Who has a 3D television? Opinions & Movie Recs, plz...

[megabyteme]

I know 3D television is a hardware topic, but I would like to know not only about people's first-hand experiences with their/friends' equipment, but also what movies were "enhanced" by the experience.

I do not have 3D. I am not certain I want to go that route. However, I have seen more than a few comments from people, and have noticed a few movie titles popping up. Maybe it isn't as gimmicky as I expected. Maybe the revitalized versions of movies like Star Wars make it worthwhile.

At this point, I am not too interested in what was cool at the theater. I never go. In fact, the last movie I saw in-theater was 8 Mile. I doubt it would be enhanced by 3D.

Thanks for your input on this.

[megabyteme]

A 3D laptop? You sure you weren't just sitting too close with your eyes crossed?

[mjmacky]

All laptops are in 3D, except for Apple of course because they're so thin that they don't exist on 1 of the dimensional planes.

Maybe he was talking about something like this, http://www.anandtech.com/show/4610/toshiba-announces-first-glassesfree-3d-laptop

I doubt anything was meant by it. Now I remember hearing about a Pixar movie having a production team go back and rerender the entire film in the 3rd dimension. That would be the type of movie to sample 3D. I, however, will still consider all of it a gimmick.

[megabyteme]

I didn't know of their existence before the above poster, but I did look up the general concept of 3D laptops after razzing him. Seems there are a few on the market.

I am really curious how many people have jumped into this (3D) technology for movies. Even the uploads are currently in scattered, varying types. There have been all kinds of failed formats in the past from Betamax to Quadraphonic stereos to the Apple PC :whistling . Early adopters are taking a pretty substantial risk with their dollars on this. I don't think there is a forerunner in this race yet, and while it sounds cool, does anyone really want to wear a pair of Opti-Grab glasses while they are sitting around the house? How many hours can your eyes stand before getting fatigued etc.?

Or maybe it's fantastic, and we are fools to not go out and buy a set right now that will make our lives complete...

[Artemis]

Something for you to realise MBM is if you have a pre-existing home theater system you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater in order to have a 3D compliant system. The data transfer for 3D is via HDMI v.1.4 which requires replacing existing HDMI cables with new and more expensive ones plus if you are using a home theater receiver for passthrough then you need to upgrade to an HDMI 1.4 compliant one , plus of course the more expensive TV and Bluray 3D player.

All to have the joy of sitting in your own home with glasses on to watch movies in 3D, something which is gimmicky at best, since as with CGI in movies they are created for effect not reality (with the possible exception of Avatar) and like everything else the 3D effects are just a game of one up manship by the film companies each trying to outdo the other for the biggest effect (since we are all completely retarded and effects are far more important than incidental things like plot, development of characters,a realistic scenario, and production values). If you look at most of the 3D movies they are just effects extravaganza's anyway, and I have a very short attention span for this type of movie.

Right now you are paying a huge premium for a gimmick and remember 3D has been tried by film companies several times in the past and was always little more than a passing fancy for movie goers which soon died off. Even with the massive advertising machine currently driving consumer sales, there are already cracks beginning to form from insiders in the industry with some already saying 3D is dying (again).

[mjmacky]

I'm not completely sold on technicolor either. Perhaps just wait until 3D is a standard and not a gimmick.

[megabyteme]

Something for you to realise MBM is if you have a pre-existing home theater system you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater in order to have a 3D compliant system. The data transfer for 3D is via HDMI v.1.4 which requires replacing existing HDMI cables with new and more expensive ones plus if you are using a home theater receiver for passthrough then you need to upgrade to an HDMI 1.4 compliant one , plus of course the more expensive TV and Bluray 3D player.

All to have the joy of sitting in your own home with glasses on to watch movies in 3D, something which is gimmicky at best, since as with CGI in movies they are created for effect not reality (with the possible exception of Avatar) and like everything else the 3D effects are just a game of one up manship by the film companies each trying to outdo the other for the biggest effect (since we are all completely retarded and effects are far more important than incidental things like plot, development of characters,a realistic scenario, and production values). If you look at most of the 3D movies they are just effects extravaganza's anyway, and I have a very short attention span for this type of movie.

Right now you are paying a huge premium for a gimmick and remember 3D has been tried by film companies several times in the past and was always little more than a passing fancy for movie goers which soon died off. Even with the massive advertising machine currently driving consumer sales, there are already cracks beginning to form from insiders in the industry with some already saying 3D is dying (again).

