As was the case at least year's Consumer Electronics Show, 3D is everywhere you look here at this year's CES. And while most manufacturers are still talking about active shutter or passive 3D implementations, both of which require 3D glasses of one sort or another, Toshiba has spent the past year making significant strides with its glasses-free 3D technology - and it may be in stores sooner than you think.
When you consider the burden and costs involved with outfitting your family with 3D glasses, Toshiba is wisely moving forward with its glasses-free 3D solution. Here at CES, Toshiba is demonstrating their glasses-free 3D on several new 4K LED TVs. These high resolution flat panel displays offer full 4K resolution during 2D viewing while each viewpoint effectively receives a 720p experience during 3D viewing.
These 4K displays offer up to nine viewing positions for autostereoscopic (glasses-free) 3D. Interestingly, Toshiba has developed an eye-tracking feature which, when enabled, allows the TV to find your eyes and lock the image in so the parallax is optimized for exactly where you are standing or sitting.
Of course, the big question with this glasses-free 3D approach is, how convincing is the effect? Well, like any new technology, it's still improving and will likely continue to do so. We can say this much: the effect is certainly more compelling that what we saw at last year's show. Some looped footage of Universal's Coraline, as well as Sea-Rex 3D provided some engaging footage where the potential for this intriguing technology was clearly visible.
Toshiba hopes to begin selling these glasses-free 3D 4K displays later this year.
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