Optoma to launch £250 3D convertor for projectors

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Posted on 29 Oct 2010 at 12:53

Optoma has announced its 3D-XL adaptor, which will turn existing DLP projectors into 3D models and will cost just £250. It's been designed to solve the problem where by many DLP projectors are labelled as 3D-ready, yet don't have the necessary HDMI 1.4 inputs or processing to display 3D footage.

To solve this, the 3D-XL has two HDMI 1.4 inputs for devices such as a Blu-ray player, Play Station 3 or Sky+ HD box, and a single HDMI 1.3 output that plugs into a projector. The system works by taking the signal from the input devices, reconstituting the 3D information into sequential frames and transmitting the resulting images to the projector.

Active shutter glasses need to be worn (one pair is included in the box), but with the DLP projector there's no need for an IR transmitter to synchronise the glasses. Instead, the system uses DLP Link, which broadcasts the synchronisation information between the frames for each eye. In other words, all a viewer has to do is look at the screen and the glasses are synchronised correctly.

All of the mandatory 3D formats are supported by the 3D-XL, including over/under, side-by-side and frame pack. However, full HD is not supported and 3D is viewed at 720p resolutions. Considering that Sky+ HD and the Play Station 3 are also incapable of Full HD 3D, this shouldn't prove to be a big problem.

We viewed demo footage of football on Sky, games on the Play Station 3 and a film. We were impressed with the results and it's possible to argue that screen size is more important than resolution, as having the picture dominate your field of view helps create a more immersive image. Fortunately, for 2D movies, the 3D-XL will pass a 1080p 24/p image, so you don't have to lose resolution when watching non-3D content.

Optoma has stated that the 3D-XL will work with 14 of its projectors, including the new 720p HD67, which costs around £500. Add in the price of the 3D-XL and that's big-screen 3D for around £750. Other manufacturer's DLP projectors are also supported, provided they have the latest firmware and can display a 120Hz image. We'll have review units of the 3D-XL in December, with the product available to buy from January.

Author: David Ludlow