Print Page 4/21/2010

TOKYO: A display company is marketing glasses-free 3DTV. NewSight Japan demonstrated a new 70-inch glasses-free 3DTV at Japan Finetech last week, several reports indicate. The display is said to use “parallax-barrier technology” that renders viewable 3D images without glasses. “NewSight Japan” is not officially listed as a regional subsidiary of NewSight GmbH in Jena, Germany, but both are using the same technology and model numbers on displays. Here’s NewSight GmbH’s description:

“The NewSight parallax-barrier technology allows the viewer to see the 3D image ‘naturally’ in the way people are used to viewing normal 2D displays. The technology subdivides the LCD image into complex repeating segments that, when viewed and then integrated by human binocular vision, presents 3D views of scenes. The special parallax barrier is affixed to commercial-grade LCD displays in a precision assembly process.”

This barrier is said to have several precisely placed slits that allow each eye to see a different pixel set, creating the illusion of depth, according to Digital Trends’s Ryan Fleming. The drawback, he says, is that the viewer has to be specifically positioned in relation to the screen.

The NewSight GmbH 3DTV displays use a special media player that supports something it calls an “eight-tile” format. The company says the 3D flat panels can display 2D content interspersed with 3D content.

NewSight offers 3D displays in 8.4, 24 and 42 inches diagonal. The “purchase now” link on the Web site doesn’t yield a price, but rather the contact page. The 70-inch model demonstrated at the Tokyo trade show is said to be the largest glasses-free 3D display yet.
-- Deborah D. McAdams
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