Robert Mayson, president of the consumer electronics division of RealD, took a few minutes at the RealD suite at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas to give us a summary of several announcements the company made during CES 2011, and his fun news about the company’s own co-production movie chosen to screening on closing night of Santa Barbara Film Festival before being offered exclusively to RealD theaters worldwide.
<Story continues following the video interview below, with details of RealD’s universal eyewear announcement.>
After announcing Tuesday, Jan. 4, that the company is teaming with Samsung to develop an active-shutter 3DTV system that will allow consumers to use the same RealD polarized glasses they wear in RealD 3D movie theaters, RealD announced Thursday (Jan. 6) that it has developed a technology to allow its 3D glasses to be compatible with both cinema and home 3D formats, as well as work as ordinary sunglasses.
The company developed a multi-protocol ASIC that incorporates a programmable front end designed to sync image streams with multiple brands of 3D displays via infrared connectivity. The ASIC also supports RF solutions like RF4CE and Bluetooth.
“Most 3D high definition televisions today use active 3D eyewear that are not compatible with 3D televisions from other manufacturers, leaving retailers with cumbersome demonstration set-ups and consumers with potentially costly and inconvenient scenarios,” Mayson said. “RealD’s active 3D eyewear ASIC is a more cost-effective solution allowing eyewear manufacturers to develop unique industrial design 3D eyewear that work with (HiDef) televisions from multiple brands while adding connectivity support for both IR and RF, including RF4CE and Bluetooth.”
The System on a Chip (SoC) approach offers manufacturers a lower cost bill of materials as well as lighter weight and thinner glasses due to smaller electronics. Lens charge recovery and overall low power design also means smaller and lighter weight batteries can be used without sacrificing performance.
RealD is working with Broadcom and Freescale Semiconductor to incorporate support for RF eyewear sync technologies in addition to infrared. The RealD active 3D eyewear solution uses Freescale’s RF4CE platform and its MC1323x SoC for RF over-the-air 3D image synchronization and lens switching. Broadcom’s Bluetooth technology is also supported as a sync protocol via its BCM20730 chip. With RF4CE and Bluetooth, RealD active 3D eyewear are designed to maintain synchronization with a 3D TV without line-of-sight or a constant stream of synchronization, delivering ultra low power consumption and the ability to avoid interference from other sources including home lighting, sunlight and IR devices like remote controls.
Developer kits for RealD universal active 3D eyewear are expected to be available in the first quarter of 2011 with ASIC production expected in the second quarter of 2011.
— By Scott Hettrick