Has 3D Video Finally Arrived? 200
pospisil writes to point us to an enthusiastic writeup on Tech.blorge.com about a 3D display technology just launched at the eGames Expo in Melbourne. The technology, from a company called Fountain Consulting, is set to ship in January. From the article: "The Vortex Home Entertainment System isn't just set to revolutionize 3D forever, they have revolutionized it. With a library of 500 current PC-based games titles converted to flawless 3D, and even the ability to convert 2D live television into 3D live television, as well as pre-recorded movies on DVD, Blu-ray and HD-DVD." There is no second source for this story. Exciting news if it pans out.
Slashdotted already (Score:5, Funny)
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Uh oh (Score:5, Funny)
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they'd be better off without the awful acting and poor dialogue
hours of fun, pure sex, no plot
the "reach out and grab you" idea sounds like something off the 100 worst porn titles of all time list (http://members.shaw.ca/stayasyouare/tohwpmt.html [members.shaw.ca]
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>they'd be better off without the awful acting and poor dialogue
>hours of fun, pure sex, no plot
Friday night at University! (for econ. majors)
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Not so much... (Score:2)
For stereoscopic video to catch on, there are two major requirements:
1) no glasses. Sharp already makes displays that meet this qualification, as does one other manufacturer (I think it's phillips but I'm not sure).
2) Cheap. No-glasses 3D displays are not yet anything li
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More likely "or I can have the same size 3D display for only a 50% premium." People are willing to pay for what they want, they just have limits to their abilities to convince themselves that the "price:cool factor" ratio is low enough to afford.
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Re:Uh oh (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Uh oh (Score:4, Funny)
Feast your eyes on this....
A half-man half-goat raping an entire campus sorority of devil worshiping pre-med ninjas!
The action never stops!
Oh, you already saw that one before....
Well, I've got nothing.
The site is down, but I found this link (Score:5, Informative)
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Yep I submitted this to
3D TV (Score:2, Funny)
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Ability to convert 2D television to 3D? I'm skeptical.
So am I. It's probably some stuff based on a vague shape "recognition" and the Z-axis data is "extrapolated" depending on the shape of the "recognized" area, in other words I guess it can give results but pretty bogus results. Still I guess it might do it for a lot of average joes, I'd be surprised if we ever saw "2D television converted in 3D" being ever widely adopted, sounds like a useless gadget.
2D to 3D, not impossible (Score:2)
(1) Using Computer Vision Systems, a software program represents the scene it is seeing with 3D polyogon/spline models. This is not an easy task, but it is doable - a combination of heuristics, neural nets, basic image processing and 3D rendering out of a database of common models, combined with a GA / hill-climbing algorithm that compares rendered models agains
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Well that's a more detailed way to explain what I said, but this being said I think that no matter what you'll always get bogus results. That kind of stuff is pretty much like voice recognition, voice synthesis or text translation, will hardly ever be perfect or anywhere near that, mainly due to the kind of obstacles it meets (pretty much theorical ones). However I don't really know about the technology you're talking about, but it hardly can give more than an approximation of how things filmed really are l
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Ability to convert 2D television to 3D? I'm skeptical.
I was once skeptical of many things too. Then I received the word from The Creator of the Universe, The Total Mind and Total Energy of All. With the divine secrets revealed in the sacred text [thepiratebay.org], I replaced the polluting engine in my car with a Magnogen Motor...uh, well...I'm in the process of replacing it. I can't seem to get the damn thing to work right, but I'm sure that's my fault.
In any case, now I know that anything is possible, even the tran
It's not slashdotted... (Score:5, Funny)
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Yawn. YAAWWWNNN (Score:1)
http://www.3dvisual.com.au/ [3dvisual.com.au]
The glasses look like the same old headache-inducing crap that no one wants to wear while watching TV.
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MOD PARENT UP - EXACTLY CORRECT (Score:2)
My willingness to suspend disbelief... (Score:4, Insightful)
"and even the ability to convert 2D live television into 3D live television, as well as pre-recorded movies on DVD, Blu-ray and HD-DVD."
How can you "upconvert" 2D images to 3D when there is no 3D information to work with, hm?
Will this be bundled with the Phantom? Launch alongside DNF?
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Simply putting the glasses on doesn't change the fact that what you're watching was fimled from only one perspective at a time. No stereoscopic photography = no stereoscopic picture.
Re:My willingness to suspend disbelief... (Score:4, Informative)
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So's quantum tunneling a person through a wall.
