NVIDIA 3D Vision: Blu-Ray, Cameras, Projectors, and HDTV

Benchmark Reviews tested the NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision Gaming Kit when it originally launched back in January, 2009. Comprising a set of battery-powered LCD shutter glasses, the infrared emitter to drive them, and special 120Hz refresh-rate monitors, it enabled high-quality 3D gaming with hundreds of games, as long as you had a sufficiently powerful NVIDIA video card. At that time we revealed that 3D-Vision certainly enhanced the gaming experience, but it also took a toll on video frame rates which dropped more than 50%. Still, with the limited 1680x1050 resolution of the two available 120Hz refresh rate monitors available, most mid-to-high-end NVIDIA GeForce video cards are plenty fast enough to provide playable 3D frame rates.

But 3D gaming was just a foot in the door for NVIDIA's 3D Vision product line. NVIDIA wants you to see 3D in still photographs, in YouTube movies on your web browser, and on your 3D-capable television in content from forthcoming 3D Blu-ray disks. They want 3D on gaming notebooks and it wouldn't surprise me if new generations of their Tegra mobile graphics products supported it some day, too. NVIDIA calls this the "3D Revolution", and they aim to be at the forefront of it.

In 2010, NVIDIA is planning to extend their 3D Vision technology into still photos, the web experience, gaming laptops, and upcoming 3D televisions. Benchmark Reviews recently attended an NVIDIA one-on-one briefing on these new technologies, which will be formally announced at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show.

About the Company: NVIDIA Corporation

NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) is the world leader in visual computing technologies and the inventor of the GPU, a high-performance processor which generates breathtaking, interactive graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles, and mobile devices. NVIDIA serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro products, and the high-performance computing market with its Tesla products. These products are transforming visually-rich and computationally-intensive applications such as video games, film production, broadcasting, industrial design, financial modeling, space exploration, and medical imaging.

NVIDIA Product Lines

GeForce - GPUs dedicated to graphics and video.
Desktop and notebook PCs equipped with GeForce GPUs deliver unparalleled performance, crisp photos, high-definition video playback, and ultra-realistic games. GeForce notebook GPUs also include advanced power management technology to deliver high performance without sacrificing battery life.

Quadro - A complete range of professional solutions engineered to deliver breakthrough performance and quality.
Certified for all leading professional graphics applications. #1in professional graphics segment share. NVIDIA Quadro Plex is the industry's first dedicated visual computing system (VCS).

Tesla - A massively-parallel multi-threaded architecture for high-performance computing problems.
A dedicated, high-performance GPU computing solution that brings supercomputing power to any workstation or server and to standard, CPU-based server clusters. Tesla delivers a 128-processor computing core per GPU, C-language development environment for the GPU, and a suite of developer tools - allowing users to develop applications faster and to deploy them across multiple generations of processors. It also can be used in tandem with multi-core CPU systems to create a scalable computing solution that fits seamlessly into existing workstation or IT infrastructures.

3D-Vision Monitors and Projectors

3D Vision requires a display capable of refreshing its image at least 120 times per second (120Hz). Right now, there are only two computer monitors capable of this: the Samsung Syncmaster 2233RZ and the ViewSonic VX2268wm FuHzion. Both of these monitors have a resolution of 1680x1050 pixels, well below the HD 1080p standard of 1920x1080 pixels. NVIDIA is presently working with monitor manufacturers to produce 3D Vision-capable 1080p LCD monitors, and says several will be available in 2010. At this early point in production, the only partner announced has been Acer.

NVIDIA also revealed the specifications for three upcoming Acer 3D Vision-capable projectors:

• Acer X1130P 3D-Vision Projector - 800x600 pixel resolution
• Acer X1261 3D-Vision Projector - 1024x768 pixel resolution
• Acer X5360 3D-Vision Projector - 1280x720 pixel resolution (720p)

Newegg.com offers the Acer X1261 projector for $549.99.

Acer's 1920x1080p 3D-Vision monitor has been announced as the 23.6-inch Acer Aspire GD245HQ with 80,000:1 contrast ratio, but price and availability are yet unknown. The Acer website offers additional information on the Acer Aspire GD245HQ 3D monitor.

3D Digital Cameras and Web Browsers

NVIDIA's 3D Vision isn't just for computers; they're also working with camera manufacturers. The first fruit of this collaboration is the Fuji Finepix Real3D W1 camera.

The camera uses twin lenses to capture two views of a scene simultaneously, creating a 3D image in the new "MPO" (Multi-Picture Object) image format, a standard defined by the Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA).

You can view the 3D images on a Fuji FinePix V1 Real 3D Viewer - a $500 item that looks like an 8" digital picture frame— or on your computer if you have a 3D Vision-capable monitor and shutter glasses. The Fuji Finepix Real3D W1 camera has an MSRP of $600 but is not widely available yet. At the NVIDIA briefing I was able to view some photos taken with this camera at a car show, and the 3D aspect of the bright still photos was striking. NVIDIA is planning to provide browser plug-ins that will enable online or local 3D viewing of MPO images.

NVIDIA's also working with YouTube and Google to bring 3D to web-based video, as well as web applications such as Google Earth. Look for browser plug-in's for FireFox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome in the near future.

