Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you? So we have come to the end of
Speaker 1: the new episodes I had recorded for when I was
Speaker 1: on vacation. I'm still on vacation as this episode goes out,
Speaker 1: So we're going to turn to a true classic episode
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff. This episode originally published way way back
Speaker 1: on February fourth, two thousand and nine, which means my
Speaker 1: original co host, Chris Palette. It introduces the show, this
Speaker 1: is how three D glasses work, and I hope you enjoy.
Speaker 1: We touched on this on a recent podcast when we
Speaker 1: talked about cees and then we realize that, you know,
Speaker 1: three D technology. It's something that has been around for
Speaker 1: many decades actually, but it's starting to come back now.
Speaker 1: It's like it seems weird. It's like every like the
Speaker 1: nineteen fifties it got really big for a little while
Speaker 1: and then it kind of died away. And then nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties it got big for a little while and then
Speaker 1: it kind of died away. And this looks like it's
Speaker 1: another one of those those moments sort of like the
Speaker 1: Yo Yo, where it just comes back in vogue and
Speaker 1: who knows, maybe this time it's here to stay.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we we have an article on the site how
Speaker 3: three D glasses work that was written by our site
Speaker 3: founder Marshall Brain. Yes, and it's really fascinating. The According
Speaker 3: to the article, the Power of Love was the first
Speaker 3: movie to be done in three D and that was
Speaker 3: nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 1: It's a curious thing.
Speaker 2: So we're thank you, thanks for the news.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, we're coming up on a century
Speaker 3: of three D you know, video technology, which is uh,
Speaker 3: you kind of think about it. I always thought of
Speaker 3: it as a fifties and sixties singer and it's yeah,
Speaker 3: it's been around for quite some time.
Speaker 1: And you sit there and you think about that, like, okay,
Speaker 1: so if it's almost a century old, why is it
Speaker 1: still relatively rare?
Speaker 2: Is it's a pain in the neck to actually make
Speaker 2: it work.
Speaker 1: Right, and I'm pain on the eyes as well as
Speaker 1: it turns out. Yeah, that's one of the problems is
Speaker 1: that there's no For longest time, there was no real
Speaker 1: easy way of doing this that didn't result in after
Speaker 1: you know, maybe watching something for about forty minutes feeling
Speaker 1: like your eyeballs were on fire. It's a little better now,
Speaker 1: but we'll get to that first. We should kind of
Speaker 1: talk about why we're able to perceive or why three
Speaker 1: d's important, and how we're able to perceive it. It
Speaker 1: all goes down to it comes down to binocular vision.
Speaker 3: You know, I have a pair of binoculars and it
Speaker 3: doesn't look like I'm looking into three D.
Speaker 1: Right, That doesn't It's not what it means. So we're
Speaker 1: talking about using both eyes to see objects and then
Speaker 1: perceive depth using both of your eyes. There's this It's
Speaker 1: what's called parallax. It's where you're looking at objects and
Speaker 1: because your eyes are not located in the exact same
Speaker 1: spot on your head, go figure you can Actually your
Speaker 1: brain uses the difference in the angles that you're perceiving
Speaker 1: to create the perception of depth.
Speaker 2: So if you were.
Speaker 1: To close one eye, or if you were to lose
Speaker 1: an eye, you would not be able to perceive depth
Speaker 1: the same way someone with two eyes can. You could
Speaker 1: still do it. You mainly pick it up from visual
Speaker 1: cues at that point, and your perceptions not as accurate.
Speaker 1: Most humans have pretty accurate death perception to at least
Speaker 1: up to twenty feet or so. But if you only
Speaker 1: had one eye, then you would you know some things
Speaker 1: that you might think, oh, well, that's closer to me
Speaker 1: than that other object over there. You might be surprised
Speaker 1: to find out ooops, I was wrong because you didn't
Speaker 1: have the second eye to verify the information. So three
Speaker 1: D movies, three D images, they have to be able
Speaker 1: to create this sense of of parallax in order for
Speaker 1: you to perceive them as you know, three dimensional as
Speaker 1: opposed to two dimensional, to give you that illusion of depth.
Speaker 3: Like a few Master for example, exactly takes advantage of that.
Speaker 3: It shows you slightly different versions of the same image, right,
Speaker 3: which create the illusion of depth.
