3D Vision Blog

The HDMI standard has finally become mainstream and widely adopted by the different makers of consumer electronic devices, and we are even starting to see devices that use the latest HDMI 1.4(a) specifications with support for Stereo 3D. But it seems that some of the biggest CE manufacturers are not very satisfied with the HDMI and thus started their own alliance in order to promote a new standard called HDBaseT that relies on using CAT5e/6 LAN cables. Furthermore the HDBaseT Alliance anticipates products with embedded HDBaseT technology to be available in the second half of this year, with the majority of adoption taking place in 2011. The HDBaseT 1.0 specification is now officially finalized and will also be available for licensing within the second half of 2010.

The founding companies of the HDbaseT Alliance are LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Valens Semiconductor. And the alliance was formed with the goal to promote and commercialize the HDBaseT technology, enabling a single LAN cable to replace multiple cables and connectors in the home entertainment environment, HDBaseT is optimized for video application and can connect all the entertainment devices at home by providing the 5Play convergence of uncompressed full HD digital video, audio, 100BaseT Ethernet, power over cable and various control signals.

The cornerstone of HDBaseT technology is the so called 5Play feature-set that converges full uncompressed HD video, audio, 100BaseT Ethernet, high power over cable and various control signals through a single 100m/328ft CAT5e/6 LAN cable. HDBaseT has the bandwidth to support the highest video resolutions such as full HD 1080p as well as stereo 3D and 2Kx4K formats. HDBaseT is the first to provide all-in-one connectivity, making it possible for a single-connector TV to receive power, video/audio, Internet and control signals from the same cable and that cable to be a very widely adopted and used as well as very affordable LAN cable for up to 100m connectivity between devices. Let’s see how well will the HDbaseT will progress, facing the competing standards that are gaining more and more solid positions on the market and looking back at the time it took for HDMI to become widely adopted, as well as the Display Port standard that is finally starting to get more attention it might turn out that the HDbaseT will need at least a few years…

- For more information about the HDbaseT Alliance and the HDbaseT standard…

It seems that Nvidia has decided to finally update the notebook drivers to the latest version 197.16 to have the latest features and performance improvements and to bring official support for the GeForce 300M series GPUs that are starting to appear. Also the mobile drivers now seem to be called Nvidia Verde Notebook Drivers, probably to have something to differentiate them from the desktop drivers. Along with that Nvidia has released an updated driver CD version 1.24 that includes the latest GPU driver version 197.16 along with the 3D Vision Driver version 197.16. What is interesting in this driver is the first to officially support 3D Vision usage on a laptop (other than the 3D-ready Asus G51J 3D) with the help of an external display. This driver also supports the Asus G51J 3D laptop that has a built-in 120Hz LCD panel, so you should update if you already have one of these laptops as the latest driver CD for it was 1.17 which is already quite old.

Now what came as a bit of disappointment is the fact that the new Nvidia Verde Notebook 3D Vision Driver CD v1.24 is intended for supporting only notebooks using the latest GeForce 200M and 300M series GPUs (but that is according to Nvidia). Another interesting bit of information on the support page for the new driver CD suggests that the Blu-ray 3D playback (3rd party software required) is going to work only on the mobile 300M series of GPUs. I’ve tried to install the new driver on my Dell XPS M1730 laptop with dual 9800M GT in SLI and I everything installed smoothly and worked like a charm. The GPU driver recognized the video cards and installed without problem, then the 3D Vision driver complained (before connecting the external 120Hz display) of not finding a compatible panel. The interesting thing is that after that there was no Stereoscopic 3D panel present in the NVIDIA Control panel, but after connecting an external 120Hz LCD monitor the Stereoscopic 3D control panel appeared and the stereo 3D mode was working just fine.

Currently the 3D Vision driver for notebooks supports the usage of external 3D projector, 3D-ready DLP HDTVs or 120Hz LCD, but with the upcoming availability of the NVIDIA 3DTV Play software we are probably going to get support for also using our notebooks as a source for 3D content after connecting them through HDMI to the TV set (no need to have HDMI 1.4 on the laptop, only on the TV). This will however probably require you to purchase the 3DTV Play software, although this is still not very clear as Nvidia has promised to provide the software for free to current 3D Vision owners.

And the stupid thing of actually not being able to enable the free 3D Vision Discover mode on your laptop is still present as you get the quite well known error message that your laptop LCD panel is not qualified for 3D Vision as it is not 120Hz. But then again for anaglyph mode you don’t need a special panel, so forget about trying out the “free” anaglyph mode with the 3D Vision on your laptop once again (or go for an older 3D Vision drivers and modify them to work on your laptop)… but then again it is easier to go for other alternatives also offering free anaglyph mode that actually does work!

- To download the latest Nvidia Verde Notebook 3D Vision Driver CD v1.24…

With the first wave of new 3D-ready hardware getting ready to hit us anytime now a lot of people seem to have doubts if they should get to be first in the line or wait until the summer to see how will things work out with more hardware available. One of the major concerns people are currently having is regarding HDMI 1.3 and HDMI 1.4 specifications and should they wait more to get hardware supporting the new specs or go for the first available devices that all seem to have 1.3 hardware. For example the new C7000 line of Samsung 3D-ready HDTVs or the new Blu-ray 3D players from Sony that seem to have HDMI 1.3 support. We know that HDMI 1.3 can be used to transport stereo 3D content, but since there is not standardization for it everyone can have different approach that will offer support for hardware coming from just one brand. In HDMI 1.4 specifications the stereoscopic 3D support has been standardized meaning that all hardware using it should be able to communicate with each other so you will not have to stick just to one brand of hardware producer to ensure compatibility…

This brings me to the case of PlayStation 3 console with HDMI 1.3 that is expected to receive a software update to bring stereoscopic 3D support. We’ve already got confirmation that the software update for the console will add support for the S3D features from HDMI 1.4 specifications as this is possible to be done with just a software update. Of course adding all the new features introduced with 1.4 specifications of HDMI is not possible with just a simple software update, but in the case of stereoscopic 3D support it can be done so that the different brands of 3D-ready TVs should be able to understand that the console is sending them 3D content and display it accordingly. That is of course if these new TV sets use HDMI 1.4 or at least also have their software updated so that the HDMI 1.3 hardware will be able to “understand” the Stereoscopic 3D part of 1.4 specifications. So this brings things back to new 3D-ready hardware being equipped with HDMI 1.3 specifications, which means that these can be using the older specifications hardware, but with software that can accept and interpret S3D content coming from HDMI 1.4 or other updated 1.3 devices. However don’t mistake that all of the new 3D-ready hardware will follow the path that Sony did decide on for the PlayStation 3 console to make it stereo 3D compatible with just a firmware update. It is possible that some hardware producers will stick to normal HDMI 1.3 specifications and use some other sort of processing for the S3D content,something that is still Ok, but will limit general compatibility with other hardware from other brands. So in the end it will not hurt to be extra careful if you want to be one of the earliest adopters of the new line of 3D compatible hardware as this might as well turn out to be quite an expensive experiment for you.

- If you want to download the 3D portion of the HDMI Specifications 1.4