mayhem
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Is 3D worth it. Does 3D work
With the revival of 3D hitting the cinema and the home big time and with all major manufacturers pushing the boundaries and limitations of modern day 3D I thought I would do a peace on my own personal opinions about current 3D systems and if it is worth the money for a current 3D system or would you be better off waiting for the next gen to come along and bite us on the ass.
Different 3d Systems that are employed in today environment and a little on how they work..
Anaglyph (red and blue glasses)
Used 3D films (Blu-ray, DVD), 3D photos some time's use a system called Anaglyph which uses coloured lenses to view superimposed images. It works, but due to the coloured lenses, the colour of the image is distorted and the effect seems quite primitive compared to more modern techniques. This system all so causes many problems such as a head ace and wired looking picture that is not the correct colour.
Eclipse (LCD Shutter glasses)
Used on modern day TVs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, PC (Nvidia Vision), Xbox 360 and PS3. Using glasses with LCD shutters. Alternative frames of the movie are formed from two view points. The LCD shutters are in sync with the frames on the screen via either IR signals or the newer version uses blue-tooth (much better than IR), so each eye only sees the correct image for that angle. This works well, but syncing with the movie makes it difficult to use in movie theatres. The biggest problem with the glasses (IR versions) is that the signal can be interrupted by such thing as Candles, lights, sun and this causes the glasses to go out of sync and lose the picture, all so on some TVs you can get a Ghosting image because of the same problem. This has been fixed in many cases by moving the glasses to blue-tooth so that other IR signals cannot interfere with glasses.
Polarisation – (Polarised Glasses)
Polarisation requires special glasses, but doesn’t interfere with colour. All so it doesn’t require power to the glasses making it very cheap to produce glasses (Approx £0.80 a pair) Each view point is projected through a polarising filter. Using polarised glasses, it is possible to view each projected view separately. This is probably the optimum method for displaying 3D in a movie theatre, but it still requires glasses. How ever its would be very expensive to reproduce in the home environment so would not be economically viable.
Lenticular (No glasses needed)
Lenticular displays don’t require glasses, and the colours are natural. However they do require the viewer to be in a specific position to view the movie. This sweet spot means that it is difficult for more than one person to view the image at the same time. The screen, usually an LCD display, has a corrugated screen, a bit like the 3D stickers and post cards that were popular. The best product out at the moment showing this way of viewing 3D is the 3DS from Nintendo, how ever its only on a small screen. There are larger screen that can do this but they are only about 15” and cost a formidable amount of money.
Head mounted LCD Glasses
Head mounted displays, or video goggles offer a good solution by delivering discrete images directly to each eye. The displays are widely available, and age getting better with each iteration. However they are heavier than regular anaglyph glasses. For personal viewing of 3D content, the head-mounted solution is hard to beat for quality. The i3PC head mounted display from I-O Display Systems lets you play movies (both 3D and 2D) directly from PCs via the VGA port with out the need of Nvision from nvidia. How ever there is a price that will be way out of the range or most people.
(some of this info has been taken from various web sites around the net)
So on with some Testing -
3D Tests
Equipment used for testing
Samsung 50" 3D HD Ready Plasma TV £600 inc delivery
Shutter glasses 2x £50 battery only and 2 x £65 USB rechargeable shutter glasses
Total cost of ownership inc glasses = £830 inc delivery
Now on its own the Samsung TV can make Normal digital TV turn into 3D TV so we will see what this looks like and how I feel about it. To get this to work there is a 3D option on the remote control that allows you to turn on the 3d allowing you to change normal TV into 3D TV. Now I bought 4 pairs of Shutter glasses as well so that me and the kids an watch films on the TV. Now you only Get 1 pair with the TV which is very much pointless if you have kids so you will need to get some more if you fancy cuddling up to you dearest to watch a film in all its 3d Glory or if the misses fancy watching East enders in all its 3d Glory (god forbid).
Normal TV to 3D TV
So first test is the convert normal TV to 3d. Buy simply tuning to normal TV and then hitting the 3d Button to see how it looks and feels.
