might be a bit of a problem for people using 3D DLP projector setups, so for that the wireless glasses might still be a better and more flexible choice. And I hope to soon be able to try a pair of the new wired 3D Vision shutter glasses and report back, although I’m expecting no surprises here, especially considering the LC shutters and the electronics driving them should be performing pretty much the same as on the wireless version.

- Here you can already get the 3D Vision Wired active shutter glasses for $99…

Get The 2D Glasses If You Have Trouble With 3D Movies at Cinema

Bloody — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:16:01 +0000

Do you remember the De-3D Cinema Glasses prank that ThinkGeek has pulled for April 1st this year, well the movie theater glasses that will turn a 3D movie into a 2D one are now real and you can buy them for $7.99 USD a pair. But why would you need glasses that make a 3D movie into a 2D one, when you can just go to a projection of that movie in 2D and not pay for a more expensive ticket for 3D projection? The answer is pretty simple, if you are not going alone to the cinema and only you have trouble when watching 3D and your friends still want to watch the movie in 3D, you can be with them and still watch in 2D with the special pair of glasses. The 2D Glasses are intended to be used in movie theaters using RealD projection technology and should be also compatible with most passive 3D television sets. They are not compatible with IMAX 3D movie theaters or ones using Dolby Digital 3D technology as these use different type of glasses, and of course they are not compatible with active shutter glasses solutions. Active shutter glasses such as Nvidia’s 3D Vision can also be modified to show 2D image from a screen displaying a 3D one, I’ve made a guide on how to do that.

Here is the real story behind the 2D Glasses from Hank Green:

In late 2010 I wanted to go see Tron Legacy. My wife was happy to come with me… as long as we went to the cheap theater where it was playing in 2D.

Really? Tron in 2D? What’s the point right? And then my wife told me something I never knew, she gets bad headaches when watching 3D movies.

She never complained about it, but there it was. I didn’t want my wife to be in pain, but I also didn’t want to go see Tron by myself. So instead of complaining (okay, in ADDITION to complaining), I got out my tools.

Instead of “recycling” the 3D glasses that my wife and I used during the movie, I took them home. After a lot of poking and twisting and gluing and cutting and cursing and sawing, I had created my first pair of 2D Glasses.

They’re not pretty, but I took them to see Voyage of the Dawn Treader in 3D and they worked! Katherine could watch the movie in 2D, and even switch to 3D for the action scenes!

She told some friends and by the next week, I had around 10 “orders” for these ugly 2D glasses. Stealing my raw materials from the theater became impractical, so I decided to get some nice ones made and make them available to the world.

What these 2D glasses actually do is to use two lenses with the same light polarization, instead of lenses with different polarization for the left and right eye as the typical passive polarized 3D glasses do. So basically in order to make a pair of 3D glasses into a one showing you 2D image from a 3D projection you just need to replace the right lens on the glasses with another left one. So instead of getting two slightly different images through each of your eyes and the brain fusing them into a 3D image with these glasses both your eyes will see only the left projected frame and it will still feel as a 2D image. And there goes the trouble and problem you may be experiencing watching 3D content, even though the projection would still be in 3D, you will be seeing a 2D movie with these modified glasses.

- For more information about the 2D glasses visit their official website…
- You can also order the 2D Glasses from Amazon, they are being shipped worldwide…

3D Vision Blog » 3d glasses

Oskav, a new Brand for Designer Passive 3D Cinema Glasses

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