3D TV’s With FPR Panels In 2011?

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Guy Wilson

LG 84 Inch FPR 3D TV

Just to throw another acronym into the air, LG Display have announced that they’re going to produce “FPR 3D TV’s“, where the FPR stands for “film-type patterned retarder”, in case you were wondering.

It’s actually quite an impressive step forwards for 3D technology and it will be interesting to see whether the new 3D tech gets adopted as the “new standard”.

According to details from a launch ceremony held on December 15 in Beijing, FPR 3D screens boast…

Better brightness levels (which was always an issue for 3D TV’s because using 3D glasses decreases light levels)

A film layer for polarising the light (as opposed to the current glass screen) which cuts down on cost and weight.

The use of lightweight, polarised 3D glasses as worn at the cinema instead of the heavier, battery-powered LCD active shutter glasses. Polarised glasses also eliminate flickering and cross-talk, which the LCD “active shutter” glasses suffer from.

The ability to shape the 3D glasses to fit the face better using curved lenses instead of the flat LCD screens in active shutter glasses.

So, have LG Display stolen a march on the rest of the 3D industry? Will FPR panels be a bridge between existing 3D tech and autostereoscopic 3DTV’s of the future? Time will tell, but you won’t have to wait long. Apparently, LCD TV makers plan to offer a full lineup of 3D LCD TV sets featuring FPR panels from the beginning of 2011.

Interesting, I always thought that the drawback to 3DTV’s that use polarisation technology was that they didn’t offer “Full HD” due to the way light was sent to the glasses, but the information from LG Display is that the FPR TV’s will be Full HD.

IMS Research mentions the same concerns about resolution…

However, the FPR sacrifices resolution for these other improvements. Every other line is used for each eye. Thus, 1920 x 540 is being observed by each eye rather than 1920 x 1080. Higher resolutions have gained significant share in the TV market, although only Blu-ray movies are shown at 1920 x 1080p. Will consumers notice the difference? Will they care?

Apparently, there’s an expensive way to get Full HD with passive 3D displays using another liquid crystal layer and an extra pair of glass substrates. Perhaps that’s where the claim comes from.

From the same source we learn that Samsung, Sony and Panasonic are not on the FPR bandwagon, but LG, Philips, Vizio and other Chinese manufacturers are. It’ll be interesting to see if consumers fall in love with FPR.