Well I spent a good ½ hour watching kids programmes on CITV with my children and I have to say the conversion from normal TV to 3D is pants to say the least. Though out the whole ½ hour never once did it look real 3d at all and when the TV attempted to make the picture 3d its was just boring and rubbish. The amount of ghosting was not good at all. So that was a complete fail on the TV. I tried a few different channels from BBC 1 to Channel 5 and not once did it ever look 3D. So this is a big massive thumbs down from me on the turning normal TV into 3D TV. It just didn’t work well at all.
Converted Blu-Ray 3d Film (side by side)
So instead of downloading I converted one of my Blu-ray 3Dfilms into a 1080p Side by side view. That means the film will show at 540 as the image is split in half and then converted from side by side view into a 3D view. This was done as a MKV file format. I chose Despicable me as this film apparently was released especially for 3D . Now I remember seeing this Film at the movies with my kids and it was a 3D Cinema experience that impressed me so lets see how my back up would look using the USB on the TV. After I converted the film into its MKV format I dumped it straight onto my 2.5” removable hard drive and plugged it into my Samsung TV.
Cool the TV automaticly picked up my standard formatted hard drive and asked me if I would like to view the files on the hard drive (nice big Smile from me then). I could see the “Despicable me.mkv” file and then click on it to play.
(piture taken when i first converted it to avi, then changed it to mkv.
The video took about 5 seconds and then started playing in Side by Side but with a quick press of the 3D button on the remote and then chose to convert Side by Side into 3D and the tv now started playing the film in 3D.
{side By side image be fore pressing 3D button on remote)
{After pressing 3D Button on Samsung TV you get to see it as side by side, under over ect ect)
Backed up version now running in 3D mode
So me and the kids sat Down and started to watch the film. Now to my amazement the TV automatically converted the 3D Film into 1080P 3D this was brilliant and I have to admit it looked really good. It was still a little on the grainy side but once you got into this film it didn’t stop us from enjoying it. The 3D effects were near perfect. There was a small glitch though and this was every now and then the glasses would lose sync but with 1 or 2 seconds it had come back into alignment so it wasn’t to much of a problem. Over all though as this literately was a back up I was amazed it played it so dammed well and with out the need for any extra media player devices I was impressed and this lets me give the TV a massive thumbs up.
Samsung Blu-ray 3D Player (£150 + £40 for HDMI Cable)
Now we bought a Samsung 3D Blu-ray player but only had a normal HDMI lead and we found that the blu-ray player would not play the 3D films at all it just showed a blank screen. So after a little research on the net I found that you needed a HDMI 1.3 Lead that would allow more information to be pass from the Blu-ray player to the TV via the HDMI lead so off I popped to go by one from Currys........ OMFG how much was it ….. £40 hart attack time..... what a rip off but since I needed it now not next week I paid for it. Why the hell didn’t the Samsung 3D Blu-ray player come with a lead …. Grrr.
Any way after visiting the hospital to get my hart checked over from the shock of the price I plugged it all in and slapped on “Despicable me” Blu-Ray 3D and me and the kids then grabbed some home made pop corn (that didn't cost me £8 like the local cinema) and watched the film again
(good film so worth watching 2x in the same day). The quality of the picture was perfect and the 3D aspects of the film were better than what we saw at the cinema. In fact being real honest the experience was way better than going to the movies. This made my day and put a big smile on my face as I came to the realisation that this TV is worth every penny. Once it got to night time I whipped out Pariah 3D Blu-Ray, now this film came with some Anaglyph glasses in the box so I was hoping like mad that this film was not Anaglyph only else I would have taken it back.
Piranha 3D in Anaglyph (oh no run away this relay is scary ....
Piranha 3D Anaglyph
Luckily the film comes on 2 x blu-ray's one for Anaglyph and 1 for 3D Tv's thank god for that. Now my lass saw this with me at the movies and jumped out her socks on some of the parts so this was one good way of seeing if it had the same effect at home. Boy of boy my last didn’t half jump at some of the scene's even to the point of me swiftly moving away from her so she didn’t knock me out. So once again a massive thumbs up esp when she shouted at the top of her voice “holy shit this is so real” ….