Speaker 2: And that's how those red and blue three D glasses.
Speaker 1: Work, right, It's called anaglyph.
Speaker 3: Images, which uses red in a different color. Right, it's
Speaker 3: usually blue, but could be green or.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's usually it's usually red and blue. Those
Speaker 1: are the classic three D glasses that a lot of
Speaker 1: us think about when we when we hear the three
Speaker 1: D glasses thing. So you have an image that you're
Speaker 1: showing on a screen, and it's got say, kind of
Speaker 1: like a reddish overlay on top of it, and then
Speaker 1: you have the identical image superimposed or are shown just
Speaker 1: slightly off to the side. Looks a little weird if
Speaker 1: you're not wearing the glasses, which is usually in a
Speaker 1: blue or perhaps green overlay, and then you have glasses
Speaker 1: with corresponding lenses. Now, the red lens happens to block
Speaker 1: the red light. It absorbs it straight through. You don't
Speaker 1: see it. You just see the blue and the blue
Speaker 1: it lets through the red light, and your eyes see
Speaker 1: these two images separately, and your brain puts the information
Speaker 1: together to create the three D image. So your brain
Speaker 1: is doing all the work, really, and once they figured out, hey,
Speaker 1: if we just put these two images side by side,
Speaker 1: really close together and do different colors and have each
Speaker 1: eye perceive a different color, then we can create the
Speaker 1: illusion of depth. Then that's when the three D movie
Speaker 1: craze really took off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why.
Speaker 3: If you take off the three D glasses and look
Speaker 3: at the movie, one of the classic anaglyph style three
Speaker 3: D movies, you'll notice that there's a red version of
Speaker 3: the image and there's a blue version of the image,
Speaker 3: and it looks like it's out of register. Like if
Speaker 3: you've seen a color picture where the printing was just
Speaker 3: and everything seemed to be shifted in one direction, as
Speaker 3: just the red or just the yellow, that means that
Speaker 3: the printers didn't line up the colors.
Speaker 2: It sort of looks like that because.
Speaker 3: One of them will be just a little to the
Speaker 3: left and one will be just a little to the right,
Speaker 3: and you're going, what's up with this? Well, because they're
Speaker 3: slightly different, it allows your brain to make up that
Speaker 3: there's a three D version of that. But that's not
Speaker 3: how the newer version of three D works. The newer
Speaker 3: version uses polarized lenses.
Speaker 1: That's right, now, that's interesting because polarized lenses is all
Speaker 1: about the angle of the light waves, right.
Speaker 3: True, But it achieves the same effect because the images
Speaker 3: are slightly different in direction, and by shifting the polarity
Speaker 3: and using the polarized glasses, it also fools your eyes.
Speaker 2: And you don't have to have red and blue version
Speaker 2: of the image on there.
Speaker 1: Right, they look more like, you know, kind of dorky
Speaker 1: sunglasses in general. I guess you could really if you
Speaker 1: wanted to make a very stylish pair, But every pair
Speaker 1: I've ever seen looks kind of geeky.
Speaker 2: Well, if you're.
Speaker 3: Gonna go watch Captain EO, it doesn't really matter anyway,
Speaker 3: because you know, the glass is sort of wet with
Speaker 3: the movie anyhow.
Speaker 1: Don't be talking smack about my Michael Jackson. So yeah,
Speaker 1: So these polarized lenses in the same sense that the
Speaker 1: red and blue only allow the blue and red respectively.
Speaker 1: Those light waves through the polarized lenses are kind of
Speaker 1: the same way. They're a line, so that the light
Speaker 1: the angles of the light waves will only go through
Speaker 1: one side or the other. And usually you have two
Speaker 1: projectors projecting at the same time. They're projecting. Each one's
Speaker 1: projecting a different of what's protecting the same image at
Speaker 1: the same time, but in a different angle of light waves.
Speaker 1: So you're getting both sets of images at the same time,
Speaker 1: but only one eye receives each image, and then your
Speaker 1: brain does the work again. So it's based on a
Speaker 1: very similar principle as the red and blue. Now I've
Speaker 1: heard that people tend to experience less eye strain using
Speaker 1: this method than they did when they use the red
Speaker 1: and blue. Have you ever seen a three D movie,
Speaker 1: like a full three D movie with the red and
Speaker 1: blue glasses like a full length feature film.
