Every year, we put on a Dealer Show across the country. We transform a venue into a virtual Sony showcase with every product we plan on selling in Canada this year all plugged in, connected and ready to go. Our dealers and their staff come in for training and to kick the tires on our latest products. It is a pretty intense undertaking, but a really amazing experience.
Among the many products, we had three 3D sets on display playing a video game demo and a whole host of different 3D content. We also put on some training sessions including one on 3D. During those sessions, a bunch of the same questions came up, so in no particular order:
- Why can the PS3 be upgraded to 3D and not my Blu-ray player (or receiver, or television etc.)?
The PS3 is a unique piece of hardware. It does all of the video and audio decoding in software, so it can be totally rewritten. In addition, the Cell processor and Graphics system have plenty of processing power.
All your other components are decoding video and audio based on algorithms that are burned into silicon. A firmware upgrade can make minor modifications, but can't completely rewrite the code. In the same way, your television can't cope with an entirely new paradigm for displaying alternating frames without adding additional technology to it's entire signal processing pipeline.
- Do I need to buy new HDMI 1.4 cables or will my HDMI 1.3 cables be ok?
The HDMI consortium is no longer going to allow numbering on cables. Future HDMI cable packaging will be labelled High-Speed or Standard. Any current High-Speed HDMI cable should give you no problems. In our demo setups, we have used existing cables successfully with our development PS3 units.
- Why is Sony not launching 3DTV's until June or July?
We are launching not just 3DTV's, but home theatre products such as receivers, speaker bar home theatre and home theatre in a box product as well. We will have content including video games and movies available at launch. You need all the pieces to have the ultimate experience and we are bringing it out all together.
- Will your glasses work with other 3DTV's?
The glasses only work with the brand of television they were designed for. As I mentioned in the last post, the glasses are an integral part of the experience. The way the lenses are designed and even the darkness of the lens is matched to the set to determine the picture colour, brightness and contrast. This will not be the same from one pair of manufacturer's glasses to another. We want to make sure the viewer gets the ultimate experience.
I'll finish up the questions next post... stay tuned for more questions about 3D gaming.
Brent_SonyRep
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