Sony, Samsung And Panasonic Join Hands To Fight LG

After hearing this, the first thing that came to my mind was “enemy’s enemy is my friend”. Yes it has been that sort of an alliance. So what’s the deal? Deal is to fight their common enemy LG in producing better 3D glasses. There is no doubt that all other 3D TV manufacturers have been caught off guard by LG’s Passive 3D glasses. Till now, other main stream TV manufacturers are using active-shutter glasses.

Active shutter glasses definitely have the upper hand when it comes to image quality but to be honest, active shutter glasses are very irritating. Active shutter glasses are basically small LCD screens that alternatively dim the left and right "lenses" in succession. They rely on an infrared signal emitter in the TV that tells each pair of glasses when they should dim each lens, so each eye can see the image intended for it. Since active-shutter glasses are fairly complicated electronics, they're costly: A typical pair usually costs around $150, and works only on 3D TVs made by the same manufacturer. They depend on batteries to keep running, too. What's more, they're kind of heavy--especially if you're already wearing prescription eyeglasses--which can make watching a whole movie somewhat uncomfortable.

Passive 3D glasses, on the other hand, are sort of like a pair of specially designed polarized sunglasses. Unlike sunglasses, which are designed to block light equally from both eyes, polarized 3D glasses block different kinds of light from each eye, creating the illusion of depth. That means you don't need any kind of expensive, delicate electronics in the glasses themselves, nor do you need a proprietary infrared emitter to sync with the glasses--but since each lens is blocking out light, you're technically not getting a full 1080p image for each eye, though your brain should be perceiving a 1080p image when it puts the two together.

Ever since the introduction of Passive 3D glasses, the sales of LG 3D TVs have rocketed and are still going very strong. That obviously have worried other TV manufacturers and they decided to team up. Sony, Panasonic and Samsung will now join hands for a project named “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative”, a project to standardize 3D glasses. The incompatible active-shutter glasses will now be replaced by a unified standard glass that will let you use the same pair of spectacles on any display or at any theater that uses the Xpand 3D standard.

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