It is a great point regarding how much needs to be newly replaced for 3D. My theater is 12+ years old (was pretty darn kick-ass at the time :01:- however, we all get old, and out dated :sadwalk: ), and needs a heart transplant (upgrade from Lexicon DC1 (http://www.soundstage.com/greg07.htm)) and cataract surgery (new projector upgraded from Sharp LCD (http://www.projectorcentral.com/Sharp-XV-S55U-user-reviews.htm)), and it will be ready to take on any non-3D content in its path :tigersblood:

My living room is far more up-to-date, but is not equipped for 3D. The oldest of it is 3-4 years old, and I see no need to rock the boat (or sink it with current budgetary constraints).

I am actually surprised that no one has yet taken me up on my offer to talk about an in-home 3D experience. It seems like there would be a few here who not only had the interest, but also had pulled the trigger. Even with the large number of younger members here, surely somebody has a dad who put together a 3D system. There is certainly a VAST improvement in bang/quality for the money since I built my dedicated room. My year-old Onkyo receiver (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882120156) has more advanced processing capabilities and cost about 1/5 the new price of my aged Lexicon.

It will be TRULY telling if I don't get any responses here. I wonder how much the technology has fallen victim to the poor world economy- even beyond its gimmicky nature.

*In part, I mention my equipment/room since I know you have an elaborate home system yourself, Art. I've been meaning to ask you the particulars of it, and feel this thread may as well be used to do so since nobody seems to bee 3D-equiped. And, if anyone takes my end of the discussion as bragging, let it be known that 12+ year old audio equipment (even the once-really-awesome stuff has been reduced in value by roughly 90% over the years). I do, however still enjoy it (it plays everything short of HD beautifully, and was a VERY fun hobby of mine for several years). :)

[Artemis]

*In part, I mention my equipment/room since I know you have an elaborate home system yourself, Art. I've been meaning to ask you the particulars of it, and feel this thread may as well be used to do so since nobody seems to bee 3D-equiped. And, if anyone takes my end of the discussion as bragging, let it be known that 12+ year old audio equipment (even the once-really-awesome stuff has been reduced in value by roughly 90% over the years). I do, however still enjoy it (it plays everything short of HD beautifully, and was a VERY fun hobby of mine for several years). :)

My system isn't that elaborate compared to others it is setup for 720p playback not 1080p, but then I have neither a large TV nor a large lounge and at the time I bought my projector 720p native was expensive enough. Unless you have a large screen then the difference between 720p & 1080p is miniscule and I find the color on 1080p content overbright in an attempt to make seem more vivid.

I have enjoyed playing around with home theater pc's/ home theater applications for years and the joy has been in finding components and building a home theater that I enjoy and is relatively easy to use (the rest of the household are technologically challenged). The application I use for home theater is XBMC. I used to use Media Portal but although it is a powerful application it is not the easiest piece of software to configure and the tweaks took ages when I rebuilt the system. With XBMC since it uses an XML database to store the information about the media in your collection, if you are going to nuke the machine for any reason you simply export the database to a NAS or USB device and you are good to go.
Since XBMC works on Windows, Linux and Mac it truly is close to being a universal application too and the db can be backed up/recovered to different operating systems (if you are a diehard tweaker like me).

The system itself:
The lounge has the media PC featured in this post : http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/151442-Post-your-PC-pics/page26?p=3594310&viewfull=1#post3594310
The PC is connected to an Onkyo TX-SR607 receiver with a Wharfedale Diamond 9.5 speaker system
( I have a pair of Wharfedale bookshelf speakers that I have on my to do list to add to the system using Dolby IIz processing i.e. front high speaker to give 7.1 surround with height for positional audio of things like aircraft flyovers etc.)
The TV is a Samsung LA40R8 'Bordeaux' and the projector is a sony VPL-AW10 both set for 1280x720 resolution when connected to the PC.
The interconnects and HDMI cables are by monster cable.

I also have a smaller system in the bedroom (for when I am banished from my toys).
The PC is featured in this post: http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/151442-Post-your-PC-pics/page28?p=3609193&viewfull=1#post3609193
It is connected to a Logitech z5400 multimedia speaker system via optical cable and the output is a Samsung LA32R8 LCD
The PC is used as a mediaplayer, it shares the content from the main HTPC via SMB over wireless N, but if you have a good router with QOS the playback is smoothe.
XBMC has all the codecs required within the application, I have not come across a media file it has not recognised so the mini-itx system gives me the advantages of a PC for about the same cost as a decent mediaplayer.

