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Nvidia 3D Vision Review

Reallink

Member
metareferential said:
Same here, as soon as someone in Europe sells it, it's mine (assuming I can test it before handing over my wallet xD).

I love my Acer, perfect 3D huge picture, though sometimes I can't use it (other people around, wrong time of day, etc.) so the helmet-like solution is very intriguing.

I'm concerned about crosstalk (I have no previous experiences with OLED display, as everyone, since there are no OLED tv on the market yet) and problems related with its binocular nature, but I can't wait.

It has 2 separate OLED displays if I'm not mistaken (one for each eye), so theoretically there should be virtually no crosstalk at all. Most crosstalk is a function of the glasses not getting dim enough and the display not refreshing fast enough. With 2 separate displays rendering their own unique frame, you should run into neither.
 

cakefoo

Member
The Panasonic plasmas are good but only the higher-end models. The GT30/ST30 are not very good at all.

The easiest way you can know about crosstalk is to run a test pattern from a USB/SD card on the store demo.

You can refer to this thread and this one for the instructions (it's an easy 4-step test), as well as find a number of reports on existing TVs. There haven't been a lot of updates in recent months, which is why you'll most likely need to test the TV's yourself.
 

Reallink

Member
cakefoo said:
The Panasonic plasmas are good but only the higher-end models. The GT30/ST30 are not very good at all.

The easiest way you can know about crosstalk is to run a test pattern from a USB/SD card on the store demo.

You can refer to this thread and this one for the instructions (it's an easy 4-step test), as well as find a number of reports on existing TVs. There haven't been a lot of updates in recent months, which is why you'll most likely need to test the TV's yourself.

I personally doubt it. Last year's VT20/25 also enjoyed a supposed consensus of being "Virtually Crosstalk Free", but of course the reality is that it was just as bad as the newer GT30/ST30 (somewhere between ~1:10:1:10 - 1:20:1:20 by that patterns metric) depending on settings, environment, and who you asked. Problem with relying on end users is you're going to get a handful of jokers evaluating the pattern in lit rooms with light pollution and reflections masking a lot of the values. I haven't seen many reviews give a significant crosstalk nod to the VT over the ST/GT, most suggest that they're all 3 pretty similar. Lets face it, to be considered "good", it would have to be a quantum leap over the other models, cause they're just that bad. This seems pretty improbable. I don't doubt it has the potential for slightly better performance (given the gamma adjustments the ST/GT lack), but that is of course assuming professional calibration and it would probably amount to a few points up the scale at best. I suspect the primary contributor to CT is the glasses, not the panel.
 

RooMHM

Member
I have an Acer GN245HQ (with the glasses). Everything i tested it with felt like utter shit and was too dark. Now, I'm not really convinced by 3d in general tbh.
 

patsu

Member
I have the Acer 27" monitor, released in July 2011 in US. I love it. It's indeed darker, but I like 27" screen better than 24". It uses nVidia 3D. Ghosting is a problem for scenes with white background and dark objects. But for the most part, I don't see it in the games and videos I tried.

For good 3D contents, Super Stardust HD and KZ3 looks very convincing. The snow level may have ghosting in one or two scene. Look forward to try MotorStorm Apocalypse.

Also tried Sports Illustrated 3D, it gives the models slightly more "weight", and the landscape more depth. Difference is little but the scene looks quite a bit darker. Still tickles me. ^_^

I also have 3D Bloggie to take my travel videos and photos in Europe. The camera can connect to the Acer monitor via HDMI to playback the videos directly. I can also upload photos to PS3 to play on the monitor. However 3D HDD video playback is not supported on PS3 yet.

I like the fact that nVidia's glasses are lighter. I wish Acer's monitor has one more HDMI input though, so I don't have to unplug my PS3 input to play the camera video. Hope PS3 can play 3D HDD videos in the near future.
 

Durante

Member
Reallink said:
Nvidia seems to care more about quantity than quality, so a lot of the "3DVision Ready" games wind up being borderline unusable for anyone that gives 2 shits about IQ. The worst offenders are the FPS's that will simply put the gun on the TV's plane and have the environment go 10 miles into the TV. This produces a shit ton of stereo separation (and a ghastly amount of crosstalk) for a very subtle 3D effect.
I'm actually happy NV goes for "quantity" instead of trying to change games to fix issues that are actually caused by inadequate display technology.

/DLP user
 

cakefoo

Member
Reallink said:
I personally doubt it. Last year's VT20/25 also enjoyed a supposed consensus of being "Virtually Crosstalk Free", but of course the reality is that it was just as bad as the newer GT30/ST30 (somewhere between ~1:10:1:10 - 1:20:1:20 by that patterns metric)
10 points is a significant difference.

Problem with relying on end users is you're going to get a handful of jokers evaluating the pattern in lit rooms with light pollution and reflections masking a lot of the values.
One of the reasons for the #1 and #4 values is to see if the TV is lit well enough. Anyway, reading other people's results has meant far more to me than what some guy saw when watching How to Train Your Dragon. It's for people who can't test the TVs in stores themselves. If you're in the market for a 3DTV, you better run a crosstalk pattern instead of watching their demos. That's the main thing to understand.


I haven't seen many reviews give a significant crosstalk nod to the VT over the ST/GT, most suggest that they're all 3 pretty similar.
So now reviewers' opinions matter? :p Earlier you said:
a lot of folks (even professional reviewers) simply aren't entirely familiar with the where and what to look for

Lets face it, to be considered "good", it would have to be a quantum leap over the other models, cause they're just that bad.
You know how bad the GT/ST are, but have you seen the VT televisions in 3D?

I don't doubt it has the potential for slightly better performance (given the gamma adjustments the ST/GT lack)
I highly doubt it has anything to do with gamma adjustments. Blackest black is not going to be affected by gamma adjustments.

I suspect the primary contributor to CT is the glasses, not the panel.
Many people on AVS would be reporting this if it were true. People using universal glasses would be getting the same results with every model television they used them on.
 

Reallink

Member
cakefoo said:
10 points is a significant difference.

I wasn't suggesting there was a 10 point difference between the VT20/25 and the ST/GT30's, just that you're likely to see something within that range reported for all 3 models depending on who's evaluating. It doesn't really matter one way or the other, cause whether you're talking about CT starting to appear at 10% or 22% stimuli (the ~difference those 10 points represent) the bottom half of the range is not the issue-it's the upper half that's the problem.

One of the reasons for the #1 and #4 values is to see if the TV is lit well enough. Anyway, reading other people's results has meant far more to me than what some guy saw when watching How to Train Your Dragon. It's for people who can't test the TVs in stores themselves. If you're in the market for a 3DTV, you better run a crosstalk pattern instead of watching their demos. That's the main thing to understand.

I agree that it's worthless trying to make qualifications based on watching some CG movie--as you quoted me from earlier. I thought it obvious when I was talking about quantifiable values and % stimuli, I was actually referring to patterns like this. The problem with the 1 and 4 results is that it doesn't adequately weed out people trying to do this kind of evaluation in sub-optimal conditions, certainly not enough to try and argue about a 10 point range on an 80 point scale. The reason for this is pretty simple, the primary eye gradations are going to be much brighter than the off eye crosstalk. So while a bit of light pollution may take the primary eye results to 3 in the light Vs. 1 in the dark, the CT may be an exponential improvement (say 30 in the light Vs. 5 in the dark).


So now reviewers' opinions matter? :p Earlier you said:

When the same (flawed) source material is used across the various makes/models, it becomes a comparison. So while they can't fairly declare "X is CT free" after watching How the Train your Dragon, they can say "X is the same as Y", "X is better than Y", etc...

I highly doubt it has anything to do with gamma adjustments. Blackest black is not going to be affected by gamma adjustments.

Blackest black has no bearing on CT. Gamma is going to change the values between black and white. For example, if a 10% stimuli pattern is 2fL with a gamma of 2.22, then it's going to be 3.6fL at 1.8 (made up values for illustrative purposes). It should be clear how this is going to effect visible CT in a patter like this. Each gray number you're seeing is just a certain % stimuli. A higher gamma is going to make each number dimmer (white and black remain the same), thus making the CT more difficult to see. Similarly a low gamma is going to make each value artificially bright, thus making any CT easier to see.

Many people on AVS would be reporting this if it were true. People using universal glasses would be getting the same results with every model television they used them on.

They actually have. If you look through that thread, a lot of Samsung owners have actually seen tremendous gains in switching glasses.
 

cakefoo

Member
I know you're trying to cast doubt on the accuracy of the reports, but there have been multiples for each model of the GT and VT, and they all say the VT is better. Also, real world results, people complain much less about the VT than the GT. As a GT owner at the time I was doing all the post-purchase buyer's remorse research, I'm all too aware.

And congrats on finding the exceptions to the rule IRT glasses being the culprit.
 

Reallink

Member
cakefoo said:
I know you're trying to cast doubt on the accuracy of the reports, but there have been multiples for each model of the GT and VT, and they all say the VT is better. Also, real world results, people complain much less about the VT than the GT. As a GT owner at the time I was doing all the post-purchase buyer's remorse research, I'm all too aware.

And congrats on finding the exceptions to the rule IRT glasses being the culprit.

I'm not trying to cast any doubt, I'm simply pointing out evidence to back up my claims. I think this is a great test to use to quantify CT and professional reviewers should be using something like it. That said, on the very first page of that thread you've one user pegging a VT20 at 1:20 and another pegging it at 1:13. Your suggestion was the VT's are superior to the ST/GT's (1:10 in a couple examples). Best case you're talking about 3-10 points on a 80 point scale, and I was just pointing out that kind of discrepancy is easily explained away by user error, settings, environment, or glasses version used (as evidenced in the point spreads on the same model). Again though, this is a silly debate in the first place. These low % stimuli values don't even matter--1:10, 1:20, 1:30, they're all garbage, and any kind of half stressing content is going to be completely awash in CT. The high values (say 50-80) are what's going to produce the obvious, image killing CT, and no 3DTV's are anywhere close to eliminating or even noticeably reducing it (save perhaps DLP's).

WRT glasses, I'm not sure we have enough evidence to call it one way or the other. There are very few people bothering to run this kind of test in the first place and even fewer with multiple brands/generations of glasses to compare. Given a small sample of a small sample, I think even 1 or 2 people noting a significant difference is very much worth mentioning.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
Having watched a bit of Avatar on the ST 30 at Best Buy (about as bad a viewing condition as you'll ever find), I have to say I'm pretty darn impressed by it. Aside from DLP projectors, Panasonic plasma is considered the gold standard for 3D. And the difference between ST/GT and VT is very slight. It's still better than other options.

I actually kind of flinched when there was a cut to another scene and the image was immediately hovering before me. The suddenness really startled me. In a good way. By memory, it seemed as good as the VT 25 and definitely a major upgrade over the GT 25 (unless Target's system just sucked for comparing).
 

Reallink

Member
1-D_FTW said:
Having watched a bit of Avatar on the ST 30 at Best Buy (about as bad a viewing condition as you'll ever find), I have to say I'm pretty darn impressed by it. Aside from DLP projectors, Panasonic plasma is considered the gold standard for 3D. And the difference between ST/GT and VT is very slight. It's still better than other options.

I actually kind of flinched when there was a cut to another scene and the image was immediately hovering before me. The suddenness really startled me. In a good way. By memory, it seemed as good as the VT 25 and definitely a major upgrade over the GT 25 (unless Target's system just sucked for comparing).

Yea the carefully tailored demos and well balanced movie content (like Avatar) are definitely impressive. Problem is they play to the display's strengths, and are not really representative of all 3D content (particularly 3D games, many of which are torture tests for Crosstalk). I think your overall opinion would probably change if you took one home and tested out a wide range of 3D content in the dark.
 

cakefoo

Member
Reallink said:
Again though, this is a silly debate in the first place. These low % stimuli values don't even matter--1:10, 1:20, 1:30, they're all garbage, and any kind of half stressing content is going to be completely awash in CT. The high values (say 50-80) are what's going to produce the obvious, image killing CT, and no 3DTV's are anywhere close to eliminating or even noticeably reducing it (save perhaps DLP's).
It probably matters a lot more than you think. Yes, you'll still get crosstalk in extreme moments- everyone does except DLP owners like myself- but it will be dimmer, so it will be less distracting or even virtually unnoticeable.

I have a relatively good idea of how much of a difference there is between the GT25 and VT20. Not only have I read a lot of posts on AVS from owners of each set, but I've owned the GT25 for a couple months myself, and I've looked at VT20 store demos in non-harsh lit TV showrooms and looked for crosstalk in high contrast & separation objects and could not see any ghosting whatsoever, whereas the GT25 had crosstalk very frequently.


WRT glasses, I'm not sure we have enough evidence to call it one way or the other. There are very few people bothering to run this kind of test in the first place and even fewer with multiple brands/generations of glasses to compare. Given a small sample of a small sample, I think even 1 or 2 people noting a significant difference is very much worth mentioning.
If people were noticing a difference they'd be shouting it from the rooftops. The truth is it's the display that matters 90% of the time. If the glasses were the "primary" cause of crosstalk then it wouldn't matter what TV you tried X103's on- they'd all be getting similar crosstalk scores. That's not to say glasses don't affect quality- but they're not the main reason.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
Reallink said:
Yea the carefully tailored demos and well balanced movie content (like Avatar) are definitely impressive. Problem is they play to the display's strengths, and are not really representative of all 3D content (particularly 3D games, many of which are torture tests for Crosstalk). I think your overall opinion would probably change if you took one home and tested out a wide range of 3D content in the dark.

I'll have to take your word for it.

Honestly, I've said it before, but I think I'm putting any purchase on hold (barring an insane deal) until I see more on the Sony HMZ-T1. It really does seem like it could be the perfect solution for 3D gaming. And besides the OLED goodness, should in theory eliminate all cross talk since each eye is getting fed a distinct signal.
 
Reallink said:
It has 2 separate OLED displays if I'm not mistaken (one for each eye), so theoretically there should be virtually no crosstalk at all. Most crosstalk is a function of the glasses not getting dim enough and the display not refreshing fast enough. With 2 separate displays rendering their own unique frame, you should run into neither.

Yeah, you're right, I was thinking about it like some sort of "normal" display, stupidly forgetting it has two separate screens.

Well, I'm even more hyped then.

I'm actually happy NV goes for "quantity" instead of trying to change games to fix issues that are actually caused by inadequate display technology.

/DLP user

Yay for DLP!

I still can't believe how good the image is, and I've been using my h5360 for quite some time now.

If anyone is willing to go the 3D route, and has the room for a projector, don't even think about 3dtvs.
 
I have a GT25, and have not had a problem with crosstalk much, save for deus ex, and killzone, every other game was pretty crisp. Same for the avatar in 3d.
 
Welp, the crosstak really is as bad as made out in this thread. Its fine for movies but just about useless for games unless the depth is dialed right down, which is completely missing the point of the effect in the first place. I used to respect places like HDTVtest.co.uk, not anymore.
 

1-D_FTW

Member
I guess the mainstream sites all focus on movies when dealing with crosstalk then. What's crazy is this: the Panasonic plasma is regarded as the gold standard by most when it comes to cross talk with flat panels. Guess I'm definitely back to the Sony HMZ or, if that's a bust, the Acer H5360 if I buy something this year for 3D.
 

Reallink

Member
brain_stew said:
Welp, the crosstak really is as bad as made out in this thread. Its fine for movies but just about useless for games unless the depth is dialed right down, which is completely missing the point of the effect in the first place. I used to respect places like HDTVtest.co.uk, not anymore.

I had a feeling you'd probably reach this conclusion. Really is a shame too, cause the effect can be game-changingly awesome when it works.

1-D_FTW said:
I guess the mainstream sites all focus on movies when dealing with crosstalk then. What's crazy is this: the Panasonic plasma is regarded as the gold standard by most when it comes to cross talk with flat panels. Guess I'm definitely back to the Sony HMZ or, if that's a bust, the Acer H5360 if I buy something this year for 3D.

Oh yea they unquestionably do, and what's worse they use the Candyland shit like Avatar and CG Cartoons which look great on any shitty ass display.
 
1-D_FTW said:
I guess the mainstream sites all focus on movies when dealing with crosstalk then. What's crazy is this: the Panasonic plasma is regarded as the gold standard by most when it comes to cross talk with flat panels. Guess I'm definitely back to the Sony HMZ or, if that's a bust, the Acer H5360 if I buy something this year for 3D.

Well the likes of HDTVtest are hardly mainstream sites and they specifically test the 3D in games as well as movies, they go into the most intricate detail about damn near every other aspect of a TV's performance. Its shocking that they hold the 3D aspect to such a lower standard when its the single biggest differentiator of modern sets compared to previous generations.

Absolutely every other qualified opinion I've seen has put the Panasonic plasmas as the top performing 3DTV solution and it was a big factor in my choice, can't believe so many can be so wrong. What's more worrying is if this really is as good as it gets then the competing solutions must be an absolute joke.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
You'll only get 24p in 1080, so that'll most likely be shit - better sticking with 720p/60 for games.

Not sure why its a problem having games go 'into' the screen, I much prefer that than popping out which gives me a headache. Especially on FPSes where the gun is always there.

And isn't crosstalk mainly a function of contrast vs separation? If the separation is high but the contrast is low its not so noticeable. But many games have high contrast edges etc so its more noticeable than on movies.
 
mrklaw said:
You'll only get 24p in 1080, so that'll most likely be shit - better sticking with 720p/60 for games.

Not sure why its a problem having games go 'into' the screen, I much prefer that than popping out which gives me a headache. Especially on FPSes where the gun is always there.

And isn't crosstalk mainly a function of contrast vs separation? If the separation is high but the contrast is low its not so noticeable. But many games have high contrast edges etc so its more noticeable than on movies.

I'm running at 720p/60 and much prefer most of the depth to be within the screen. The issue is crosstalk and how pronounced it is if the depth slider is at anything other than its lowest setting. The whole screen becomes a blurry mess, covered with ghost images.
 

cakefoo

Member
brain_stew said:
Absolutely every other qualified opinion I've seen has put the Panasonic plasmas as the top performing 3DTV solution and it was a big factor in my choice, can't believe so many can be so wrong. What's more worrying is if this really is as good as it gets then the competing solutions must be an absolute joke.
There are better sets nowadays, but at the time, the claim WAS accurate for the most part. But ONLY in regards to the VT, not the GT.

In the future, disregard reviews and just do the crosstalk test pattern. For reference, the GT30 only blocks the darkest 10 of 80 shades from black to white; VT series scores ~18 on average; other LED or Plasma sets can block upper 20's/low 30's, passive polarized does 30 or 40 shades. And then there's DLP, which as far as I know by nature of the technology is consistently superior across all makes and models that use it. Plasma, in contrast, varies from model to model. Same can be said of LED or passive.
 

Reallink

Member
mrklaw said:
You'll only get 24p in 1080, so that'll most likely be shit - better sticking with 720p/60 for games.

Not sure why its a problem having games go 'into' the screen, I much prefer that than popping out which gives me a headache. Especially on FPSes where the gun is always there.

And isn't crosstalk mainly a function of contrast vs separation? If the separation is high but the contrast is low its not so noticeable. But many games have high contrast edges etc so its more noticeable than on movies.

Yea there are games with washed out contrast that handle 3D well, even with wide separation. One example is the PSP GoW Collection on PS3 (at least based on the Demo). It features a lot of grays on grays of a similar luminance, so there's not much CT to speak of. There are a few instances where it really stands out (like a dark cave section), but on the whole it's very impressive and easily tolerated. I can't say how the final games will turn out, other levels might not be so friendly. Most of Uncharted 3 will probably be fine to (based on the PSN videos), since even its darker scenes have a cartoon quality about them (opting for shades of blue Vs. blacks and dark grays). The MP Beta maps were a bit of an issue though, there was quite a bit CT in them.
 
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