Sony HMZ-T1 Personal 3D Viewer review: first look

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

In among the expected crop of tablets, TVs, cameras and smartphones at IFA, Sony has unveiled its most stunningly bonkers product of all: the HMZ-T1 Personal 3D Viewer. Cramming two tiny 0.7in OLED screens into a headset that looks straight off the set of Star Trek, the HMZ-T1 delivers Full HD in three dimensions to an audience of just one.

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LG Optimus Pad review: first look

Monday, February 14th, 2011

Along with its spectacularly ambitious 3D smartphone, LG managed to unleash another new device today – the LG Optimus Pad. This 8.9in tablet represents LG’s first foray into the tablet space and it makes almost as big a splash as its little brother, packing in 3D features alongside the expected roll call of features.

Before you get too excited, though, it doesn’t have a parallax barrier 3D screen like the Optimus 3D. In fact, the display is a standard capacitive TFT touchscreen, measuring 8.9in from corner to corner and with a resolution of 1,280 x 768. It’s a perfectly good display too.

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Sony VAIO F Series 3D laptop review: first look

Friday, January 7th, 2011

Sony may have waited longer than Dr Livingstone for his friends to arrive before releasing a laptop capable of 3D playback, but it’s taken the plunge with gusto at CES this year. The VAIO F Series isn’t just for playing back pre-created 3D content: it can instantly transform 2D video into 3D too.

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3D TV: in the home, on a budget and… on the news?

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

This is the final part in a series of blogs based on a seminar by Buzz Hays, chief instructor for the Sony 3D Technology Center in Culver City, California.

It’s the most important consideration when it comes to filming in 3D: what types of production does the technology really suit? The huge vistas of Avatar used the 3D effect better than any film we’ve seen so far, but can shots still look good when scaled down to less epic proportions? Buzz Hays believes it may be something far smaller scale than cinema that eventually shows what 3D can achieve.

Filming on a hand-held budget

If we move way down the scale from Avatar towards smaller productions, one technique crops up more and more. (more…)

Photographic evidence that 3D glasses are too dark

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

I went to see Toy Story 3 this week. It was wonderful. A joyous, pixel-perfect celebration of story-telling and animation that does Disney’s amazing history proud. It was a tour-de-force of perfectionism: every animation, line of script, colour and setting has been designed with the kind of love and care you only get when you have a team of dedicated, incredibly talented individuals working with conviction on a project that they intuitively know is going to produce something really special.

Yet, Toy Story 3 is categorically the last film I will ever pay extra money for to watch in 3D. My local Odeon was showing a 3D print of Toy Story at half-past six and the 2D version two hours later: I’ve concluded I’d have gladly waited.

Why? Aside from the 3D surcharge imposed by the cinemas and the ear-chaffing discomfort of the 3D glasses, there’s another problem: I can’t see my popcorn.

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Why 3D and modern filmmaking techniques don’t mix

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

This is the fourth in a series of blogs based on a seminar by Buzz Hays, chief instructor for the Sony 3D Technology Center in Culver City, California.

To be done well, a 3D film really needs to be 3D from the outset, as the tools and techniques that work in three dimensions are very different to those most cinematographers have grown used to. In fact, some even require a step back in time to a more artistic age of cinema, as Buzz Hays explained.

Depth of field

Take depth of field, for example. It’s a staple of modern films, commonly used to direct the viewer’s eyes to the key point of the screen, guiding us through the scene as the director intended. Yet it’s an effect that simply doesn’t work in 3D. (more…)

From the Pole to Pandora: the shaky progress of modern 3D

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

This is the third in a series of blogs based on a seminar by Buzz Hays, chief instructor for the Sony 3D Technology Center in Culver City, California.

As senior producer of 3D Stereoscopic Feature Films for Sony Pictures Imageworks for more than five years, Buzz Hays has been there for the peaks and troughs involved in getting 3D cinema into the mainstream. Over the course of an afternoon he led us through many aspects of 3D, but for this blog I’ve collated his experiences of working on various films into one timeline. It begins a mere six years ago on a train, and ends with the revelation that Avatar was, in some respects, a disappointment…

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Why bad 3D, not 3D glasses, is what gives you a headache

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

This is the second in a series of blogs based on a seminar by Buzz Hays, chief instructor for the Sony 3D Technology Center in Culver City, California.

3D is an ever-evolving process, which is why the effect can be such a hit-and-miss affair. But those who insist 3D glasses give them headaches are a little wide of the mark, according to the man who trains the filmmaking pros.

“It’s not the technology’s fault, it’s really the content that can cause these problems,” explains Buzz Hays. “The more care taken when making the content, the better off everyone’s going to be. My mantra is that it’s easy to make 3D but it’s hard to make it good – and by ‘good’ I mean taking care to make sure that this isn’t going to cause eyestrain.”

There are several common mistakes that can cause discomfort, and easy ways for that to be reduced, yet they’re only just being learned and put into regular use. (more…)

Why we can’t ditch 3D glasses just yet

Wednesday, July 28th, 2010

This is the first in a series of blogs based on a seminar given at the BBC by Buzz Hays, chief instructor for the Sony 3D Technology Center in Culver City, California. The series starts with an answer to the most common complaint about 3D.

The question always comes up and rarely gets answered properly, so to hear such a measured dismantling of glasses-less 3D was illuminating. But then, Buzz Hays has been pioneering and improving the art of creating 3D for five years, so when he says we’ll be sticking with the glasses for a while yet, you tend to listen.

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Intel Research Day: pick of the projects

Friday, July 2nd, 2010

I’ve already written about Dispute Finder, a neat little service which is up and running – albeit shakily – right now. But Intel’s Research Day in Mountain View, California hosted some far more ambitious and long-term projects too. Here are my favourite projects from the rest of the show: research being what it is, some of them will probably never be heard of again, but others may well find their way into real-world products in the next few years.

Oh, and just to ramp up the excitement, I’ll take you through my top seven in reverse order.

7. Location Awareness with LED Visible Lighting

This is one of those ideas whose appeal lies in its sheer simplicity. In short, it’s a system that warns you when you’re too close to a car in front – or when a car is too close behind you. The clever part is that it works out the distances involved by triangulating the beams from LED headlights and tail-lights.

It’s a fast system, and accurate – the showcase stand included a live demo with some toy cars, tracking their locations in real time to a precision of under an inch. It can even track multiple cars at once. (more…)