Whatever the reason – marketing hysteria, living on technology’s bleeding edge, you need a new TV so why-the-hell-not? or the overwhelming desire to sell everything and move to Pandora – you’ve decided that life can’t go on without owning a 3D TV. Now what?  What do you need? What do you do? Here are 10 things you need to know about making the switch to 3D.

1)    Do I need a new TV?

To view 3D programming from cable, satellite or Blu-ray, you will need a 3D capable TV and, for the vast majority of people, this will mean buying a new TV. Currently, Panasonic currently offers one 3D set in limited markets, but expect models from Sony, Toshiba, Samsung and others by this summer.  Mitsubishi and Samsung have been marketing 3D capable DLP rear projection sets for several years, and at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas, they say that there will be a device that will enable these existing sets to work with the new 3D specifications. This device is expected to sell for around $100.

1A)  You mean the set I just bought when they switched to HD (and then again when everything went to 1080p) won’t work?

Technologically is a cruel mistress, and she lays harsh commands on her followers. Sadly, your old set is a casualty in the move to 3D. But, you can still enjoy it in your bedroom!

2)    Will my existing DVD or Blu-ray work?

They will continue to work as they always have, they just won’t play any of the new 3D movies. To do that, you’ll need to buy a 3D capable Blu-ray player. These are just starting to become available at prices starting under $200 and many offer other cool features like Internet streaming of YouTube and Netflix, etc. If you use a Sony PlayStation3 as your Blu-ray player, you own the only Blu-ray on the market that is capable of being firmware upgraded to 3D. Congratulations! (Now, take that $200 and buy an extra set of glasses! See #5) (There actually is talk about other Blu-ray players being upgraded, however it looks like they will not offer full 1080p resoultion when displaying 3D.

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By John Sciacca

Today (February 3, 2010), the HDMI Licensing group announced that the 3D portion of the HDMI 1.4 Spec is available for download (www.hdmi.org). Steve Venuti, president of HDMI Licensing, commented, ”The HDMI Consortium recognizes the importance of standardized 3D formats for movies, gaming and broadcast content and the need for non-adopter companies and organizations to have access to that portion of the HDMI Specification. As the mainstream adoption of 3D is gaining momentum and content providers define and expand their 3D roadmaps, HDMI is ready to support this major market development.”

The press release went on to say that the HDMI Consortium plans on shortly releasing a 1.4a version of the spec which will include updates to the 3D portion of the spec.

If you’ve been involved with the consumer electronics industry for any amount of time at all, you know that standards and, especially cables, change. We’ve seen composite video, S-Video, Component Video, VGA, RGB, DVI (with –I, -D, and –A varieties), and IEEE 1394. But HDMI – which stands for High-Definition Multimedia Interface – has proved to be the moving-est target of them all. Since its inception, the HDMI cable has undergone more changes than Britney Spears.

In case you’re curious, these are the changes that each version has added, and what we can look forward to – at least for now – when the 1.4 spec finally hits the street.

HDMI 1.0 –Released December 2002. Intended to be a single cable replacement to DVI cables, supporting video up to 1080p/60 Hertz with HDCP copy protection, along with 8 channels of LPCM/192 kHz/24-bit audio. The ability to carry audio was the biggest difference from DVI cables, which were video only.

HDMI 1.1 – Released May of 2004. Added support for DVD-Audio soundtracks.

HDMI 1.2 – Released August 2005. Added support for SACD audio.

HDMI 1.2a – Released December 2005. Specified Consumer Electronic Control (CEC) features, commands and compliance tests, allowing (in theory) all devices to communicate and control each other.

HDMI 1.3 – Released June 2006. Increased bandwidth to 340 MHz (10.2 Gigabits per second) and added support for Deep Color with 30/36/48-bit xvYCC. (Previous versions supported up to 24-bit.) Also supports output of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio and incorporates automatic audio syncing with video capability (lip sync).

HDMI 1.3a – Released November 2006. Mostly “housekeeping” fixes and specifications for manufacturers. It did add support for streaming SACD in bitstream rather than raw DSD format used in previous versions.

HDMI 1.3b, 1.3b1 and 1.3c – Released Mary 2007, November 2007 and August 2008 respectively. Describe testing and products based on the 1.3a spec and the Type C Mini connector and active cables.

HDMI 1.4 – Increases maximum resolution to 4K x 2K, supporting much higher pixel counts than 1080p (up to 4096 x 2160 at 36-bit). Will allow Ethernet over HDMI, for 100 Mbps connection between connected devices. Also adds an audio return channel, allowing your TV to send audio back to your A/V receiver. Of course, it will also support 3D as announced today, with stereoscopic, 1080p images.