[megabyteme]

After I built my theater, I simply stopped looking into audio equipment, and enjoyed. It was nearly 10 years (maybe closer to 8) before I started to look around a the new products that had developed. I ended up visiting with a guy on one of my first torrent sites (TBy), and he mentioned the Onkyo receiver he had just purchased. It caught my attention enough to begin thinking about home theater again. (Once bitten, right? :P )

A couple years later, I ended up finding a great deal for the newer version of the TX80* receiver that guy had been so happy with. One of my earlier set-ups had an Onkyo in it, and it never gave me a moment of grief. I bought it with a pair of Polk Monitor 60 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882290206)'s, CS 20 Center (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882290107), and two pair of Monitor 30 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882290200)'s for surrounds and height. I use a Western Digital Media Player (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136593) for nearly everything. I've got a 12" budget Velodyne sub behind the Philips 48"(?) LCD TV. Thanks to NewEgg, and 10 years of progress, I was quite tickled with the bang for the buck. Good thing because high-end is NOT anywhere on my horizon. :P

If I hadn't come across the WD player, I think I would have gone the same direction as you for media playback. There is so much that can be put into a PC- yet alone inexpensively AND with fairly easy upgrade-ability that I am somewhat surprised there is such a thing as "high-end" audio these days. With digital switching amps, software upgrades, etc. it almost seems that separate components and racks full of equipment will eventually die out. Gotta admit, though, that some of it is pretty spectacular to look at. The inside components, are improving SO much, at the mass-consumer level that I predict less die-hard consumers (although it sure is fun to explore new equipment, etc.) in the next generation (20 years).

Back to 3D- have we reached a point where consumers have so many low-cost options that gimmicks are losing their appeal? I agree that anything over 720p is marginal, and not worth the additional file size, storage space, or time required to download. Yet alone seek out ever-increasing higher resolutions. Wouldn't it be interesting to see price/quality points so strongly evolved that consumers are simply satisfied with what they have, or can upgrade via firmware? I don't know what- short of circuit failure would entice me to seek out anything "better" than my living room system.

[Artemis]

If I hadn't come across the WD player, I think I would have gone the same direction as you for media playback. There is so much that can be put into a PC- yet alone inexpensively AND with fairly easy upgrade-ability that I am somewhat surprised there is such a thing as "high-end" audio these days. With digital switching amps, software upgrades, etc.

The reasons for a PC based system running XBMC are many. First of all running a PC expanding storage is simply a matter of either upgrading the size of, or adding another hard drive. The LC16M silverstone home theater case can support up to 7 3.5 internal drives + DVD/BD-Rom drive + multicard reader so the expansion capabilities are large. the two 3.5" cages at either end support 3x3.5" drives each with an optional 120mm fan mountable at the front of the cage.

XBMC itself is a great application, it is skinnable with multiple skins designed by the community. The real beauty though is the database scrapers. You can set the contents of a drive to be scanned by a scraper and it will load media information for the contents of the drive. This means with a movie drive, the scraper will load the movie poster, along with a synopsis of the movie and fan art. You can also have it scrape additional information like actors etc.

If it is a music drive it will download the album artwork as well as synopsis info about the album, tracks list etc, and has separate categories for movies, TV, music, music videos. There are also many plugins available, for instance I have a couple of movie preview plugins and can watch movie trailers at fullscreen resolution on my TV via XBMC, it even lists the latest, most popular etc movie trailers. I also have plugins installed to access content from the local tv stations, so if there is a show I have missed I can watch it via XBMC.

As to the second part of the quote, HDMI has greatly simplified interconnecting A/V devices and with a decent modern graphics card installed into a computer connected via HDMI the signal quality is superb. There will always be an argument for separate components, when I had the money I had a monster of a monoblock setup, but a family has a habit of changing your priorities. Separate components will always give better fidelity simply because there is less interference, but the cost of separate components these days is quite prohibitive, you can spend the cost of a new car quite easily, but there is a difference. The competition for the home theater market has seen alot of 'high-end' features become mainstream and this is a good thing, but there will always be the true audiophile experience.

[megabyteme]

If I hadn't come across the WD player, I think I would have gone the same direction as you for media playback. There is so much that can be put into a PC- yet alone inexpensively AND with fairly easy upgrade-ability that I am somewhat surprised there is such a thing as "high-end" audio these days. With digital switching amps, software upgrades, etc.

The reasons for a PC based system running XBMC are many. First of all running a PC expanding storage is simply a matter of either upgrading the size of, or adding another hard drive. The LC16M silverstone home theater case can support up to 7 3.5 internal drives + DVD/BD-Rom drive + multicard reader so the expansion capabilities are large. the two 3.5" cages at either end support 3x3.5" drives each with an optional 120mm fan mountable at the front of the cage.

XBMC itself is a great application, it is skinnable with multiple skins designed by the community. The real beauty though is the database scrapers. You can set the contents of a drive to be scanned by a scraper and it will load media information for the contents of the drive. This means with a movie drive, the scraper will load the movie poster, along with a synopsis of the movie and fan art. You can also have it scrape additional information like actors etc.

If it is a music drive it will download the album artwork as well as synopsis info about the album, tracks list etc, and has separate categories for movies, TV, music, music videos. There are also many plugins available, for instance I have a couple of movie preview plugins and can watch movie trailers at fullscreen resolution on my TV via XBMC, it even lists the latest, most popular etc movie trailers. I also have plugins installed to access content from the local tv stations, so if there is a show I have missed I can watch it via XBMC.

