Toshiba shows off glasses-free 3DTVs at CES

News by Johnny Cullen Contributor

Published on Jan. 5, 2011

Toshiba's shown off glasses-free 3DTVs at CES today following small launches of 12" and 20" models in Japan at the end of last year.

Showing off Final Fantasy XIII with 56" and 65" TVs in Las Vegas, execs at Toshiba have apparently said it'll "probably launch two models, one over 40-inches and another over 50-inches".

The company's head of visual products, Atsushi Murasawa, has apparently said it'll release these TVs outside of Japan.

"These will not only be for the Japanese market, but also America, Europe and China," he said, as quoted by Reuters.

No word on prices or dates on the TVs.

Now look who's laughing

Last year, Toshiba promised it would launch glasses-free 3DTVs. It's also shown off a glasses-free 3D laptop at CES.

It all comes despite skepticism from SCEE 3D boss, Mick Hocking, when he said that glasses-free 3DTVs were far out from becoming a reality.

"The only way at the moment of achieving high-definition, high quality 3D on a TV is via some form of glasses," Hocking told VG247 at gamescom in Cologne in August last year.

"There are methods that are called autostereoscopic where you don’t require glasses, but these are limited in various ways. They only work for a typically single viewer, and they can only show a small amount of depth, so for very small screens they’re OK.

"And you scale them up to a big screen; they don’t work very well at all. There are no technologies at the moment to do glasses-free technology on TVs, and I don’t think that’s going to change for a while, actually, because any way you try and do it glasses-free on TV is incredibly complex.

"The cost would be very high, even if someone could develop it."

Hocking wouldn't be drawn if glasses-free 3D would form part of a PSP successor in the future.

Nintendo, meanwhile, is set to launch a glasses-free 3D SKU of DS, 3DS, on February 26 in Japan.

A March release has been confirmed in Europe and US, with formal dates expected to be announced in two weeks time in Amsterdam and New York.

Thanks, Engadget.