One major problem regarding 3DTV is that the shutter glasses used in most high quality brands such as Sony, Samsung and Panasonic are expensive, and a single pair of ‘banded’ glasses can cost up to around £250. To make things worse the glasses only work with the TV you own, for example Panasonic active shutter glasses will not work with the Samsung TV and vice versa. The idea of popping round to your mates house to watch 3D Football with your own glasses is not possible unless you own identical TV’s. As most people will not be buying extra pairs of glasses for the off chance friends or relatives will come round, this is putting some people off buying a 3DTV.

Thankfully the 3DTV manufactures understand that this is a big issue and have teamed together to make a universal 3D Glasses format that will not require people to buy new 3DTV’s.

The introduction of the universal 3D Glasses will probably mean that two or three existing formats will be used and all new 3DTV’s must choose from this format thus allowing for existing 3DTV’s to be compatible with the new glasses. It’s believed that the glasses will be able to adapt their colour filtering and shutter speeds based on the signal sent from the 3D Shutter Glass Transmitter. This transmitter emits the model of the TV in use and therefore the glasses picks up this information and adjusts the glasses where required.

XpanD have been working on providing a solution to this problem for over 12 months now so it’s unsure as to the affects this news will have on their business. Hopefully the large manufacturers will use XpanD existing technology to implement the 3D Glasses Standard.

The list of 3DTV’s that support the XpanD glasses are shown below:
   
3D LCD TV    

Sony®
Samsung®
LG®
Philips®

3D DLP TV    

Mitsubishi®

3D Plasma TV  

Panasonic®
Samsung®

All existing 3DTV’s and AVR’s will be compatible with the new shutter glasses so there is no need for people to hold off buying a brand new 3DTV until this is officially released, however the cost of the new glasses may be expensive (£300) until all manufactures have adopted a single standard! With multiple formats out in the wild this is likely to take some time.

References

http://www.pcworld.com/article/191682/xpands_universal_3d_shutter_glasses_to_work_on_most_displays.html
http://www.xpandcinema.com/products/glasses/X103-home/