If you agree with the title above then prepare to change your mind, as Sony unveiled a working prototype of the next generation of three-dimensional specs at last month’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Not content with wearing the retro throwaway glasses handed out at cinemas, nor wearing your very own set of rather expensive 3D specs to compliment your brand new 3D telly, the pint-sized boffins at Sony have developed an entire three-dimensional viewing experience that you can wear on your head, blissfully unaware of your actual surroundings whilst also looking like an extra from the recent sequel to Tron which, quite frankly, is probably one of the coolest things imaginable. Aside from having your very own, fully functional Optimus Prime, of course.
Using an organic light emitting diode display (or OLED if you’re out of your depth and trying to bluff your way through a tech-headed conversation) with a resolution of 1280 x 720 they’re not quite full HD but I’m sure they’ll manage to cram in the extra pixels given time. Apparently, this kind of display looks and feels so more natural as it offers such high refresh rates. This in turn prevents the loss of fluidity, causing eye strain and headaches, so commonly experienced when viewing in 3D is completely eliminated which, if your eyes are as worn out as mine could be a godsend.
OLED seems like it will prove itself as the ultimate medium for 3D displays thanks not only to the incredible sub-millisecond refresh rates but also the 24-bit RGB spectrum they are capable of. That’s a lot of colours.
According to people who have worn the prototypes, the viewing experience is akin to looking at an 80 inch display from a distance of around fifteen feet (I wouldn’t recommend actually doing that in real life as your eyes would almost certainly turn square) which sounds nothing short of breathtaking, and verging on total cinematic immersion.
The promise of ‘cinematic surround sound’ will help perch the audio-visual cherry atop your virtual pie, be that a new film, watching your football team be annihilated by their least favourite competitor or getting destroyed at Call Of Duty by a twelve year old squealing American child. Again.
Let’s just hope Sony decide that these headsets are a viable product and manage to put them on shelves within the next year or so as opposed to ‘doing a Gran Turismo’ on us and making everybody wait the best part of a decade for the next big thing.
‘Pfft, all of this 3D lark is just a fad – just like the ten minutes last year when stuff from the eighties was actually cool…’
