Is Anaglyph in Our 3D Future?

http://displaydaily.com/2009/08/12/is-anaglyph-in-our-3d-future/

 

August 12th, 2009

Viewing 3D with anaglyph glasses means that each eye has a colored filter in front of it to separate the left and right eye images. The most common form is a red/blue or red/cyan combination, but dozens of variations exist in the selection of the colors. Many see anaglyph as the least desirable form of 3D, but there are a number of advantages to it. In talking with experts about this topic, it is my personal conclusion that anaglyph will be around for some time. As such, we need to better understand its strengths and weaknesses and formulate products, messages and strategies that recognize anaglyph, but place it in its proper context. That may be easier said than done.

Chris Chinnock
Senior Analyst and Editor
for Insight Media

Let’s start with some of the pros. Anaglyph is a color encoding approach that creates a 3D image within a standard 2D video frame so it can be transmitted over existing distribution channels and will display 3D on any 2D display. That means any cell phone, laptop, monitor or TV can display a 3D image that is viewable with the matched anaglyph glasses. Being able to play 3D content on this huge installed base is a tremendous advantage over most other approaches, which will require a new display that is 3D capable. This is the approach that most consumers think of as "3D" because it has been around a long time and it has wide recognition.

Anaglyph glasses are also inexpensive — often throwaways. Many forms of anaglyph carry no licensing fee to encode it, so there are few barriers to creating the content. In fact, it is quite often used by professionals in the content creation and post production process as it is easy to create and display and it provides useful feedback.

But there are many cons. The most significant problem is the wide variety of quality the process can produce. For example, the choice of the color bands can have a big impact on the color quality (some implementations can be nearly black and white) and the 3D effect. The process reduces the resolution of the 3D image and the encoding process must be matched up with the proper glasses. Having a variety of glasses will create confusion for the end user. And, the quality of the 3D can be very scene, or content, dependent. As stereoscopic expert Peter Anderson noted in a meeting the other day, Shrek will not work well in anaglyph because of the green color dominance. Even anaglyph fan, Ray Zone, had to concede that point.

There is also a lot of mixed messaging about the approach from the studios. Disney and others have already released some new 3D movies in anaglyph. But other studios are choosing not to release content in anaglyph (like Monsters vs. Aliens). I have seen content that looked great in a polarized projection mode, but looked horrible when broadcast to a TV in anaglyph (Chuck episode and Sobe commercial). I have seen demos of anaglyph that can look pretty good, however.

The bottom line is not all anaglyphic 3D content is created equal. The encoding approach must be carefully matched to the content and some content will likely never look good.

So how should anaglyph be positioned? NVIDIA has one approach. In a conversation with them earlier this week, we learned of a product the company is now offering as part of its 3D Vision line. Remember, NVIDIA has been leading the charge in PC-based platforms for 3D gaming, coupled to NVIDIA certified 3D monitors, projectors and TVs. The TVs require a checkerboard encoding, while the monitors and projectors use a 120Hz page-flipping approach. As a result, we were a little surprised to see they are now offering an anaglyph solution that they call 3D Vision Discover.

NVIDIA is positioning this approach as a "sneak peak" into the 3D experience. The solution includes:

• Custom-designed, specialized anaglyph (red/cyan) glasses
• NVIDIA software to transform over 350 standard PC games into full 3D
• NVIDIA 3D Movie and Video player software, along with free downloads of 3D movies, pictures, and game previews directly to your PC

NVIDIA says they have optimized the color bands to work best with LCD monitors. They want to use this approach as a marketing tool to get users excited about 3D, thereby stepping up to the higher quality experience offered in the 3D Vision solutions. The approach allows the installed based of 65 million PCs with G-Force graphics cards to play with 3D, which is a good thing, but it is also risky. Suppose these users find anaglyph is good enough and there is no need to step up to a better display solution? Suppose they don’t find the experience very good and they get completely turned off to 3D?

NVIDIA downplayed these risks and pointed to the fact that they are at least offering a stepped solution that explains the quality level differences. As NVIDIA’s Andrew Fear pointed out, "Many studios offer a great theatrical experience, then releases the movie in anaglyph. The end user buys the DVD thinking they will get the same 3D theatrical experience and they don’t. But the studios are not explaining the difference to consumers, which is what we are trying to do." He has a good point.

I think the key point of all of this is that anaglyph 3D content will be in the market for some time, despite its shortcomings. Therefore, the whole industry needs to do a much better job of educating consumers about anaglyph as well as the other higher quality 3D solutions that exist. Are we up to the task?