I remember magazines were printed with a specialized pattern (red and blue ink) that made them work with 3D glasses. What tech is used in the TVs that can’t just be used in the movies themselves?
In: Technology
Modern 3D TVs use a technology that displays alternating left and right images so that your left and right eye can see a slightly different perspective on the action. The glasses in this setup are a pair of lenses with embedded LCDs that are each able to fully block all light or display all light. The idea is that the right lens blocks all light when the left image is displayed, and the left lens blocks all light when the right image is displayed; and for this to happen so quickly, you brain perceives fluid motion. The TV in this setup needs to be aware that it’s displaying a 3D image because it’s gotta tell the glasses when to start alternating between blanking left and right eyes.
The TV also needs to accept different formats for 3D content, because, unfortunately, they couldn’t decide on a single format in the beginning. Three formats for 3D content include one where each frame of video (each image composing your video content) is composed of the left and right images side to side, top and bottom, or are just displayed every other frame. The first two formats are more for compatibility: A DVD had enough capacity for a regular 2D movie, so in order to display twice as much info, each frame just contained two half-quality images stacked or side by side and the TV figures out how to scale these stacked/side-by-side images up to full screen and display them one after the other in sync with the glasses. The every-other-frame format is possible on media with higher capacity, like a Bluray disc. There, the video content is just composed of alternating right-eye and left-eye images for each frame that the TV just displays after telling the glasses to start blanking.
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