Speaker 2: Dyes, I haven't ever watched anything that long. Okay, the
Speaker 2: est thing I have seen in three D is Captain
Speaker 2: Neo now that you mentioned.
Speaker 1: Okay, well I have as and this is one of
Speaker 1: my childhood memories. So sit back and grab a coke,
Speaker 1: all right. I went to see Jaws in three D.
Speaker 1: You did Jaws three in three D and the theater
Speaker 1: with my dad. Hi, Dad, and Dad and I we
Speaker 1: sat there and watched this movie and by the end
Speaker 1: of it, we each had splitting headaches. And also, by
Speaker 1: the way, just so you know, terrible movie. The only
Speaker 1: three D effect that was really effective is when someone
Speaker 1: held a syringe out towards the screen in the way
Speaker 1: that absolutely no one does and then pushed the plunger.
Speaker 1: That was actually pretty effective. The shark stuff not so
Speaker 1: much at any rate.
Speaker 2: But the terror didn't stop at the edge of the screen.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, you knew the tagline, so so any
Speaker 1: anyway it was, it was. It definitely did cause eye
Speaker 1: straight Now. I've worn the polarized glasses for short demonstrations,
Speaker 1: but nothing for really any length of time. So I'm
Speaker 1: kind of curious to see if it really if it
Speaker 1: lives up to the hype. And of course there's one
Speaker 1: other kind of three D glasses we can talk about,
Speaker 1: the active glasses.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, those are the ones that you actually saw
Speaker 2: at CEES.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I saw a couple different instances of active glasses. Now,
Speaker 1: with these other versions we're talking about, you usually, like
Speaker 1: I said, have two projectors projecting the images at the
Speaker 1: same time. It really the you know, that's the best
Speaker 1: way to show these images. Now, with active glasses, you
Speaker 1: can have one projector showing or one screen whatever showing
Speaker 1: these images all together.
Speaker 3: But the difference is in this case, rather than the
Speaker 3: glasses just being a piece of paper or plastic with
Speaker 3: the lenses in front of your face, the glasses are
Speaker 3: doing all the work instead of the projectors.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The glasses have a shutter where they turn on and
Speaker 1: off a polarization effect, and they do it at such
Speaker 1: a fast speed that you would never be able to
Speaker 1: see it. You can't, you know, consciously notice that they're
Speaker 1: shuttering on and off. I mentioned that the in video
Speaker 1: ones I saw shuttered at a sixty hertz refresh rate
Speaker 1: for each eye. So the screen what it's doing is
Speaker 1: it's alternating the image at the same rate that your
Speaker 1: glasses are shuttering on and off, and you're getting these
Speaker 1: two different images at a rate of speed that's so
Speaker 1: fast that your brain essentially thinks it's the same it's
Speaker 1: happening at the same time. From your perception, it's all
Speaker 1: happening at the same time, even though in reality it's
Speaker 1: switching back and forth at this incredible rate of speed.
Speaker 1: So the effect, again is that your brain puts it
Speaker 1: together and says, hey, there's depth there. It's not just
Speaker 1: a flat surface. And the effect really is pretty interesting,
Speaker 1: and that you know, you look at the screen and
Speaker 1: it looks like you can actually see beyond just that
Speaker 1: flat surface.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: It's it's there's some effect of the you know, oh,
Speaker 1: it's coming out toward me. But that's kind of minor
Speaker 1: in comparison to just this amazing depth of vision that
Speaker 1: you get in these screens. And you might wonder like, well, okay,
Speaker 1: so we've got all this technology, where's the big deal. Well,
Speaker 1: Hollywood is really kind of experimenting with this technology recently.
Speaker 1: There's been there have been quite a few movies that
Speaker 1: have come out with that feature this three D tech,
Speaker 1: and and not only just movies, but also sporting events
Speaker 1: and concerts that have have shown up either in theaters
Speaker 1: or on television that use three.
Speaker 3: D, and part of that is made possible by the
Speaker 3: use of digital video technology, right, I mean, film really
Speaker 3: didn't give us the opportunity to use it as much
Speaker 3: as digital does. Right, So that just makes it, you know,
Speaker 3: easier and cheaper for the studios to do, which is
Speaker 3: you know, probably a good thing and actually is a
Speaker 3: good transition in the next part of what I was
Speaker 3: going to bring up. Although I think you may have
Speaker 3: answered my question because there's so much three D at CEES.
