When asked about what grabbed me the hardest at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, I told everyone by far my favorite exhibit was in the Texas Instruments DLP booth where I watched a scene from Star Wars in 3D on a Samsung display.

I was floored by it and vowed I would not upgrade from my current setup at home until I could buy a 50" 3D plasma or LCD. It was that impressive.

When I returned to Seattle I was wildly gesticulating to a friend as I described the image and the experience prophesying about the Star Trek Holodeck we'd all have in our basements in the next decade.

When I finally took a breath he proceeded to deflate my expansive and expressive balloon with the words, "yeah, but didn't you have to wear those glasses?" The fact that the glasses I put on were quite futuristic and a definitely a cut above left him unmoved.

My fuse was reignited when I read the AP story in the Sydney Morning Herald that Phillips actually has demonstrated the prototype that will eventually usher in the age of 3D in our homes - sans glasses. With kinks still to work out like blurry moments and two dimensional lapses - the apparent depth or protrusion is reported to be startling.

Functioning like a "holographic getting card" it combines slightly different angles of the same image giving your eyes the illusion of different depths as you scan. Phillips claims "the market progression is black and white, to color, to high definition to 3D" and estimates these will be in homes in the next few years. Samsung is near the same stage in research and demonstrated its own no-glasses 3D television concept model recently in Las Vegas.

I see a future rife with wonderful albeit "Hollow Pursuits." Call me Reg(ina) Barclay.

E

June 2, 2008
HDTV Solutions

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