Dolby 3D at CES 2014

At NAB 2012 exhibition Dolby showed TV prototype with Dolby 3D technology – result of its joint development project with Philips.

At NAB 2013 exhibition in Las Vegas on April 9, 2013 Dolby Laboratories and Royal Philips Electronics in association with Cameron-Pace Group (CPG) announced its partnership for using Dolby 3D format that includes video content production, encoding, broadcasting or OTT delivering (Vudu) and decoding and playback of glasses-free 3D content on TVs, tablets or smartphones. Dolby 3D technology allows watching 3D without glasses regardless viewer’s location. The technology is based on R&D originally done by Philips and combines an optical layer on the screen and sophisticated signal processing. In addition, it requires extra information beyond the left and right views, primarily a “depth map,” which is needed to generate multiple views.

Dolby 3D components are:

• Content tool plug-in
• Real-time metadata preprocessor
• Dolby 3D format encoder
• Dolby 3D format decoder
• Real-time depth extraction and enhancement engine
• Multiview rendering engine

Dolby 3D can be implemented using several different approaches, including lenticular and parallax-barrier optical layers, and the performance of the optical layer is up to each manufacturer. In order to carry the Dolby 3D logo, the panel must be at least UHD resolution, and transitions between viewing zones must be smooth. With a UHD panel, the effective resolution for each eye is 1080p.

Sharp and Changhong presented LCD TVs with Dolby 3D technology at CES 2014.

Sharp 85” 8K (7680×4320 pix) LCD TV with UV2A panel, 10 bits per each RGB and 300 cd/m2 luminance showed Life of Pi movie.

SHARP 85-inch 8K LED TV with Dolby 3D

Sharp panel uses a lenticular optical layer.

Changhong 65-inch Glasses Free UHD 3D TV

Changhong Glasses-Free 65” UHD 3D TV has BOE Technology Group panel inside. BOE panel uses a parallax-barrier optical layer. 2D mode is full UHD while 3D mode is HD.

Bendable & Flexible, Concave & Convex, OLED & LCD UHD TVs by Samsung, LG and Panasonic at CES 2014

Every year Samsung, the world’s largest maker of TVs and LG, world’s 2^nd largest TV manufacturer, surprise consumers with new TV technologies or screen sizes.

At CES 2012 they both were the only companies to exhibit 55” OLED TVs.

At CES 2013 they both were the only to show 55” Curved OLED TVs.

At IFA 2013 exhibition in Berlin Samsung and Sony presented “World’s First” 65” Curved LCD TVs.

So that customers got lost trying to compare LCD and OLED, Flat and Curved, Full HD or Ultra HD. Many of them couldn’t understand why somebody decided to manufacture Curved OLED or Curved LCD TVs while Flat LCD TVs are OK for home?

At CES 2014, as you might guess, both Samsung and LG delivered another new technology combination: Bendable TV, as Samsung decided to call it, or Flexible TV, as announced by LG.

LG unveiled “World’s First 77” 4K Flexible OLED TV” that can change its screen shape from flat to curved and back by pushing a button on a remote control.

If you look from the side you will see the range between “Flat Screen” and “Curved Screen” position.

Samsung put on its booth four OLED TVs under the header “Bendable OLED TV” not specifying the size, because it is “standard” 55-inch and not saying whether it is Full HD or Ultra HD.

It is possible to see the range between flat and curved shape. You never might imagine that TV can change its screen shape like fighter jets change its wings shape.

In order to differentiate further, under the big header “Samsung’s First to the World Innovation Technology” Korean conglomerate placed “Bendable UHD TV 85”

It is a real challenge to produce a bendable LED TV prototype but they could manage to do it for CES!

This is a curved shape view:

Since Panasonic put stress on B2B, not on B2C solutions, instead of concave bendable or flexible OLED TVs it exhibited 4K OLED Video Wave consisting of 3 convex and 3 concave 55″ OLED displays based on its printing technology.

It’s hard to imagine what would be the next? Just wait for the CES 2015 when the new dreams of Korean and Japanese engineers will become visible.