If you remember, about two months ago, during CES 2011 Sony has announced some interesting new 3D-capable products and among them was the new Sony VAIO F Series 3D laptops. And as these products are nearing their appearance on the market there are already some samples available for testing, and today I just managed to get one of these F Series laptops and more specifically the model VPCF21Z1E/BI to do a quick review. My first impressions from the laptop are quite positive, it has a great Full HD 3D display (the best LCD panel for laptops available from Sony) and apparently the laptop uses 3D Vision technology, but without relying on Nvidia’s shutter glasses (the first such combination), but instead uses Sony’s own shutter glasses – the same used for their Bravia 3D HDTVs. I’ve already mentioned more than once that Sony’s shutter glasses are probably one of the best designed and performing shutter glasses available at the moment, so the combination with the 3D Vision software and the great display might turn out great, but that is yet to be confirmed in the next few days. What may be a bit of a turn off for some more demanding gamers is the fact that the laptop comes with GeForce GT 540M GPU which although being quite good for a mobile graphics chip is not as good as the high-end gaming solutions that Nvidia has, especially combined with the native 1080p resolution of the 3D display, but I’ll do some testing with games to see what level of performance can this laptop offer. So stay tuned for the review… ;)
Here is something interesting coming from iWATCH3D from an event in JVC’s London headquarters where they presented the upcoming JVC GS-TD1 3D consumer camcorder. Michael has managed to paly a bit with the 3D camcorder to get some good hands-on impression and also to record some sample 3D footage that you can see online here on YouTube 3D or download the video from the links bellow with a higher quality. I’m just going to quite the pros and cons that he has summarized in his short overview and you can read the full hands-on impressions on his website.
Here are some of the nice things on the JVC GS-TD1 3D:
- F1.2 lens has got to be the biggest plus. I didn’t yet see any super low light done by it, but from the indoor shots I’ve done, it certainly didn’t show too much disturbing noise artefacts. Makes it capable of nice Bokeh shots, not really DSLR league but enough to make your depth bracket be isolated from the background.
- Manual controls. I’ve seen the settings that I would want to set myself to manual when shooting at normal pace. Focus, aperture, shutter speed, white balance, ISO, audio input/output levels, parallax can all be set before pressing record.
- 3.5″ 3D LCD screen. Yes 3D on it looks Ok, but what I liked best was to swivel the articulating screen to an angle that I saw the 3D stops working but the two streams overlay so I can monitor parallax values and adjust my position to the subject for best 3D.
- Ability to shoot 3D time lapses is something that I just didn’t get enough time to check out but I bet it will look good.
- 3D MPO photos in 1080 resolution… not as good as Fuji’s W3, most probably, but it’s there and occasionally why not make a 3D picture?
And what can be further improved in the JVC GS-TD1 3D:
- At the wide end of the lens it’s 35mm equivalent is only 42mm which some could say make them look home-video-ish. It’s the same lens that they’ve used in the other new 2D top end consumer camcorder the HM960 but to have a compact size 3D camcorder they used two smaller 1/4.1″ CMOS sensors, compared to HM960s 1/2.3″ that makes it have a wide end of 29.5mm (35mm equivalent).
- Interlaced recording. Personally I’m not a fan of it in either 2D or 3D. Even the best deinterlacing software will not cope well with fast motion/action/panning etc. Especially in 3D you want sharp images for the brain to get more info to be able to recreate the best 3D effect.
- CMOS’ famous rolling shutter. It’s there but considerably less painful than for example my Canon 550d’s (T2i). So a good job by JVC, but in a perfect world, for 3D specifically, again I’d prefer global shutter.
- Electronic image stabilizer. An optical would have been better, mainly as it’s a consumer product and it’s designed to be handheld.
Michael compares the JVC with the Fujifilm W3 and his custom dual Canon 550D (T2i) 3D recording rig and you should also have in mind that the JVC GS-TD1 3D camcorder is a consumer product and not a professional one. And JVC’s product will probably have a serious competition with Sony’s upcoming HDR-TD10E 3D camcorder and hopefully we’ll soon start seeing more information and demo footage from Sony’s product as well. Personally I’m interested in both and will try to get them for testing if possible, because I’m planning to purchase one of these two models for shooting 3D video as any stereo 3D enthusiast interested in 3D video recording on a non-professional level probably is also interested in them…
Some more interesting video interviews from CES 2011 made by Neil Schneider from MTBS, this time with Sony about their 3D-capable products, interesting to watch if you weren’t able to visit CES this yea. In the first part Neil interviews John Wyckoff, technical product planning manager at Sony, who tells all about the upcoming Sony Bravia 3D HDTV product line, including upgrades to the way they render stereoscopic 3D content, including a bit on how the shutter glasses work and why Sony’s glasses do not get the stereoscopic 3D image as dark as with some other solutions. As well as a bit about on what 3D content to expect this year to be available.
In the second part of Sony interviews the topic is the PS3 game Killzone 3 that will support Stereo 3D as well as PlayStation Move controller. Here Neil talks with David Bull, SCEA Product Marketing Specialist, who gives the low down on what to expect, new Move attachments, pricing, and more.
Next up is Sony’s new stereoscopic 3D Handycam camcorder and 3D Bloggie presented by Amy Koppman, training manager at Sony. She talks a bit about the new consumer Sony HDR-T10 3D HD camcorder that is soon going to be available (in April for $1499 USD) and about the much more portable and affordable Bloggie 3D video recorder that will be available in March/April for $250 USD.
The last video covers Sony’s 3D Head Mounted Display prototype that has been demonstrated during CES 2011 as Neil talks with Raymond Stanley, senior manager training and content at Sony. This device is something that may or may not appear as a product on the market, but that does not make it look less cool. Of course it will be nice if Sony makes it available as recently HMD devices have been left behind and there is a big potential for such products. It kind of looks like a device that just came out of the TRON movie.
