3D Vision Blog

One more video interview in stereo 3D format taken by Neil Schneider from MTBS during this years CES, this time the “victims” are Chris Yewdall (CEO) and Larry Wang (VP of Business Development) for Dynamic Digital Depth or DDD in short. This time the video is a bit long as the guys from DDD have some interesting things to share, because unlike iZ3D that are being quite silent for a while, DDD is quite active in partnering not only with AMD for stereoscopic 3D gaming, but with a lot more companies licensing their stereoscopic 3D technologies. And just to let know all of you that might not know it, DDD’s TriDef 3D software solution is also compatible with Nvidia-based GPUs, so it not only works on ATI/AMD-based hardware, but of course you need to have a compatible stereo 3D-capable display solution as well.

Lately DDD is also very actively partnering with companies offering autostereoscopic 3D display solutions, as well as companies offering additional accessories for converting 2D displays into stereoscopic 3D-capable ones such as Sony with their VAIO S laptops. DDD’s 3D technologies have also been licensed by many HDTV manufacturers, especially the automatic 2D to 3D conversion from DDD. So take a look at the interview for some interesting insight into what the company offers at the moment and what more to expect from DDD in the near future…

- To watch the stereoscopic 3D video interview with DDD taken at CES 2012…

Today DDD has released another update for their TriDef 3D software and it is an update to a new major version 5.0 after multiple updates for the 4.x releases that were made available this year. There are some changes that may sound in the new version such as the fact that the pretty pointless TriDef 3D Experience menu screen has been replaced by a new TriDef 3D Portal, that also integrates somewhat the company’s Yabazam.com 3D video service. This however sounds more interesting than it actually is as there isn’t much of a difference as compared to the menu before, this could probably be made more functional and “portal”-like as now pretty much everyone just runs the Ignition software ot the 3D video player directly. The thing that is more interesting is the new multi-language user guide available to help users that are new to the software as up until now it was quite hard to get started with the TriDef software for people that are new to stereo 3D and the software itself…

But most of the new things of course are related to improving stereo 3D support in games in this update or with other words done for the TriDef 3D Ignition part of the software. According to the company the software now offers stereo 3D support with profiles for over 590 games (about 15 percent of which are Asian games) – 552 DDD game profiles and 40+ user submitted profiles (it is strange that the user submited profiles are not growing much, or they are just being added as regular game profiles). Some of the new profiles that were added cover new games such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, FIFA 12, Pro Evolution Soccer 2012, Driver San Francisco and others. There is also a preliminary support for Battlefield 3 being added (more info here), but you should have in mind that the game still does not have the native stereo 3D support enabled, so you might want to still wait for the official S3D support in order not to get a bad stereoscopic 3D experience with the game at this moment.

- To download the latest DDD TriDef 3D Software Version 5.0…

ViewSonic is now back with a 3D Vision-ready 120Hz monitor after the not so successful Viewsonic V3D241wm-LED 3D monitor intended for use with AMD’s HD 3D technology from last year. The new 24-inch ViewSonic V3D245 3D monitor marks the company’s return to supporting Nvidia’s active shutter technology and hopefully the new model will build upon the very good first generation 3D Vision monitor ViewSonic had back when 3D Vision was first announced. We’ll have to wait for the first reviews in order to confirm or deny that, but meanwhile at least the specifications of the ViewSonic V3D245 3D monitor look very promising. ViewSonic also announced a new 23.6-inch ViewSonic V3D231 3D LED monitor that uses passive polarization technology and is bundled with DDD’s TriDef 3D software, but that new model is not very interesting anyway.

ViewSonic V3D245 Speccifications:

Panel Size: 23.6″ Wide Screen 16:9, TN, LED backlight
Native Resolution: 1920×1080 pixels
Brightness(Max): 300 cd/m2
Contrast Ratio (Max.): 1000:1 (typ.), 20,000,000:1 (dynamic)
Viewing Angles: 170° H / 160° V
Response Time: 2 ms (GtG)
Video Inputs: Dual-link DVI-D, VGA, HDMI 1.4
Power Consumption: 33W typical
Integrated Audio: 2x 2W stereo speakers
Dimension (WxHxD): 566 x 442 x 240 mm
Weight: 4.4 kg.

The new Viewsonic V3D245 is a 23.6-inch 3D, full HD (1080p) LED monitor that includes a built-in Nvidia 3D Vision wireless IR emitter and is bundles with a pair of 3D Vision active shutter glasses. The monitor uses a 120Hz LED backlit LCD panel with 2 milliseconds response time, 300 cd/m2 maximum brightness, 1000 :1 typical and 20,000,000:1 maximum dynamic contrast according to the specifications. It is interesting to note that the monitor also has an HDMI 1.4 input supporting 3D, so you should be able to use it with a wider range of 3D-capable devices, besides your computer and it also has integrated speakers. There is no information if the HDMI 1.4 interface will only support frame packaged input or it will also work with Side by Side input for example as well.

The ViewSonic V3D245 3D monitor with included pair of Nvidia 3D Vision active shutter glasses should be available in North America during mid-to-late August with a price of about $499 USD. And so it seems that the Acer GN245HQ and HN274H 3D monitors will have some competition in the face of ViewSonic V3D245 in terms of HDMI 1.4 support, hopefully more flexible in terms of 3D input format supported, although not very likely, but let’s wait and see.