Piranha 3D Side by Side converted blu-ray
3D Sky HD (Contract only (check prices) Comes with HDMI cable)
Now after we had the Nice guy around from sky who fitted out new Sky HD 3D box and showed me how to use it , it was time to see what it looked like. One of the best things I was impressed with was that the Sky box actually came with it's very own HDMI cable that was capable of Running 3D films right out of the box. Why the hell doesn’t other manufactures follow suit and actually supply these with there equipment I don’t know some times the little things like this count. All so after chatting to the gent about the 3D version of sky he told me that sky only runs at 720p not 1080p so in theory all the films on Sky's 3D service will only be at 310 in reality ….. Hmm no so impressive really. If id have know this beforehand I wouldn’t have bothered but after a telephone call to the very nice sky customer service they dropped the price of the install and gave me 8 months worth of Sky (all channels) for ½ price = £20 a month … hahaha I live licking the lid of life some times.... Btw this all so included free sky broad band and telephone. Beat that virgin …...
Any way on with the testing. I turned over to the Single 3D channel that sky have (yes there is only 1 channel with the promise of more). Now the broadcast is in Side by Side view at 720p so you need to kick in the 3D on the remote and convert it to normal 3D Just like we did with the copy. Again the TV its self decided to up it and convert it to 1080p (God ive fallen in love with the TV now). We watched “Clash of the titans 3D” and this was not to bad but there was not many 3D effects in the film and seem very subtle. So we then watched “Saw 3D”.... now his was way better. It was a little on the grainy side how ever once again once the film got going and my lass had nearly pissed her pants a few times, so I was quite happy with the viewing experience. The next day “ Despicable me” was on so me and the kids sat again for the 3rd time and watched it. Now I have to say my back up copy was much better than the sky version of it and the Blu-Ray was 100% better than both so if you have to chose its all way's better to go for the actual Blu-Ray version how ever SKY 3D is a acceptable alternative if you have a good 3D TV.
(sorry no picks for got to take them as i was enjoying it to much) Ill take some later and add them on.
Xbox 360 – 3D (£140 + £9.99 for HDMI cable)
Now for gaming on a 3D Tv, this time I did more research and bought my self a HDMI cable off the internet for £9.99 (inc delivery) and it arrived with in a few days. The cable that arrived was gold plated and was 1.5m long all so it was 1.3 HDMI compliant (whoo hoo)...
The game ill be testing is Black-Ops as I have this on the PC as well so I can compare them both in some sense of the word. So any way on with how Black-Ops plays on such a large screen via the Xbox 360. I booted up the game and went into the menu system and applied the 3D as with every thing else the game then goes into Side by Side mode and you then have to turn on the 3D via the TV. This then merges down the image into a single picture that is 3D. I played for about 4 hours with the game by this time I had a little bit of a head ace and had to come off but over all the effects were real good. The explosions on the screen were subtle but you could see sparks coming out at you and when looking though sights of weapons it gave the game some real depth to the game play. The way the game is designed and the way they have implemented the 3D effect were really good how ever long game play is not really that possible while wearing the glasses. Ill give it a big thumbs up though because it worked very well and was not over powering how ever some times I think the shooting was a little off but to be honest its not a perfect world and no ones every perfect in reality when fire weapons
…..
Sony Play-Station 3 3D (£200 to £250 + £9.99 for HDMI cable)
Black ops via the PS3
Well I finally carried on last night and had a play with black ops on the PS3 in 3d mode. Like the Xbox 360 the Play station 3 can out put in 3D mode and once again in Side by side view and like before with a quick flick of the button on the remote it turns it into 3D mode. Now while playing black ops on the Play station 3 in 3D mode I noticed that the graphics looked jagged and not as well pronounced as the xbox 360 all so I noted that every thing seemed to me to be washed out a little more. I checked my TV resolution and saw that it was not playing in 1080p but 720p. I ran though all my settings again and every thing was fine its the play station is only out putting at 720p. I carried on playing for about 5 min and to my surprise the game play was ghosting quite a bit and the 3d effects just did not seem as good as the Xbox 360 version. So out of curiosity I re booted up the xbox 360 again and checked Black ops on the 360 and I wasn’t wrong the xbox 360 version was much more pleasing to the eye. By the way im no fan boy of either console but the xbox 360 does seem to play the games in 3B much better than the play station which is a bit silly. So my point of view here id say that for 3D gaming on the ps3 is a big no no.