As to the second part of the quote, HDMI has greatly simplified interconnecting A/V devices and with a decent modern graphics card installed into a computer connected via HDMI the signal quality is superb. There will always be an argument for separate components, when I had the money I had a monster of a monoblock setup, but a family has a habit of changing your priorities. Separate components will always give better fidelity simply because there is less interference, but the cost of separate components these days is quite prohibitive, you can spend the cost of a new car quite easily, but there is a difference. The competition for the home theater market has seen alot of 'high-end' features become mainstream and this is a good thing, but there will always be the true audiophile experience.

I've got a PC in the bedroom feeding a 37"(?) Philips LCD. I think I will have to revisit the XBMC software. I spent maybe 20 minutes with it once, and then returned to VLC.

My twins are now 19 months old. I FULLY understand the effects family has on a stereo system. :( (TBH, the experience has really been more of :D than anything else.)

Even if I could afford "high-end" at this point, I really don't know if I would. The Onkyo TX808 has yet to disappoint me in ANY way. Also, the heat produced by my 4 separate amplifiers in the theater is an issue- yet alone the cost of the electricity meter spinning off its axis when they are fired up :fear: (yeah, that's one of the first true signs of being a parent). There just aren't the shortcomings of a moderately priced stereo/theater system the way they were 15+ years ago. Sure there's still some crap being sold to unsuspecting consumers, but the limits of human hearing are more real than many of the "details" high-end dealers would have them believe. Even limitations of 2-channel speaker design has been overcome by multi-channel systems.

Look at the improvements in speakers alone. The driver materials have gotten vastly lighter. If properly designed, low distortion and flat frequency response are no longer limited to exotics. Cabinets are more rigid, and many of the experimental gimmicky driver configurations have come and gone. What's available cheaply now couldn't be had for 4+ times the price 20 years ago. My Polks are a perfect example of this.

FTMP, the remainder of components (unless poorly designed) don't effect the end sound significantly enough to cause concern. Times are good- music and movies for everyone!

[IdolEyes787]

I don't know about you but I think investing a ton of money just so "The Biggest Loser" sounds a bit better is kinda stupid.

The chick is the Australian version is hawt so a could see a better TV being a consideration though.

[megabyteme]

You don't know what you are missing, Idol. With a sophisticated sound system, and a proper sub woofer, "The Biggest Loser" sounds just like you are standing in line at Wal-Mart. You are transported directly to the world of wheezing, grunting, and palpitating. If it were any more lifelike, you would need a towel to dry the sweat off.

[manker]

I bought a 3Dtv a couple of months ago. I'd always considered it a gimmick but that was only because I wanted to justify not having one.
I needed a new tellybox anyway and as they weren't that much more expensive, I'd have been foolish not to.

The concern expressed above with regard to throwing the baby out with the bathwater is unfounded as new hdmi cables cost me approximately £9, my other hardware remains the same. I'd never owned a BluRay player before, as I only play movies and tv shows that I've downloaded from the internets, my PC is hooked up to the TV for that purpose - but I bought a reconditioned one from Ebay for £50 for the hell of it. It was mainly to see if the 3D effects on a BR disc were better than that displayed when viewing a 3D film that I downloaded.
They are, but not so much so that I'm tempted to add to my collection of one solitary BluRay disc (Piranha; Kelly Brook's tits in 3D ftw :smilie4:)

There is a 2D to 3D function on the tv, but when this is applied, the results aren't anything someone who isn't mental would enjoy watching.

It's active 3D which means the glasses are pretty expensive. The tv came with two pairs, so I went back to Ebay and bought the proper Samsung active shutter glasses for an average of £30 per pair. They all work fine and they retail at circa £95. So that was nice. I got the feeling that the people I bought them from were selling the extra pair that came free with their telly, which made me feel good as watching a film for me is frequently a social thing - rather than a solitary wankpit affair.


I feel that I should write some kind of review for you people:

3Dtv is good.

[megabyteme]

3Dtv is good.

Thanks for the first-hand review, manker. I'm in the market (near future, anyways) for a new PC monitor, and may spend a bit extra then to try it out via that system first. There are enough movies available on BT sites to give it a fair shot.

[manker]

I've got most of mine from the 3D section in tpb.
The Green Hornet was particularly good in 3D.
When you get your monitor, I'd be happy to PM you a few links of the torrents I DL'd. There are a few crappy encodes out there too.

[megabyteme]

Thanks, manker. I expect our finances will allow for the purchase around mid-January. The wife should be getting a bonus, and our tax return will arrive around that time, as well. I will keep your offer in mind. :happy: