PORTLAND, Ore. — The 3DTV format is set to make a splash in primetime during the Super Bowl and a broadcast movie.
During the NFL Championship game on Sunday (Feb. 1), a new 3DTV format that renders colors more accurately will be broadcast during two 3-D commercials. On Monday, NBC will broadcast DreamWorks' "Monsters versus Aliens" in the new 3DTV format.
Patented technology developed by ColorCode 3-D Center (Lyngby, Denmark) uses a new anaglyph format that enables any TV to render accurate 3-D colors when viewers use amber-blue lenses instead of the traditional red-cyan 3-D glasses.
Intel Corp. (Santa Clara,. Calif.) is providing 3-D glasses that will be distributed nation-wide for use during the Super Bowl. The free 3-D glasses are available at Safeway, Vons, K-Mart, Ralphs, Kroger, A&P, Frys, Supervalue, Food Lion, Pathmark, Coburn, Fairway, Fresh Brands, Hy Vee, Nash Finch, Dollar General and Winn Dixie stores.
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| ColorCode 3-D used in the top image (view with amber-blue glasses) renders colors more accurately than the traditional anaglyph in the bottom image (view with red-blue glasses) |
"When processed with their software and viewed with their glasses, the resulting images indeed give more accurate colors, albeit ones that are much more difficult to see than normal red-and-cyan anaglyphs, because there is a big difference in the amount of light that goes into each eye," said Shab Levy, a stereographics specialist at the 3D Center of Art and Photography, based here and author of "Stereoscopic Imagery: A Practical Guide".
"The brain's ability to fuse the left and right images into a 3-D scene is not directly affected by their brightness, only by their slight differences in geometry. But since one eye's image is much brighter than the other, it tends to dominate and, as a result, reduces the 3-D effect," Levy said.
ColorCode 3-D aims to render increased color accuracy at the expense of depth perception. Traditional anaglyphs using red-cyan glasses, which the company claims is an outmoded technology. Traditional anaglyphs work well for black and white images, since the brain averages the red and blue in images to a neutral gray. When used with color images, accuracy is sacrificed in order to keep the left and right images at roughly the same brightness.
ColorCode, on the other hand, uses a very light amber lens paired with a dark blue lens, essentially diverting all color information into the left eye. All depth information is diverted to the right eye. As a result, the brain perceives the colors more accurately, but must average the brightness levels in order to discern depth, reducing the overall perception of 3-D compared to traditional red-cyan anaglyphs.
Viewers can also vote on whether they prefer the ColorCode system over traditional anaglyphs during the Super Bowl or the Monday night movie at:
http://Uptown3D.com
