8K & 3D – The long hard road.

One runner left

• It has been clear for several years now that the only 3D visual entertainment system that is going to work in the home environment is one without glasses.
• Even taking the successful 3D system in the cinema that uses cheap disposable glasses and using that in the home has failed to produce any traction at all.
• Going to the cinema is an event where the consumer is prepared to do things to maximise the experience that he is not prepared to do at home.
• The fact that he has also paid a premium for that experience provides further incentive.
• Work has been ongoing for years to crack the 3D TV / PC monitor / Tablet / Smartphone-without -glasses problem with the only technology that has any real prospect originating from Philips.
• Philips’ exit from this development spawned two companies, Dimenco and Stream TV Networks, whose IP is based on the same Philips foundation.
• The problem is that end-market demand for this technology remains unproven and it is only with 8K, that the technology becomes really eye-catching.
• This is because the technology uses a massive amount of pixels in the panel to create the 3D effect meaning that the more pixels that there are in the panel, the greater the 3D effect that can be created.
• This is why 3D and 8K go well together because for almost all intents and purposes telling the difference between a 2D 8K picture and a 2D 4K picture at a normal viewing distance is almost impossible (see here).
• The promise of 3D is to use 8m pixels to provide a 4K picture and the remaining 24m to create the 3D effect.
• Thus, a substantial difference between an 8K panel and a 4K panel can be discerned under normal usage.
• This is crucial for panel makers who desperately need to find a use case for 8K in order to keep pricing high enough to make a profit.
• This is why there is significant interest in the technology from panel and device makers despite the fact that the end market size remains uncertain.
• Because of this, both companies have had a difficult few years but it now looks as if Dimenco is out of contention.
• This is because its current owner Kangde Xin Composite Material Corp (KDX) is currently at the centre of an accounting scandal where its controlling shareholder appears to have embezzled RMB53.1bn (see here) resulting in the company defaulting on its obligations in January 2019 (see here).
• For some reason, its auditor failed to spot the irregularity allowing the fraud to persist for a few years before coming to light.
• The net result is that of all the attempts at cracking the 3D-images-without-glasses problem, there is now only one game in town with a working and viable solution.
• Hence, if 3D is going to make a comeback into the living room as well as be present on smartphones, tablets and other displays, it looks almost certain that it will be Stream TV Networks that provides the solution.
• Content is not a huge problem as the technology can convert 2D content to 3D in real-time but the best effect is produced when content shot or created in 3D is used.
• Games also work well as most console-quality games are already produced in a 3D environment by default.
• I suspect that there will also be substantial interest for smartphones as 3D could provide some differentiation in Android handsets which is harder and harder to find.
• Whether or not consumers will be wowed and be willing to pay up for 3D remains to be seen but I have seen the image quality and it is very impressive.
• The industry will need to get devices into the hands of users and see what they think of them to really find out what demand will be.