What we're talking about here is a fairly complicated function of the human brain. Considering the difficulty and expense involved in getting a computer that can handle walking, why should I believe that anything short of big iron can figure out how to do this, let alone on the fly?
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Now try it with one eye closed.
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Human stereoscopic vision is optimized for the handling things we have in our hands. They are adjuncts to our opposable thumbs more than anything else. Fine control, close up. For tying the head on the spear shaft, not for throwing the spear.
How many eyes does the sniper hold to his s
As someone with only one working eye... (Score:2)
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Re:My willingness to suspend disbelief... (Score:4, Interesting)
Another method is to notice when one object occludes another. That could possibly be automated, but you'd need some very sophisticated image recognition and tracking technology. Possibly some pre-processing, too, to avoid objects suddenly "jumping" along the z axis as their size changes force their calculated distances to be modified.
There's also the fact that we tend to know the relative sizes of various common objects, and comparing that to their perceived sizes can give rough distance information. That would require image recognition technology of a degree that we don't currently have, though.
So it looks like occlusion is probably the only method that could glean 3D info from a 2D source with any degree of accuracy, and I can't imagine that that's be very accurate or, indeed, always possible. Plus, I suspect the results would look like a pop-up book, with different portions of the image represented as flat objects on different planes rather than 3D objects.
It is all in the brain.... (Score:3, Interesting)
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I admit that this would be a very limited and not very good way to get 3D, but it's the only way I can think to do it.
That sounds very close, actually (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuoljANz4EA [youtube.com]
It's a pretty impressive technology. If you could do the analysis 60 times per second, you could have a convincing system for single-perspective 3D in most circumstances.
I wish I could rem
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Well I did some hunting and the company website [3dvisual.com.au] has this to say under "How does the Vortex works":
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Getting 3D off of a 2D display is easy enough; the most common way people have tried to do it on PCs is the past is with flicker glasses (the screen rapidly alternates between left and right eye information, while you wear glasses with LCD lenses t
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Install a bullshit meter next to each story. (Score:2)
Slashdot Bullsit Meter (SBM): I propose each story be displayed next to a thin vertical SBM, users can vote with either a lightbulb icon at the top or a steaming bullshit icon at the bottom. The benifit of a bullshit meter is that it would make reading the summary as redundant as reading TFA. Further, if you could sort stories by BS ratin
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A slashdot bullshit meter would in fact be, bullshit.
Use weighted averages for BS meter (Score:2)
Well, in the case of this particular story, people are right to claim bullshit IMHO. There is no computational way of generating the 3D info out of thin air, short of having a computer powerful enough to "understand" the image and ex
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You mean like the examples pointed out here [slashdot.org]?
Like I said, many slashdotters call bullshit [...] simply because they cannot see how it would be possible.
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Call me back when they've ditched the flash
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Firstly, I had read it, by following another link, before I posted, so you're wrong there.
Secondly... WTF?!! Is that meant to be sarcasm? Of CAUSE I can say ppl don't understand it if they haven't read it.
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"Smart" algorithms can make some pretty good guesses based on the same kind of information that the mpeg compression algorithms use to create motion vectors. Yes, the motion vectors in mpeg are 2D in the plane of the screen, but add in some smarts to recognize "objects" that get bigger (approaching) and smaller (receding) and you've got enough info to do some pseudo 3D. If you can recognize rotation then you can do so
Mine ended when I went to the Philips 3D site. (Score:2)
and seeing a "GoDaddy" proxied registration.
Come on, guys. Even the most cursory inspection indicates "Fountain Consulting" is phoney-baloney.
Interesting (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Interesting (Score:5, Informative)
Well yes, it must be reputable: I mean it was posted to the front page of Slashdot. I presume it works by using 25x compression [slashdot.org] encrypted with quasar one time pads [slashdot.org] powered by free energy [slashdot.org], or possibly quantum physics disproving [slashdot.org] cold fusion from blacklight power [slashdot.org]. Or, well, something like that. And ultimately that's a very limited sampling (based on what I could remember, or find with a few minutes searching) of the pure pseudoscientific bullshit slashdot so eagerly posts.
Sure.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Sure it works! (Score:4, Funny)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGEQELp0uqA [youtube.com] (jump to around 2:30 to see example)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuoljANz4EA [youtube.com] (more examples)
And these use a single picture to work from. If y
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Can't wait to see this in action on the next season of CSI!
