{"id":29,"date":"2010-01-07T09:16:38","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T15:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/?p=29"},"modified":"2018-02-05T18:55:09","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T00:55:09","slug":"3d-%e2%80%a6-the-%e2%80%9cnot-ready-for-prime-time%e2%80%9d-set","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/?p=29","title":{"rendered":"3D \u2026 The \u201cNot Ready for Prime Time\u201d set"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago I had the unique and somewhat terrifying experience of a full blown cattle stampede at my parents\u2019 farm. I learned quickly that I actually could balance my six-foot plus frame on the top strand of a barbed wire fence to avoid become a footnote in the \u201cDarwin Awards\u201d<\/a>. The first day rush to enter CES at opening time can be just as pleasurable. Definitely not for the faint or squeamish. My nephew tells me about \u201ccrowd surfing\u201d at concerts, and therefore, I must conclude this qualifies as \u201ccrowd undertow\u201d.<\/p>\n

Wandering into the huge Panasonic booth I find the world\u2019s largest (and certainly the most energy hungry) TV on the planet. Using a \u201cto be released at some point in the future\u201d technology, and offering more than double the resolution of even the very best plasma set, the now defunct Pioneer Kuro Elite. This Godzilla of TV’s offered an image that reminded me of something straight out of the movie \u201cV\u201d. All it needed was a close-up of a screaming, spitting John Hurt to frighten the bejeebers out of you.<\/p>\n

Truly a huge picture, absolutely flawless image quality and weight something north of a Volvo station wagon. I walked (pushed through) away from the huge, very much unyielding crowd and wondered if radiation badges were in order.<\/p>\n

On to the first of the much hyped 3D sets for an extended viewing session. The glasses you must wear aren\u2019t anything like the cardboard red\/blue lensed versions you probably remember. These new shutter glasses cost over a hundred bucks, and have batteries that must be recharged or replaced to power them as they are actually using the same basic technology as a LCD TV. Each of your eyes are independently blacked out for a fraction of a second by a syncing signal sent by the TV. This trick of nature fakes the 3D effect to various degrees of success. Watching a video of the Grand Canyon, the image ranged from impressive to distracting. At times it too closely mimicked a 1950\u2019s Vincent Price 3D horror flick with the image moving from the background, to seemingly into my lap, in about a millisecond. Other times the image looked flat. Other times fantastic \u2026 a little balance would have been appreciated.<\/p>\n

I can see the possible advantages of these cutting edge sets, but in my opinion, they\u2019re more like bleeding edge sets. The technology clearly isn\u2019t ready for prime time. After using the shutter glasses for more than a few minutes, my eyes began to be in distress. This effect is more or less pronounced on everyone who uses them, but there nonetheless. I\u2019d give Panasonic an \u201cA-\u201c for effort and a \u201cD\u201d for execution. Glasses just to watch TV? I hate having to wear my prescription glasses, why would I put on a heavy\/hot pair for fun? My spouse complains now about the double-digit number of remote controls in the family media room. And now we have to keep up with one more item to be lost. What were they thinking? Had the engineers asked their wives about this viewing penalty and demonstrated it to them, we wouldn\u2019t even be looking at prototypes of this inferior system \u2026 back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago I had the unique and somewhat terrifying experience of a full blown cattle stampede at my parents\u2019 farm. I learned quickly that I actually could balance my six-foot plus frame on the top strand of a barbed wire fence to avoid become a footnote in the \u201cDarwin Awards\u201d. The first day […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1297,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions\/1297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecaffeinatedgeek.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}