3D Blu-ray Disc Players

NVIDIA spent less time on this part of the "3D Vision Ecosystem" during the briefing than it did on some others, probably because it's still a ways off, but this could be the big make-or-break application for the technology. The final 3D Blu-ray standard was released by the Blu-ray Disc Association on December 17, and according to the Blu-ray Disc Association:

"The "Blu-ray 3D" specification fully leverages the technical advantages of the Blu-ray Disc format to deliver unmatched picture quality as well as uniformity and compatibility across the full range of Blu-ray 3D products, both hardware and software. Notably, the specification allows every Blu-ray 3D player and movie to deliver Full HD 1080p resolution to each eye, thereby maintaining the industry leading image quality to which Blu-ray Disc viewers are accustomed. Moreover, the specification is display agnostic, meaning that Blu-ray 3D products will deliver the 3D image to any compatible 3D display, regardless of whether that display uses LCD, Plasma or other technology and regardless of what 3D technology the display uses to deliver the image to the viewer's eyes."

You will require a new 3D Blu-ray player to play 3D Blu-ray discs (but they'll also play in existing players in 2D mode). You'll also need a new 3D-capable television, and several manufacturers, such as Panasonic, LG, and Sony, have announced development of new 3D televisions to be available sometime in 2010 (although existing 120Hz and 240Hz televisions can be used to view computer-generated 3D Vision content, they cannot display 3D Blu-ray video). These televisions will require the same LCD shutter glasses you need to use NVIDIA 3D Vision today; but shutter glasses from one television manufacturer may not work with 3D televisions from another manufacturer.

Of course there's no 3D Blu-ray content currently, but NVIDIA did show a clip from an upcoming movie shot in 3D as an example of what it will look like... and it looked pretty good!

For computers, the 3D Blu-ray entry bar is much lower, since your NVIDIA video card will provide the necessary image processing capabilities. If you have an existing NVIDIA 3D Vision Gaming Kit and a Blu-ray reader, you're good to go...as soon as 3D Blu-ray discs become available, anyway. The "GF100-Class GPUs" referred to in the image above are NVIDIA's new Fermi-based architecture cards due in the first quarter of 2010, but for 3D Blu-ray playback all you need is a modest GeForce GT 220 or 240 card.

Windows Mode and 3D Vision Notebook Computers

Currently, 3D Vision is full-screen only: activating the feature switches the NVIDIA driver into 3D mode, and your entire display complies. For some on-line games such as World of Warcraft, which are typically played in a window, this is inconvenient to say the least! Upcoming versions of NVIDIA's 3D Vision drivers will support 3D Vision in a window, or even multiple windows.

The last thing I looked at was the world's first 3D gaming notebook: the ASUS G51J-3D. With a Core i7 processor, 6G of memory, and a GTX 260M video processor with 1G of dedicated video RAM, it's certainly got the horsepower a gaming laptop needs.

The 120Hz display is the first of its kind to be installed in a notebook computer, and although the IR emitter module needed to drive the LCD shutter glasses is the same separate device required for a desktop computer, NVIDIA says future 3D Vision laptops will have the emitter built into the display bezel. Playing a few minutes of Avatar: The Game on this computer showed that it was fully capable of reproducing the game's lush visuals in 3D with no visible stutters or delays. NVIDIA says the incremental cost of adding a 120Hz panel to a notebook computer is pretty low, and have lined up CG, LG Display, and Samsung as OEM partners to produce these panels.

NVIDIA 3D Revolution Final Thoughts

NVIDIA's 3D Vision Gaming Kit has enjoyed modest market success among well-heeled gamers for whom the $600 price of entry isn't too daunting. But this was ever only a niche market, more useful for introducing the technology to the public than anything else. 3D Vision was viable for gamers because there was a lot of "content": most existing 3D games worked pretty well with it, and NVIDIA evangelized enough developers so that games optimized for the technology, such as Batman: Arkham Asylum, looked truly spectacular.

This is why NVIDIA's "3D Vision Revolution" is proceeding on two fronts. There's the hardware front, with monitors, laptops, projectors, and cameras; but the real work is in the content front, which is why they're working on windowed 3D mode, browser plugins, and have been involved in the creation of the 3D Blu-ray standard. They're trying to cover pretty much all the possibilities:

3D Blu-ray is, I think, by far the most compelling application of the 3D Vision technology. While 3D Blu-ray hardware and content are still almost a year away, if it succeeds (and that's a big "if") the payback will likely be larger than all other applications of 3D Vision combined. 3D movies have gained in popularity over the past few years, but whether this means consumers will be sufficiently motivated to make the substantial investment required to enjoy this technology in their homes is unknown.

NVIDIA 3D-Vision Conclusion

If you're in the market for a mid-to-high-end video card, your choice just became harder. ATI's Radeon 5700, 5800, and 5900 series cards represent a price-performance deal that NVIDIA can't compete with currently, and Eyefinity is icing on the cake for those willing to invest in multiple monitors. But now you must also weigh the potential future payoff of enhanced 3D capabilities and factor those into your decision. Also, if you can wait a few months, you might be pleasantly surprised by the upcoming GF100 class GPUs, which should have plenty of horsepower to drive 1080p 3D games at decent frame rates.

By vastly expanding the range of applications for 3D Vision, NVIDIA's moved it out of the gaming niche and into a far more mainstream position, appealing to non-gaming computer users and eventually to consumers who've never heard of the company. We'll probably see a lot more at the 2010 CES show. One thing's for sure: 2010 will be an interesting year.

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