Maybe you have a super awesome 240Hz LCD. Technically, its refresh rate should probably support new FHD3D (full 3D HD) Blu-ray signals. But it can’t because of this diagram (by HDGuru3D)—how the information is sent to your television.
It’s called over/under, and rather than a single 1920×1080 frame beaming from your Blu-ray player to your TV, it’s a double stack, a 1920×2205 image (representing left eye and right eye frames along with some active blanking for audio and extra info). The signal fires at a bitrate of 6.75Gbps.
Bottom line, the fancy TV in your house now was never designed to accommodate a 1920×2205 image.
That FHD3D bitrate is an important point, however, because while many of us have claimed HDMI 1.4 is needed for FHD3D, that’s not completely true. HDMI 1.3 and 1.4 both have throughputs of 10.2Gbps. And because of this basic rule of bandwidth, the smartest HDMI 1.3 devices, those using software instead of systems on a chip (like the PS3) will be able to make the FHD3D transition.
As Gary Merson from HDGuru put it to us, “There is nothing inherent in HDMI 1.3 that would prohibit FHD3D signals from passing through.”
I’m not going to rewrite his entire article here. But if you’re a home theater enthusiast, I’d strongly recommend his walkthrough of 3D tech, the new HDMI 1.4 standard and what it will mean to differing devices (and even the cords!) in your system. Because being a couch potato just got a lot more complicated. [HDGuru]