Blue-ray 3D play back on the ps3
we all know that the Ps3 plays Blu-ray movies how ever this is my first time playing 3D Movies though it. So with a little trepidation I fired up Pharina 3D. Every thing was working as normal such as taking 45 seconds to load the start of the Blu-ray then it downloaded some adverts off the net (starting to get fed up now) then another 3 trailers that I just could not jump passed (was really getting annoyed by now) then I managed to play the film. Its auto started up in 3D mode how ever from the instance I could see the film was grainy and I know my Samsung blu-ray player is way better than this but come on blu-ray was designed by Sony why is the play station so dammed shit. I didn’t spend to long watching this film because the quality was just pants when being played via the play station. Over all for 3d Games and movies on the play station 3 I give it a big thumbs down.
PC + Samsung 3D TV + nVidia 3DTV Play
Oky this im going to re test on my new system once its built
Nintendo 3DS (£180.00 with out game)
Now I saw the Nintendo 3DS quite a while ago when I visited a friend who works for a game company and it was shown to me back then but don’t think im bias in any way because im not
…
Now all 1 of my kids exchanged his Nintendo DSI for a 3DS and I have been playing on it just to see what its like. Now you see all these adverts on TVs with people staring at the screen with amazement but don’t be fooled I think they just used less teck savvy people or week minded ones at that.
The Nintendo 3DS is a cool little gadget and I don't be grudge it that but the 3D side of it is by no means perfect.. There some things that have to be pointed out and one of them is the angle it must be play at. You really have to have the 3DS in front of you perfectly angled to your face. If you move off to the left or right the 3D disappears and becomes a wired 2D effect. Now when you playing a game such as Street Fighter 3D this makes it quite hard and quite difficult to concentrate on the moves you have to do because you suddenly become more aware that you not sitting or holding the 3DS correctly and this detracts from the game play experience.
Personally I think the 3DS is a grate example of how we may view 3D in the future how ever its a long way off the point and like some have said it can give head aces, I could only play for about 15min before I felt a little dizzy and had to come off the system.
There is a 3D slider button that moves the screen a little so that you can increase the depth of the game or decrease it to a 2D mode how ever this is a little tricky because if you a just it and then once again slight move out of the “perfect viewing angle” you lose the 3D again …..
To me the 3DS is is oky for the kids as a gadget but in my real honest view its by no means perfect and still needs more work and I don t think the price tag at this moment in time reflects what you are getting.
Conclusion
To be written.
With the revival of 3D hitting the cinema and the home big time and with all major manufacturers pushing the boundaries and limitations of modern day 3D I thought I would do a peace on my own personal opinions about current 3D systems and if it is worth the money for a current 3D system or would you be better off waiting for the next gen to come along and bite us on the ass.
Different 3d Systems that are employed in today environment and a little on how they work..
Anaglyph (red and blue glasses)
Used 3D films (Blu-ray, DVD), 3D photos some time's use a system called Anaglyph which uses coloured lenses to view superimposed images. It works, but due to the coloured lenses, the colour of the image is distorted and the effect seems quite primitive compared to more modern techniques. This system all so causes many problems such as a head ace and wired looking picture that is not the correct colour.
Eclipse (LCD Shutter glasses)
Used on modern day TVs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, PC (Nvidia Vision), Xbox 360 and PS3. Using glasses with LCD shutters. Alternative frames of the movie are formed from two view points. The LCD shutters are in sync with the frames on the screen via either IR signals or the newer version uses blue-tooth (much better than IR), so each eye only sees the correct image for that angle. This works well, but syncing with the movie makes it difficult to use in movie theatres. The biggest problem with the glasses (IR versions) is that the signal can be interrupted by such thing as Candles, lights, sun and this causes the glasses to go out of sync and lose the picture, all so on some TVs you can get a Ghosting image because of the same problem. This has been fixed in many cases by moving the glasses to blue-tooth so that other IR signals cannot interfere with glasses.
Polarisation – (Polarised Glasses)
Polarisation requires special glasses, but doesn’t interfere with colour. All so it doesn’t require power to the glasses making it very cheap to produce glasses (Approx £0.80 a pair) Each view point is projected through a polarising filter. Using polarised glasses, it is possible to view each projected view separately. This is probably the optimum method for displaying 3D in a movie theatre, but it still requires glasses. How ever its would be very expensive to reproduce in the home environment so would not be economically viable.