Speaker 3: It was one of the big themes of this year's show.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you if you thought three
Speaker 3: D was the next big living room phenomenon. But I
Speaker 3: want to understand, most TVs that use three D technology
Speaker 3: use the anaglyph method, use the red and blue glasses
Speaker 3: if it's a big eye strain, and maybe it's such.
Speaker 3: I mean, people are not going to sit there and
Speaker 3: watch TV for four hours a night and get splitting headaches.
Speaker 1: If you wanted to use the active glasses, you would
Speaker 1: need a special display or special television something that's called
Speaker 1: three D ready, and there are only a few sets,
Speaker 1: relatively few sets out there that are three D ready,
Speaker 1: either as computer monitors or television sets like the Mitsubishi
Speaker 1: Laser View. I keep bringing it up, but that's one
Speaker 1: of the ones that's three D ready. Chris and I
Speaker 1: will be back to talk more about three D glasses
Speaker 1: after this quick break. If you don't have a television
Speaker 1: that's capable of doing that, then you're kind of stuck.
Speaker 1: You've got a really expensive pair of glasses that don't
Speaker 1: really work very well and make you look like a
Speaker 1: big dork. So hey, congrats, But uh, if you do
Speaker 1: have one of those sets, then you can take advantage
Speaker 1: of this technology. Now, of course, that means you also
Speaker 1: have to find content that was optimized for that technology.
Speaker 1: It's not going to just work on anything. It's not
Speaker 1: like you could turn on any television like, oh way, yay,
Speaker 1: I get Full House in three D.
Speaker 2: Now that's that might have been scarier than the Jaws.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just sad what that is.
Speaker 2: But they're there.
Speaker 3: Uh, there's a lot of three D stuff that's just
Speaker 3: starting to, uh to creep in, Like for example, this
Speaker 3: year's Super Bowl, right, which was you know, absolutely amazing.
Speaker 2: Sure, we say it's record a few days before that, but.
Speaker 3: From what I From what I understand, Pepsi and Universal
Speaker 3: both took out ads for the Super Bowl, Pepsi for
Speaker 3: Sovie's Life Water and the movie Monsters and Aliens from Universal.
Speaker 2: Both had three d ads. Yeah, and NBC was so
Speaker 2: excited about that.
Speaker 3: They're even advertising the ads that they're coming up so
Speaker 3: you can actually get the glasses and watch the three
Speaker 3: d ads in time.
Speaker 1: It's getting a little too meta for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now the Monsters Versus Aliens, that's a movie that's coming
Speaker 1: out later in two thousand and nine, and they actually
Speaker 1: in three day it will be in three D. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a computer graphics animated film and I saw
Speaker 1: clips of that when I was at CES. That was
Speaker 1: one of the demos they did with the three D technology,
Speaker 1: and it looks pretty good. There are several other movies
Speaker 1: that are coming out either this year or in coming
Speaker 1: years that are going to be using three D. That
Speaker 1: includes James Cameron's Avatar, not to be confused with the
Speaker 1: Nickelodeon Nickelodeon cartoon show which My wife loves, Hello Wife.
Speaker 1: There's there's a rumored version of a Christmas Carol that
Speaker 1: may be in three D it's going to use the
Speaker 1: same creepy technology as Polar Express.
Speaker 2: I bet, I bet it was it Dickens to make.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was. Then there's a There's How to
Speaker 1: Train Your Dragon Crude Awakening Alice in Wonderland, which is
Speaker 1: Tim Burton's take on the classic tale. Johnny Depp will
Speaker 1: be in that. I think he's the Mad Hatter. If
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, you should.
Speaker 2: Be if he's not.
Speaker 1: The next track film is supposed to be in three
Speaker 1: D Mastermind, also the one that we Are You and
Speaker 1: I will be waiting for with baited breath. Yes, the
Speaker 1: remastered three D version of Star Wars. I saw clips
Speaker 1: of that while I was at CEES and it was
Speaker 1: one of the two times I came close to crying.
Speaker 2: Good tears are bad, just tears of.
Speaker 1: Joy to see to see the Karelian starship being chased
Speaker 1: by that star destroyer and it's looming at me right there,
Speaker 1: and then R two D two is right in front
Speaker 1: of my face. Oh man, it's gone bye bye. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: wait wait, I'm back. I'm back.