The only real bummer is that older gear likely won’t be upgradeable to the new spec, so enjoying 1.4 (and beyond) will require purchasing new hardware – Blu-ray, TV, A/V receiver – instead of just upgrading firmware.

by Brent Butterworth

December saw what may be the two most significant events in the history of 3-D video. On December 17, the Blu-ray Disc Association announced the finalization of the Blu-ray 3-D standard. The following day marked the release of Avatar, which will be as important to 3-D as the Magna Carta was to the rule of law and Gilligan’s Island was to the modern sitcom.

Based on what I’ve heard, read, and watched, the 3-D we see in the home might just beat out what we see in the theater.

The standard released by the Blu-ray Disc Association requires the use of a new 3-D Blu-ray player (or a Sony Playstation 3) and a 3-D TV. It will pass on the new HDMI version 1.4 interface, so no special cabling will be required. Standard 2-D Blu-rays and DVDs will play on a 3-D player, and 3-D Blu-rays can be backward-compatible with existing 2-D Blu-ray players. Discs can carry 3-D video in full 1080p resolution.

While few specifics of the new standard have been made available to the public, manufacturers tell me that the new 3-D TVs will require that viewers wear LCD “shutter glasses. When the TV is showing the left-eye image, the left LCD shutter becomes transparent and the right shutter becomes opaque. The opposite happens for the right-eye image.

These shutter glasses may be a little clunky, and they probably won’t look terribly cool, and they’ll probably cost $100 or so to replace if you accidentally sit on them. However, they may have an advantage over the polarized glasses you need to watch Avatar, Up, and other 3-D releases in the movie theater.

When watching Avatar, I noticed that if I turned my head slightly, the sides of the image went out of alignment, as if I were looking at it with my eyes out of focus. I had to be careful to stare almost straight at the screen if I wanted the whole image in focus. LCD shutter glasses shouldn’t suffer this problem. While LCDs don’t perform the same at all angles, they shouldn’t produce the blurred images that I saw during Avatar.

The CES show in January promises lots and lots of new 3-D TVs and Blu-ray players—and lots of really impressive demos—so we’ll soon have a better idea of what the new home 3-D video technology offers us. Actual products should be available sometime around summer of 2010 … just in time for the Blu-ray release of Avatar.

By John Sciacca

Television manufacturers are a busy bunch, continually pushing the envelope with nary a moment’s rest on their technological laurels. In the past two years, everything we thought we knew about a good TV has been completely turned inside out. What was once the state of contemporary cool at 4-inches thick is now morbidly obese as sets are being measured in millimeters. Just as we’ve adjusted to 720p and then 1080p resolutions, we must prepare our eyes for the hyper-realism of 4K resolution. While our ancestors lived for years in the Stone Ages of 60-Hertz refresh rates, we have been shown the benefits of 120, 240 and now 480-Hertz. And where contrast ratios used to be boast numbers like 10,000 to 1, they have now reached infinity, exceeding staring into a black hole and the sun with the Hubble telescope. And, remarkably, while all of these advancements have occurred, prices have steadily plummeted. It won’t be long before you’ll pull a 42-inch Plasma from a box of Cracker Jacks, only to trade it for the rubber bouncy ball that you really wanted.

This means that it’s time to talk about the next trend that will capture your video dollars: 3D. Several manufacturers are fervently pursuing the third dimension (depth, in case you were curious) in hopes of continuing to capture that almighty fourth D, Dollars. Both Samsung and LG see 3D as the major catalyst to jumpstarting TV and Blu-ray sales. Mitsubishi has been showing 3D demos w ith its DLP and Laser TV for some time. JVC and Digital Projection had 3D demos at this past CEDIA, and even Dolby Laboratories is getting involved.

But the most aggressive 3D-ers seem to be Panasonic and Sony. (For the record, having watched demos from all of the manufacturers, I find Panasonic’s version of 3D to be the best. To my eyes, it was the sharpest, with the best focus, detail and depth of image.) Both companies plan on launching 3D sets next year and are already laying on the trash-talk pretty thick. Additionally, Sony is releasing an update that will provide a 3D mode for all PS3 games. Sony says, “The 3D train is on the track, and we’re the ones to drive it home.”

Panasonic countered, “A lot of people think Blu-ray is Sony. We believe 3D is Panasonic.”

I believe the next quote will start out, “Yo’ mama so fat…” but I’ve been unable to confirm.

According to the research firm, GigaOM, sales of 3D sets will reach up to 46 million by 2013 and, as 3D becomes a standard feature, it will have just a slight price premium over non-3D models. With support coming from Hollywood in the form of major 3D releases (including James Cameron’s highly anticipated Avatar), it seems like the transition to the home market is inevitable.