Lenticular (No glasses needed)
Lenticular displays don’t require glasses, and the colours are natural. However they do require the viewer to be in a specific position to view the movie. This sweet spot means that it is difficult for more than one person to view the image at the same time. The screen, usually an LCD display, has a corrugated screen, a bit like the 3D stickers and post cards that were popular. The best product out at the moment showing this way of viewing 3D is the 3DS from Nintendo, how ever its only on a small screen. There are larger screen that can do this but they are only about 15” and cost a formidable amount of money.
Head mounted LCD Glasses
Head mounted displays, or video goggles offer a good solution by delivering discrete images directly to each eye. The displays are widely available, and age getting better with each iteration. However they are heavier than regular anaglyph glasses. For personal viewing of 3D content, the head-mounted solution is hard to beat for quality. The i3PC head mounted display from I-O Display Systems lets you play movies (both 3D and 2D) directly from PCs via the VGA port with out the need of Nvision from nvidia. How ever there is a price that will be way out of the range or most people.
(some of this info has been taken from various web sites around the net)
So on with some Testing -
3D Tests
Equipment used for testing
- Samsung 50" 3D HD Ready Plasma TV
- Rechargeable Shutter glasses (IR)
- Samsung 3D Blue Ray Player
- Converted Blu-Ray 3D Films (for back up purposes only, playback via 500 gig 2.5” Hard drive direct through TV)
- 3D Sky HD Package
- Xbox 360
- Sony Play-station 3
- PC
Samsung 50" 3D HD Ready Plasma TV £600 inc delivery
Shutter glasses 2x £50 battery only and 2 x £65 USB rechargeable shutter glasses
Total cost of ownership inc glasses = £830 inc delivery
Now on its own the Samsung TV can make Normal digital TV turn into 3D TV so we will see what this looks like and how I feel about it. To get this to work there is a 3D option on the remote control that allows you to turn on the 3d allowing you to change normal TV into 3D TV. Now I bought 4 pairs of Shutter glasses as well so that me and the kids an watch films on the TV. Now you only Get 1 pair with the TV which is very much pointless if you have kids so you will need to get some more if you fancy cuddling up to you dearest to watch a film in all its 3d Glory or if the misses fancy watching East enders in all its 3d Glory (god forbid).
Normal TV to 3D TV
So first test is the convert normal TV to 3d. Buy simply tuning to normal TV and then hitting the 3d Button to see how it looks and feels.
Well I spent a good ½ hour watching kids programmes on CITV with my children and I have to say the conversion from normal TV to 3D is pants to say the least. Though out the whole ½ hour never once did it look real 3d at all and when the TV attempted to make the picture 3d its was just boring and rubbish. The amount of ghosting was not good at all. So that was a complete fail on the TV. I tried a few different channels from BBC 1 to Channel 5 and not once did it ever look 3D. So this is a big massive thumbs down from me on the turning normal TV into 3D TV. It just didn’t work well at all.
Converted Blu-Ray 3d Film (side by side)
So instead of downloading I converted one of my Blu-ray 3Dfilms into a 1080p Side by side view. That means the film will show at 540 as the image is split in half and then converted from side by side view into a 3D view. This was done as a MKV file format. I chose Despicable me as this film apparently was released especially for 3D . Now I remember seeing this Film at the movies with my kids and it was a 3D Cinema experience that impressed me so lets see how my back up would look using the USB on the TV. After I converted the film into its MKV format I dumped it straight onto my 2.5” removable hard drive and plugged it into my Samsung TV.
Cool the TV automaticly picked up my standard formatted hard drive and asked me if I would like to view the files on the hard drive (nice big Smile from me then). I could see the “Despicable me.mkv” file and then click on it to play.
(piture taken when i first converted it to avi, then changed it to mkv.
The video took about 5 seconds and then started playing in Side by Side but with a quick press of the 3D button on the remote and then chose to convert Side by Side into 3D and the tv now started playing the film in 3D.
{side By side image be fore pressing 3D button on remote)
{After pressing 3D Button on Samsung TV you get to see it as side by side, under over ect ect)
Backed up version now running in 3D mode
So me and the kids sat Down and started to watch the film. Now to my amazement the TV automatically converted the 3D Film into 1080P 3D this was brilliant and I have to admit it looked really good. It was still a little on the grainy side but once you got into this film it didn’t stop us from enjoying it. The 3D effects were near perfect. There was a small glitch though and this was every now and then the glasses would lose sync but with 1 or 2 seconds it had come back into alignment so it wasn’t to much of a problem. Over all though as this literately was a back up I was amazed it played it so dammed well and with out the need for any extra media player devices I was impressed and this lets me give the TV a massive thumbs up.
