I’ve been thinking about the idea of modifying the 3D Vision active shutter glasses so that both of their lenses can show only the left or only the right image from stereo 3D content being displayed on a 120Hz LCD monitor. The reason for such modification is to have a pair of 3D Vision active shutter glasses that can be used to watch in 2D when the display is actually showing 3D content, thus allowing some people to see the 3D content and others to see the same content, but in 2D… all at the same time. On the demo video above you can see a demonstration showing what I was able to achieve after a few hours spent to learn how the 3D Vision glasses function and to modify them. And the same modification should be possible to just about any other pair of active shutter glasses, for example a pair of shutter glasses that is used with a 3D-capable HDTV…
As you know some people are not feeling comfortable when watching stereoscopic 3D content, or do not see the 3D effect at all because of having some issue with their eyes, however at the moment nobody is offering 2D shutter glasses for these people to enjoy the same content with their family or friends in 2D while others are using 3D glasses and seeing in stereo 3D. When displaying stereo 3D content on the screen that is intended to be watched with shutter glasses, you cannot watch it without glasses and with the glasses it is in stereo 3D. This is why you need the glasses to show only the left or the right frame at the same time trough both shutters and blocking the other view, so that you will be actually seeing 2D content, but the only way to do that currently is by physically modifying the glasses (loosing the warranty of course).
The next interesting possibility by having two pairs of modified 3D Vision shutter glasses – one to show the left and the other to show the right frames only, is to allow the sharing of a single 120Hz LCD monitor between two users watching different content. Of course both users will be able to watch different 2D content with 60Hz each, like two different movies for example, or a movie and a game, even two different games at the same time, although this becomes harder on the software side. However this possibility should not be neglected as it can be quite useful, especially since it will not be that hard to also have different audio for the two users depending on what content they are watching. But here I’m just talking about a possible future perspective that may or may not be exploited…
Now to the point on how you can actually modify a pair of 3D Vision active shutter glasses should you decided to do so because of various reasons, some of which I’ve already mentioned above or for something else. Just a reminder that doing the following modification will void your warranty and it also requires some soldering skills etc., so if you are not sure in your abilities please do not try this modification as there is risk of damaging the glasses!
This is not my first time opening the 3D Vision shutter glasses, so it was an easy task for me, however you should be careful when doing that. There is just one screw hidden under the nosepiece and the rest is just separating the different plastic elements from each other, carefully not to brake them, although the plastic used for the glasses is quite strong. After opening the glasses you need to disconnect the control board (in the left side of the glasses) as you need to work with the flexible connector cable that goes to the IR receiver, both shutters and the battery on the right. On the photo above you can see which two pins are used for the left (L) and for the right (R) shutter – two separate circuits that we need to bridge together so that both shutters will be open or closed at the same time and not change state one after another.
We need to bridge both shutters in a single loop using the left or right signaling line only depending on whether we want them to show only the left or only the right frame (left is usually used for watching in 2D). A good place to solder a wire is at the bottom part of the shutters where we can peel off a bit of the plastic covering the reveal the metal connection pad where we can solder the connecting cable.
Using a thin 30 AWG Kynar insulated wire does a great job in connecting both shutters with each other at their bottom parts so now the triggering electricity will go from the first to the second shutter and trigger them together. But we need to do one more bridge in order for the modification to work – we need to close the bridge between the two other lines used by both shutters in order for them to function as we with them to.
We need to bridge the 6th and 10th pins together by using an even thinner cable or alternatively you can use some conductive paint etc. After that we need to cover some of the pins so that they will not have contact with the electrical circuit inside the glasses depending on the left or right frame we want to be visible trough the glasses from the stereo 3D content being displayed on the monitor.
Covering the 4th to 6th pins (the 5th pin is not used for anything) with a small piece of tape and preventing the pins for the right shutter to have contact with the control board we route the electricity sent to trigger the left frame trough both shutters and thus we only see the left frame of the stereo 3D content being displayed.
If we cover the 10th to 12th pins (the 11th is not used for anything) with a piece of tape we prevent the contact of the pins used for the left shutter and thus both shutters are powered trough the electricity triggering the right shutter only. The result as expected is that the viewer wearing the glasses only sees the right frame from the stereo 3D content being shown on the display.
You should not cover both the pins for the left and right eye, not you should leave both of them to have full contact in the electrical circuit after applying this modification as the glasses will not function either way and there is even a possibility of actually damaging then this way! So you should leave either the left or the right set of pins to have contact with the control board depending if you want the glasses to show only the left or only the right frame from the stereo 3D content being displayed. And again a word of warning as this modification will void the warranty of the 3D Vision glasses as well as it might lead to damage to them if you are not careful enough, so you should be extra careful if you decide to go and modify the glasses this way.
