Suppliers of 3D Products

For some time, Philips was a pioneer of 3D technology, but announced its withdrawal from the sector in early 2009. The company offered several screens with lenticular lenses that you could watch without glasses. These were primarily meant to be an eye-catcher and for marketing purposes.

Since the displays offered at least eight perspectives, Philips preferred the 2D-plus-Depth format as a storage and transmission standard, since it allowed the easiest generation of the required perspectives. Further solutions for recording and storing appeared under the label WOWvx.

For TVs, Samsung uses three different technologies, two of which are already in production. In the USA, the company continues to offer DLP back-projectors, which are fully equipped for 3D. In the UK, the 450 series and 750 series offer plasma models that are also 3D-ready.

The DLP and plasma TVs both work at 120 Hertz, and therefore require shutter glasses for three-dimensional pictures, as well as special software from DDD to provide the necessary encoding into the checkerboard format.

Samsung also wants to push forward on the LCD front, where they use polarizing filters for living-room applications, and lenticular lenses for advertizing boards. The company is also the first manufacturer to use alternating pictures successfully on LCD monitors, in a 22-inch model with a pulsed backlight.

Like Samsung, Mitsubishi also offers DLP TVs that are equipped for 3D, including some using laser light-sources. For glasses, graphics cards, and content, the company works together with Nvidia and Aspen.

Sharp uses exclusively LCD technology for 3D, essentially employing the parallax technique. The company currently only produces smaller screens for mobile use.

In 2008, Hyundai IT introduced a range of LCD monitors and LCD TVs that were 3D ready, thanks to X-Pol technology from Arisawa. Using a special filter, the displays polarize the horizontal lines of pixels clockwise and counterclockwise alternately, allowing the corresponding glasses to produce the 3D effect - with halved vertical resolution. A TV model was on sale earlier in Japan, but now only the monitors appear to be available.

Korean manufacturer Zalman also uses polarizing filters with LCD. Their series currently offers two monitors, with 19-inch and 22-inch screen diagonals.

The Miracube series from Korean company Pavonine comprises six 3D screens from 17 to 46 inches, of which one model works autostereoscopically - that is, without glasses, thanks to a parallax barrier. The others use alternating line-polarization, as with the Zalman and Hyundai models.

Spectroniq also uses LCD screens with alternating line-polarization. According to the company, the devices include decoders for different signal standards (checkerboard, side-by-side, alternating pictures).

From Spatial View come 3D add-ons for smartphones. These add-ons use a parallax barrier in front of an LCD screen and therefore do not require glasses. The Wazabee brand also includes 3D monitors and head-tracking software for notebooks and PCs.

In the model F10 AS3D, Norway's Projectiondesign uses DLP technology to provide a fast frame rate; viewers need shutter glasses to see the 3D picture.

From Lightspeed Design comes the DepthQ HD 3D, a modified Infocus projector that also use DLP and a fast refresh rate (120 Hertz).

German company Charisma (link in German only) uses signal processing to attempt to produce a 3D impression. There are several models based on plasma TVs, mostly from Pioneer.

The company TDVision develops complete solutions, from recording to encoding, and even playback, of 3D images. There's a twin-lens camcorder, for example, and a pair of video glasses called "TDVizor". TDVision has already demonstrated storage of 3D movies using supplementary data in a way that's compatible with normal Blu-ray players.

With the Moboview, Hong Kong's Sun Ruby brings to the market a 3D camcorder that's also a mobile media-player.

This company offers 3D glasses with built-in screens, as well as converters for interlaced 3D for CRT monitors.

A former research company in the Daimler corporation, Infitec developed the wavelength multiplex system that Dolby uses in movie theaters. The company also offers stacks with two specially prepared projectors.

Belgian company Barco offers 3D projectors - largely based on DLP - for the digital movie theater as well as for simulations and other professional applications.

Digital Projection is also a license holder for DLP Cinema and produces projectors for a variety of other applications.