3D TV Is Dead

Dillydipper said:

Bargain (?) alert:

Do you have an HH Gregg store near you? Are they going out of business? Is their store closing? Is everything must go? Am nothing will be held back, including the store furniture? Does are you gots extra money you can't afford to spend right now because it's Tax Deadline Season but that don't matter because this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to save line never before save save save and don't ask the guys in the store about the quality of the stuff left behind because all sales are final and they're probably a shell company working to liquidate the store now so they don't have to live up to any promises HH Gregg made?

Then, you're in luck, my friend! Because I dunno if it's happening everywhere at the same time, but our two Gregg stores are just about out of everything but the tissue in the bathroom towel dispensers now. And surprisingly, some of the merchandise not yet sold in the bare-bones roller-rink-sized stores includes...some of their big-a** demo-model teevees! That's right, the ones people come in and ogle at, but don't dare consider them because who knows how long those screens have been hangin' on that wall showing off their overloaded "demo" settings.

...on those not-quite-so-latest-models, which means they might juuuuusssst beeeee.....

So what did I find just yesterday? Oh, some Samsung, some LG, some other brands of car-garage-sized teevees...that DIDN'T say if they were 3D or not, didn't have any sales information or box blurbs that implied it, and didn't have a qualified pimply teenager with a lot of other things on his mind who could tell you, "hey, which of these are 3D" "Duhhh, I dunno. well lessee...ummm, this one says it's an 'Olay', and uhhh, this one says it's 'curved' or something - oh, yeah, there you can see, it looks like it's bent this way or something..."

Walk in there with your cell/smart/digital/picture-takey phone. Snap some pictures of the model numbers, features, size and sales blurbs. You are going to save 50, maybe 60, and doubtful but ya never know by Sunday afternoon - 70 percent. As long as you're there, use the phone to look up the models, maybe on Amazon, where you'll see whether you can get a better price on these sale prices (nope - you won't), and read-up to see if any of these models ARE 3D, but the feature's "on the way out", so nobody cares enough to mention the feature on the box, sales material or anywhere else (hint - some of the store tags might just say, "includes two 3D glasses", which means, duh, YEAH...!).

While you're there, call up a buddy with a large back trunk, because you probably drove in there in a Yugo, ya cheapskate hockey puck (R.I.P. Don Rickles), and you're gonna wanna jump on one of these, if you're brave enogh to trust a $1600 purchase to luck. But, if you walk out of there with a 70" that only cost you $500, you can probably suck it up if you get a few short years of enjoying 3D sharply displayed and well lit on your BRAND (somewhat) NEW "Olay" TEE-VEE!

Click to expand...

4-earredwonder said:

DD, EVERYONE loves a bargain but when I purchased my LG 3D Curved TV from P C Richards, a LOCAL company definitely NOT going out of business, I took out an instore 5 year extended warranty. Dunno if buying a store model from a going out of business joint with NO way to have it serviced should it punk out is such a great idea because shipping those TVs back to an LG service center (are there any in the USA???) might be the ultimate crapshoot.

For that same reason, I'm also leery about purchasing TVs from internet sources because shipping them back, should they be defective, is another gamble. And if they come damaged from the get go........another major fiasco!

In my book [and especially in my business] the ability to have an item locally SERVICED is PARAMOUNT.

Click to expand...

seilerbird said:

My LG 3D TV developed a vertical stripe of one pixel after about a month. LG sent me a new TV and paid for the shipping of the old one. First class service.

Click to expand...

4-earredwonder said:

GREAT to hear, seilerbird. That's the reason I took out an extended warranty from my local PC Richards. I had read on Amazon in researching LG OLED TVs that the exact same thing that happened to your TV had also happened to an Amazon customer.

Glad to hear that LG made good.

Click to expand...

JonUrban said:

Hey all! I've been watching this thread with interest, but haven't chimed in yet. I too have a 3D TV, although it's a few years old. It's a Sharp 70" and has active glasses. I usually get the 3D movies the day they're released (if I'm interested) as Best Buy and Amazon usually have the lowest prices during the first week of release.

Anyway, the reason I'm chiming in is that I had my niece over this weekend. She's a sophomore at UConn and grew up a big Harry Potter fan. So Sunday she came over and we watched the 3D BluRay of "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them". This is a "Fantastic" rolleyes 3D movie, IMHO, and the story and film itself were quite surprisingly good. I had no idea what it would be about but I found myself charmed with the whole package, the story, the actors, the CGI, and the 3D. So for any of you that haven't checked this one out in 3D, it's "worthy", to me anyway. And you don't really need to have a Harry Potter background to follow the story.

Oh, and you should have figured I'd have a 3D TV somewhere along the line, as in my past life I was an addicted early-adopter which is how I got into strange things like Quad and a host of other obsolete and market failures. It's what I do! (er, did) @:

Click to expand...

Dillydipper said:

Ummmm...do I need some sort of special glasses to read that last post...?

Click to expand...

Wunlow said:

This was true for the passive 1080p 3DTVs, but not with 4K passive 3DTVs. Meaning with passive 4K, you get full 1920x1080p/3-D per eye, per the max capable with the 3-D bluray format.

Click to expand...

paligap said:

You're still getting half the vertical resolution you get with active. When your 4K TV upscales the 1080p to 2160p, the passive glasses cut that in half back to 1080p. Now, it might not even be detectable by most people, but there it is.

Click to expand...

Wunlow said:

For passive 3-D on a 4K display, no upscale to 2160 is required. You get full 1920x1080 per eye with 4K passive, the max resolution in the 3-D bluray spec.

There is no consumer standard in place for 4K 3D.

Click to expand...

paligap said:

There is no spec for UHD 3D; that's why there are no 4K 3D UHD blu rays out there. But remember how passive 3D works:

http://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/3d-tvs-active-3d-vs-passive-3d

"The screen alternates each line of the picture. One picture gets the even ones, the other the odd ones. Each line has a predefined polarization applied to match the glasses. The downside of this approach is the reduced resolution apparent to a single eye. On a 1080p TV (with 1080 lines), only half (540) are used per picture. The horizontal resolution stays the same (1920 pixels) - only the number of lines is affected."

To get 1080 lines per eye, it has to start with 2160; that's why passive 3D is better on a 4K TV. If you could somehow disable the upscaling on your 4K TV, your 3D blu rays would start with 1080 lines and be halved to 540 lines, just as they are on a 1080p set.

Click to expand...

paligap said:

Passive glasses are less expensive, but you should be aware you're losing half the vertical resolution (540 instead of 1080).

http://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/3d-tvs-active-3d-vs-passive-3d

Click to expand...