Samsung Blu-ray 3D Player (£150 + £40 for HDMI Cable)
Now we bought a Samsung 3D Blu-ray player but only had a normal HDMI lead and we found that the blu-ray player would not play the 3D films at all it just showed a blank screen. So after a little research on the net I found that you needed a HDMI 1.3 Lead that would allow more information to be pass from the Blu-ray player to the TV via the HDMI lead so off I popped to go by one from Currys........ OMFG how much was it ….. £40 hart attack time..... what a rip off but since I needed it now not next week I paid for it. Why the hell didn’t the Samsung 3D Blu-ray player come with a lead …. Grrr.
Any way after visiting the hospital to get my hart checked over from the shock of the price I plugged it all in and slapped on “Despicable me” Blu-Ray 3D and me and the kids then grabbed some home made pop corn (that didn't cost me £8 like the local cinema) and watched the film again
Piranha 3D in Anaglyph (oh no run away this relay is scary ....
Piranha 3D Anaglyph
Luckily the film comes on 2 x blu-ray's one for Anaglyph and 1 for 3D Tv's thank god for that. Now my lass saw this with me at the movies and jumped out her socks on some of the parts so this was one good way of seeing if it had the same effect at home. Boy of boy my last didn’t half jump at some of the scene's even to the point of me swiftly moving away from her so she didn’t knock me out. So once again a massive thumbs up esp when she shouted at the top of her voice “holy shit this is so real” ….
Piranha 3D Side by Side converted blu-ray
3D Sky HD (Contract only (check prices) Comes with HDMI cable)
Now after we had the Nice guy around from sky who fitted out new Sky HD 3D box and showed me how to use it , it was time to see what it looked like. One of the best things I was impressed with was that the Sky box actually came with it's very own HDMI cable that was capable of Running 3D films right out of the box. Why the hell doesn’t other manufactures follow suit and actually supply these with there equipment I don’t know some times the little things like this count. All so after chatting to the gent about the 3D version of sky he told me that sky only runs at 720p not 1080p so in theory all the films on Sky's 3D service will only be at 310 in reality ….. Hmm no so impressive really. If id have know this beforehand I wouldn’t have bothered but after a telephone call to the very nice sky customer service they dropped the price of the install and gave me 8 months worth of Sky (all channels) for ½ price = £20 a month … hahaha I live licking the lid of life some times.... Btw this all so included free sky broad band and telephone. Beat that virgin …...
Any way on with the testing. I turned over to the Single 3D channel that sky have (yes there is only 1 channel with the promise of more). Now the broadcast is in Side by Side view at 720p so you need to kick in the 3D on the remote and convert it to normal 3D Just like we did with the copy. Again the TV its self decided to up it and convert it to 1080p (God ive fallen in love with the TV now). We watched “Clash of the titans 3D” and this was not to bad but there was not many 3D effects in the film and seem very subtle. So we then watched “Saw 3D”.... now his was way better. It was a little on the grainy side how ever once again once the film got going and my lass had nearly pissed her pants a few times, so I was quite happy with the viewing experience. The next day “ Despicable me” was on so me and the kids sat again for the 3rd time and watched it. Now I have to say my back up copy was much better than the sky version of it and the Blu-Ray was 100% better than both so if you have to chose its all way's better to go for the actual Blu-Ray version how ever SKY 3D is a acceptable alternative if you have a good 3D TV.
(sorry no picks for got to take them as i was enjoying it to much) Ill take some later and add them on.
Xbox 360 – 3D (£140 + £9.99 for HDMI cable)
Now for gaming on a 3D Tv, this time I did more research and bought my self a HDMI cable off the internet for £9.99 (inc delivery) and it arrived with in a few days. The cable that arrived was gold plated and was 1.5m long all so it was 1.3 HDMI compliant (whoo hoo)...
