No-glasses 3-D technology to showcase at CES 2012

(PhysOrg.com) -- Stream TV Networks plans to introduce a line of products that feature 3-D viewing without glasses. What’s so special about its announcement, on top of scores of 3-D-without-glasses announcements? The company says it has special technology in the name of Ultra-D, which can do nothing less than shift the way people will view media, according to its CEO.

Ultra- D is the company’s display technology that can carry out realtime conversion of 2-D to 3-D without necessitating the use of special glasses for viewing. What’s more, the technology enables the realtime conversion of 3-D content with glasses to 3-D content without glasses.

The company’s press announcement describes this approach as autostereoscopic 3-D imagery. The company’s Ultra-D is dependent upon custom hardware, middleware techniques and software algorithms to give viewers the instant conversions.

The company says Ultra-D works with Blu-ray, DVD, PC gaming, Internet, cable and satellite content.

The technology allows users the freedom to customize the 3-D effect as well. This will address, the company says, individual differences in spatial perception and reactions in eye comfort.

Complaints about 3-D eye strain and a general reluctance toward wearing special glasses for home viewing appear to be proactively addressed by the company, eager to accent the positive about 3-D’s future.

“Our ultimate goal was to create a solution that addresses existing concerns impeding the adoption of 3-D consumer aversion to expensive glasses, viewer discomfort, variance in individual vision and preference and the slow creation of 3-D content,” said Mathu Rajan, CEO, in announcing a product line-up.

Stream TV Networks plans to unveil Ultra-D at the upcoming CES 2012, from January 10 to January 13. His company’s Ultra-3-D brand, according to the press release, includes 3D-enabled TVs, tablets, PCs, smartphones, digital signage and picture frames. More information about this product line will be revealed at the company’s January 9 press conference at CES 2012.

Rajan believes his company’s technology is going to turn the corner on a scale comparable to when consumers transitioned from black and white to color TV.

If so, he will prove to have more vision than media industry skeptics who may see 3-D television as a highly touted technology but not highly entrenched in people’s homes.

According to a November survey by Retrevo, 55 percent of those who said they were going to buy an HDTV in 2012 said they will not buy a 3-D TV; respondents partly blamed their reluctance on a paucity of content and requirement to wear 3-D glasses.

In interviews elsewhere, media company executives have said they thought 3-D television was still a niche but they also saw the possibility of a rise in an installed base of 3-D TVs with Internet connectivity. They see more 3-D action after 2012.

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