SMPTE 3D Meeting
Sony reps gave a presentation on 3D at last weeks meeting of The New England chapter of SMPTE. It was a bit of a rehash of a talk I heard a Sony guy give at the Camera Company’s camera show back in March. They covered all the terms and issues that make shooting in 3D more difficult than shooting in 2D, adding a discussion of movie projection methods and broadcast methods, as well as a demo of consumer monitors they will be releasing in July.
There was also discussion of two professional monitors - the 24inch LMD-2451TD and the 42 inch LMD-4251TD - which use passive polarized glasses rather than the active glasses used in the home systems. The justification for using this technology for professional applications is that with the glasses being much cheaper; production companies don’t need to worry about the crew taking off with the glasses! Seriously! The downside to the passive system is that it uses alternating rows on polarized filters to create the image – so in 3D you are essentially seeing half the vertical resolution.
Leaving the world of 3D for a moment, there was a brief discussion of OLED technology, and a small monitor they have coming out called the PVM740. It will be very expensive. Though they touted the expanded color gamut, they still added the disclaimer that the PVM740 was not accurate enough for coloring applications! At almost $4,000 for a 7.4" display with 960 x 540 resolution, I'm not sure I get the point.
Finally, William Lange from the Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory at Wood Hole talked about what they were doing with 3D capture. I’d heard him talk briefly before at the previous event, so again there wasn’t a lot of news here. It was interesting that he went on at some length about the differences between using side-by-side set-ups, vs beam splitters. They pretty much exclusively use side-by-side rigs, having given up on beam splitters due to size, light loss, fragility, and the glass having to be very flat or there can be problems when shooting with long focal lenses.
Woods Hole: Avanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory (AIVL)
NotesOnVideo: 3d is loose in the world! Part 2
Sony: Brochure: LMD-4251TD / LMD-2451TD [PDF]
Sony: Product Page: PVM740
There was also discussion of two professional monitors - the 24inch LMD-2451TD and the 42 inch LMD-4251TD - which use passive polarized glasses rather than the active glasses used in the home systems. The justification for using this technology for professional applications is that with the glasses being much cheaper; production companies don’t need to worry about the crew taking off with the glasses! Seriously! The downside to the passive system is that it uses alternating rows on polarized filters to create the image – so in 3D you are essentially seeing half the vertical resolution.
3D Circular polarizer: diagram from Sony
Leaving the world of 3D for a moment, there was a brief discussion of OLED technology, and a small monitor they have coming out called the PVM740. It will be very expensive. Though they touted the expanded color gamut, they still added the disclaimer that the PVM740 was not accurate enough for coloring applications! At almost $4,000 for a 7.4" display with 960 x 540 resolution, I'm not sure I get the point.
Finally, William Lange from the Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory at Wood Hole talked about what they were doing with 3D capture. I’d heard him talk briefly before at the previous event, so again there wasn’t a lot of news here. It was interesting that he went on at some length about the differences between using side-by-side set-ups, vs beam splitters. They pretty much exclusively use side-by-side rigs, having given up on beam splitters due to size, light loss, fragility, and the glass having to be very flat or there can be problems when shooting with long focal lenses.
Demo of live 3D capture at SMPTE meeting
LINKS
SMPTE/New EnglandWoods Hole: Avanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory (AIVL)
NotesOnVideo: 3d is loose in the world! Part 2
Sony: Brochure: LMD-4251TD / LMD-2451TD [PDF]
Sony: Product Page: PVM740
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