From the Department of Redundancy Department... (Score:2, Funny)
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"The Vortex Home Entertainment System isn't just SET to revolutionize 3D forever [in the future], they have [already] revolutionized it [in the present]."
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Bah humbug (Score:1)
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/.'d (Score:5, Funny)
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Others are already doing this (Score:5, Informative)
How many does this make? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I would really like a story filter that removed any title with the "?" character.
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Yes, (Score:1)
In the year 2000 (Score:2)
If they claimed it for games only it might be real (Score:4, Interesting)
It's straightforward to do this for 3D games, because the system has real depth information. Just use shutter glasses [ray3d.com] and render alternate frames with the viewpoint shifted by one eye separation distance. That's easy, and looks good if the system can render upwards of 70 fps.
But any scheme for converting existing 2D content to "3D" will probably fall somewhere between "looks stupid" and "generates splitting headaches".
Stereo vision doesn't do anything useful for objects more than a few meters away. It's most useful for close work, which is rare in games. It's more useful for mechanical CAD, medical imaging data, and similar stuff you need to view close up. Which is why 3D movies, TV, games, etc. never really caught on.
Not unreasonable... (Score:2)
The Virtual Boy also provided real stereoscopic 3D images, though the instruction manual mentions on 5 of 7 pages that it will probably make you nauseous. And they weren't kidding.
On the other hand, work from Carnegie Mellon [youtube.com] earl
Re:If they claimed it for games only it might be r (Score:2)
Nvidia [nvidia.com] already offers stereo 3d drivers which work great with my eMagin [emagin.com] 3d visor. As you say the games already have Z depth information to render a realistic environment, which the software just renders from a slightly offset perspecti
Re:If they claimed it for games only it might be r (Score:2)
Don't worry disbelivers. (Score:3, Funny)
flicker++ (Score:4, Interesting)
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Not as good as it sounds (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry guys, there was no 2d->3d conversion at all.
Soooo.... (Score:2)
Looks like these days they aren't doing their own glasses, but rather have drivers that will w
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Dog damn it! (Score:2)
j/k
3D != 3D (Score:2)
Now, if they could convert some of these movies to make them GOOD, that would be something.
how does that go again? (Score:2)
i have to invest in some of them. everyone's buying it!
500 games? (Score:2)
499 of which are rule variations of solitare.
I remember... (Score:2)
"Virtual Reality will not replace television. It will eat it alive."
Thing is...and this is what none of the academics at the time could have predicted...but "virtual reality," as it turned out, didn't happen.
Doom did.
Check out their tech specs... (Score:2)
"The Vortex System Console
- Windows XP Platform- 7.1 20-bit Audio THX Cirtified
- Entertainment Interface Shell- Dolby Digital-EX & DTS-ES
- 3D Profile Settings- 24 Bit Crystalizer
- Intel Pentium 4 3.2 GHz, 800 MHZ FSB - 109 db SNR Playback
- 2 GB DDR2 SDRAM- IR Remote Control
- Data Storage BFG Nvidia 6800 GTOC
- 2 7,200 RPM 300 GB drives- 256 MB GDDR3
- External 16 x Dual Layer DVD RAN Drive - 370 MHz Core Clock
- Ethernet Port- 1000 MHz Mem Clock
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flying cars (Score:2)
interesting prototypes at SIGGRAPH (Score:2)
Re:Article text (Score:4, Informative)
"You really need to see a demo of the system playing the latest games, in 3D, with a pair of standard 3D glasses (similar to those handed out at IMAX or Real D cinemas)"
Those IMAX glasses are designed to work with polarized 3D sources. The lenses are designed to only let one orientation of polarized light in, call it 0 or 90 degrees. One lens is rotated 90 degrees to the other, so each eye sees a separate polarization. Two projectors are used, each projecting different polarizations.
So basically, this company has apparently figured out to get your existing monitor or TV to magically display two orientations of polarized light, simultaneously! And the best part is, they are modifying the graphics card, not the display, to do it!
This whole article smells like an elaborate troll.
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Once you understand what the word "similar" means, and how it is different to the word "identical", re-read the sentence you call BS on.
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Motion sickness is often a problem
Yeah, but that could be solved (at least somewhat) with some of the cheap head-tracking alternatives on the market currently...
Games can appear blurred
That's usually a problem of refresh rate, not the technology itself. Your monitor should be set at a minimum of 120Hz to get good results. I've seen some exotic displays that can have refresh rates in excess of 1000Hz, but t