Speaker 2: So that's okay.
Speaker 3: It'll it'll be twenty more years before George Lucas decides
Speaker 3: on the final, Final, final three D version, sure, and
Speaker 3: you know with the refinements in.
Speaker 1: It, and then of course we have the video games
Speaker 1: that could come out. That's true that Navidia is really
Speaker 1: pushing for. Navidio's the graphics processing card manufacturer, and they
Speaker 1: have the g fours glasses. They have a whole list
Speaker 1: of video games that are already prepared to go to
Speaker 1: three D. I mean, everything is there. You just have
Speaker 1: to have the right display, the graphics chip and the
Speaker 1: glasses and then you're ready to go. And among the
Speaker 1: games that they say are optimized for this include Age
Speaker 1: of Empires three, Battlefield to Call of Duty, for Civilization
Speaker 1: for for you Sid Meyer fans out there, Burnout Paradise
Speaker 1: for you race car driving fans out there, World of Warcraft.
Speaker 1: If you're a World of Warcraft fan, you're not listening
Speaker 1: to this. You're playing World of Warcraft, Half Life two,
Speaker 1: Left for Dead, roller Coaster Tycoon. Seriously, Yeah, roller Coaster Tycoon.
Speaker 3: Okay, you know you may be laughing at that, but
Speaker 3: if you think about it, you know that could be
Speaker 3: pretty pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You get to ride the rights and you get
Speaker 1: to see your your your amusement park in three D
Speaker 1: there's some pretty nifty things out there, so yeah, it's it.
Speaker 1: I think they're pushing for it to be the next
Speaker 1: big thing. Now here's the question. Are people going to
Speaker 1: adopt it? And specifically, are people going to be willing
Speaker 1: to spend money on it, especially in an economic downturn.
Speaker 3: Oh well, I imagine that this is the kind of
Speaker 3: thing that would cost a lot of money, even not
Speaker 3: in an economic downturn. Yeah, because this is not I mean,
Speaker 3: this is using brand new technology that is different from
Speaker 3: the technology you would see in a standard LCD display.
Speaker 1: Right right, The glasses alone can cost you like two
Speaker 1: hundred bucks. Yeah, so that's that's before you even get
Speaker 1: a graphics card or the display or television.
Speaker 3: So that makes the three D super Bowl party kind
Speaker 3: of expensive. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the laser view was around seven grand.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's about so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a that's an expensive toy. So it may
Speaker 1: be beyond our reach for a few more years. Time
Speaker 1: will tell. I mean, if enough early adopters do go
Speaker 1: out and buy this stuff, that will drive the price
Speaker 1: down and then the rest of us can can enjoy
Speaker 1: stuff in three D as well. And of course you
Speaker 1: can still go to the movie theater and see a
Speaker 1: lot of these films in three D. I mean even
Speaker 1: movies that weren't made completely in three D, you can
Speaker 1: sometimes see parts of it in three D.
Speaker 2: True.
Speaker 1: So now it's at least the film industry is really
Speaker 1: trying to push for it. I think that's partly in
Speaker 1: response to piracy actually when you think about it, because
Speaker 1: if you can't recreate the experience at home, you have
Speaker 1: to go to the theater to get the experience.
Speaker 3: But when you can recreate the experience at home, then
Speaker 3: they're trumped again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just pirate the heck out of it. Not
Speaker 1: that you would or I would, but you know, those
Speaker 1: nefarious people who are not our listeners, because we're all
Speaker 1: well behaved, we're.
Speaker 2: Good ones in this podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hope you enjoyed that classic rerun episode How three
Speaker 1: D Glasses Work. It's funny because when we recorded that
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and nine, the television industry was
Speaker 1: really pushing three D TV super hard. It was obviously
Speaker 1: an attempt to differentiate televisions from one another, as well
Speaker 1: as to try and cut back on stuff like media piracy.
Speaker 1: But ultimately the consumers rejected three D TV, and you
Speaker 1: don't really see it as an option that much anymore,
Speaker 1: not saying it's totally gone away, but it certainly is
Speaker 1: not the norm for televisions these days. Hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: that classic episode and hope you are all well, and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is
Speaker 1: an iHeartRadio production. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.