Is Your TV Really Ready for 3D Content? Tech Clinic

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• HDTV
• 3D
• home theaters
• tech clinic

My Samsung DLP TV is supposed to be 3D-capable, but I can’t find any DVDs that are in 3D. Is there any 3D content out there, and how can I get it?

Most of Samsung’s latest DLP­HDTVs (and a few of the company’s plasmas) are “3D-capable”—albeit with the use of special 3D goggles. But the selection of movie content is a bit slim for now. That’s because movies that were originally filmed in 2D need to undergo time-consuming, frame-by-frame conversion to look their best in 3D. Even then, they still won’t pop from the screen as well as a film that was originally shot in 3D (which typically requires two cameras shooting simultaneously from slightly different angles).

Samsung has partnered with Dynamic Digital Depth (DDD) to provide 3D goggles in an optional $200 kit that also includes a computer program for converting regular DVDs into 3D. But because it uses software-based algorithms to simulate the effect, the converted films don’t look nearly as good as movies that were natively shot in 3D. The program requires you to use a PC for now, but DDD is currently developing TVs with the technology built in.

Still, there’s another reason that it may be worth connecting a PC to your 3D-capable TV: a growing number of 3D-enabled games (including Madden 08 Football and The Sims 2) and programs (including Google Earth) can easily be displayed on your HDTV via a PC link. And some of them really do pop.

1. RE: Is Your TV Really Ready for 3D Content? Tech Clinic
Website: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yqx4ZWkmOm0
That's crazy. I can't wait to watch movies and play games in 3D. I can only imagine what a racing game would be like in 3D, or if Wii were to start making 3D games. You could have a baseball come out at you to swing at. That would be amazing.

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