The game ill be testing is Black-Ops as I have this on the PC as well so I can compare them both in some sense of the word. So any way on with how Black-Ops plays on such a large screen via the Xbox 360. I booted up the game and went into the menu system and applied the 3D as with every thing else the game then goes into Side by Side mode and you then have to turn on the 3D via the TV. This then merges down the image into a single picture that is 3D. I played for about 4 hours with the game by this time I had a little bit of a head ace and had to come off but over all the effects were real good. The explosions on the screen were subtle but you could see sparks coming out at you and when looking though sights of weapons it gave the game some real depth to the game play. The way the game is designed and the way they have implemented the 3D effect were really good how ever long game play is not really that possible while wearing the glasses. Ill give it a big thumbs up though because it worked very well and was not over powering how ever some times I think the shooting was a little off but to be honest its not a perfect world and no ones every perfect in reality when fire weapons
Sony Play-Station 3 3D (£200 to £250 + £9.99 for HDMI cable)
Black ops via the PS3
Well I finally carried on last night and had a play with black ops on the PS3 in 3d mode. Like the Xbox 360 the Play station 3 can out put in 3D mode and once again in Side by side view and like before with a quick flick of the button on the remote it turns it into 3D mode. Now while playing black ops on the Play station 3 in 3D mode I noticed that the graphics looked jagged and not as well pronounced as the xbox 360 all so I noted that every thing seemed to me to be washed out a little more. I checked my TV resolution and saw that it was not playing in 1080p but 720p. I ran though all my settings again and every thing was fine its the play station is only out putting at 720p. I carried on playing for about 5 min and to my surprise the game play was ghosting quite a bit and the 3d effects just did not seem as good as the Xbox 360 version. So out of curiosity I re booted up the xbox 360 again and checked Black ops on the 360 and I wasn’t wrong the xbox 360 version was much more pleasing to the eye. By the way im no fan boy of either console but the xbox 360 does seem to play the games in 3B much better than the play station which is a bit silly. So my point of view here id say that for 3D gaming on the ps3 is a big no no.
Blue-ray 3D play back on the ps3
we all know that the Ps3 plays Blu-ray movies how ever this is my first time playing 3D Movies though it. So with a little trepidation I fired up Pharina 3D. Every thing was working as normal such as taking 45 seconds to load the start of the Blu-ray then it downloaded some adverts off the net (starting to get fed up now) then another 3 trailers that I just could not jump passed (was really getting annoyed by now) then I managed to play the film. Its auto started up in 3D mode how ever from the instance I could see the film was grainy and I know my Samsung blu-ray player is way better than this but come on blu-ray was designed by Sony why is the play station so dammed shit. I didn’t spend to long watching this film because the quality was just pants when being played via the play station. Over all for 3d Games and movies on the play station 3 I give it a big thumbs down.
PC + Samsung 3D TV + nVidia 3DTV Play
Oky this im going to re test on my new system once its built
Nintendo 3DS (£180.00 with out game)
Now I saw the Nintendo 3DS quite a while ago when I visited a friend who works for a game company and it was shown to me back then but don’t think im bias in any way because im not
Now all 1 of my kids exchanged his Nintendo DSI for a 3DS and I have been playing on it just to see what its like. Now you see all these adverts on TVs with people staring at the screen with amazement but don’t be fooled I think they just used less teck savvy people or week minded ones at that.
The Nintendo 3DS is a cool little gadget and I don't be grudge it that but the 3D side of it is by no means perfect.. There some things that have to be pointed out and one of them is the angle it must be play at. You really have to have the 3DS in front of you perfectly angled to your face. If you move off to the left or right the 3D disappears and becomes a wired 2D effect. Now when you playing a game such as Street Fighter 3D this makes it quite hard and quite difficult to concentrate on the moves you have to do because you suddenly become more aware that you not sitting or holding the 3DS correctly and this detracts from the game play experience.
Personally I think the 3DS is a grate example of how we may view 3D in the future how ever its a long way off the point and like some have said it can give head aces, I could only play for about 15min before I felt a little dizzy and had to come off the system.
There is a 3D slider button that moves the screen a little so that you can increase the depth of the game or decrease it to a 2D mode how ever this is a little tricky because if you a just it and then once again slight move out of the “perfect viewing angle” you lose the 3D again …..
To me the 3DS is is oky for the kids as a gadget but in my real honest view its by no means perfect and still needs more work and I don t think the price tag at this moment in time reflects what you are getting.
Conclusion
To be written.