ATI has been talking about their upcoming stereoscopic 3D support utilizing 120Hz LCD monitors and active shutter glasses for quite some time already, and although we expected a complete working solution as early as this summer, things did not work out so well. So now, according to an interview with ATI made by Digital Versus we are going to wait a few more months (second half of the year), but we should see the complete working solution before the end of the year, maybe just in time for Christmas.
Now when talking about openness, ATI is open to supporting different standards and hardware, along with middleware software, but in the end you will most likely be required to have an AMD/ATI-based video card in order to use one such solution. This is of course normal, as ATI will want to sell you their hardware as well as Nvidia does, to use when watching any kind of stereo 3D content. So although ATI in general seems to be more open, the end results seems to be not that different than what Nvidia is doing with their 3D Vision product. You can say that a really open approach is what companies like iZ3D and DDD are doing with their drivers/software that do support multiple stereoscopic 3D solutions and work on all video cards, no matter if they are based on ATI or Nvidia GPUs. What we actually need are standards that will allow interoperability and the users will not have to think now do I have a compatible video card for that solution, or will this 3D monitor work for me or not, or what shutter glasses should I get.
And example that I’ve been seeing a lot lately of not having good interoperability that is confusing the users and making them wonder why is the fact that they cannot use their 3D-capable monitors and 3D DLP projectors to display 3D content from their PlayStation 3 console. The reason for that being that the PS3 sends the stereo 3D signal to a 3D capable display according to the HDMI 1.4(a) stereo 3D specifications and not a single one of the 120Hz 3D LCD monitors is capable of understanding and displaying 3D content sent this way. Of course you need to buy a 3D HDTV to play stereo 3D games from your PS3 console, but then again you’ll also have to buy a 120Hz 3D LCD monitor for your PC, as you will currently also have trouble connecting and using your new 3D HDTV to your PC. So being an early adopter has its advantages, but also comes with a lot of disadvantages and trying to cover more things and work with more partners like ATI does not only means bigger delays, but might as well mean more problems.
If you take a look at how much time the 3D Vision has been available on the market already and how Nvidia is having trouble to convince the hardware and software manufacturers to work on products that support it, not to mention that for more than a year and a half the software and hardware support is still far from being perfect. Now imagine what will be the situation when ATI’s complete stereoscopic 3D solution finally becomes available… I expect a lot of issues to be present at first and it will take some time for all of these to be fixed, and that is something that everyone of the early adopters of 3D Vision is well aware of. Now the 3D Vision already has a lot of users, has a larger community and this also helps a lot in reporting problem and improving the S3D support of the product. But ATI will need some time before reaching the critical mass of users that will have all the needed hardware and software and users that are willing to experiment, test and report issues, even make optimizations and workarounds for better experience etc.
So although I’m eagerly expecting to see what will ATI offer at the end as their complete stereo 3D ecosystem using shutter glasses (I’m a 3D enthusiast after all), I’m not trying to lie myself that it will be a problem free solution, perfect from the start and much better than what 3D Vision currently offers. Yes, it might be better in some aspects, but I don’t think that it will be that different in terms of overall experience for the users. And finally getting some competition between ATI and Nvidia in the stereo 3D area too may help in faster and better development of the software and hardware needed for that, and let us just hope that ATI will be as active as Nvidia in pushing both software and hardware companies into adding stereo 3D support in their products or releasing new stereo 3D-capable products. After all this can only benefit us, the end users that just want better and more affordable solutions for enjoying stereoscopic 3D content of all kinds, isn’t that right? Not to mention that we do need more stereoscopic 3D content available and in that area things are still moving a bit slowly, especially regarding 3D photo and 3D video, as the situation with games is better. However we also need both ATI and Nvidia to work more closely with the game developers in order for the upcoming games to have better stereoscopic 3D support and thus less or no issues in S3D mode at all, so that playing these will be much more fun… ;)
Not long ago in the Forum there was a discussion about using different glasses in order for one of the viewers to see 3D and the other to see just 2D content. And although this is still not possible, it seems that Sony might be on the right track in providing such capabilities in near future, or at least the latest patents that the company has filed regarding the use of a single display with multiple shutter glasses and different image for the viewers can be used to help add such functionality. The two patents filed by Sony are for the principle of the new shutter glasses that will be able to share different images, and also the audio between two or more viewers on the same TV and for the methodology being used to utilize the sharing with these new shutter glasses.
The basic idea that Sony has is to use the even frames to display one type of image with 50/60Hz and the odd frames to display another type of image again with 50/60Hz and thus providing two different viewers two different pictures on a single TV (not two different 3D views, but two different 2D ones). And with the increase of response rate and the shutter speed of shutter glasses this can be further expanded to support a third viewer watching a completely different thing than the other two and probably this might be possible with even more than three. But don’t think that this is so easy to make and implement, while the viewers get a completely problem free and bright and contrasting image, there are a lot of possible issues, some of which are present in the current generation of hardware using shutter glasses. Still the possibility to play a game while somebody is watching a movie on the same TV sounds quite nice and usable, what do you think about the concept of TV sharing?
