User-Generated 3D Seen At CTIA as Driving 3D Smartphone, Tablet Market

The 3D era collided with the wireless world this week at CTIA in Orlando. LG Mobile Phones announced the Thrill 3D 4G smartphone, due in AT&T company-owned stores in the coming months, along with a 3D tablet that will ship this spring and run on T-Mobile’s network. The tablet requires glasses to view 3D content but the smartphone doesn’t. Consumers can capture, share and play 3D video in 720p on both devices, LG said.

LG dubbed the powerful handset a “superphone” due to its 1-GHz dual-core processor, 32 gigabytes of memory and dual five-megapixel stereoscopic 3D cameras. The 4.3-inch capacitive touch screen doubles as a 3D display for 3D gaming and video. The glasses-free solution is built on parallax-barrier technology, LG said. The phone outputs video through HDMI and wirelessly to DLNA-compatible devices, it said.

Sprint vaulted into 3D with the Android 2.3-based HTC EVO 3D smartphone with Qualcomm’s 1.2-GHz Snapdragon dual-core processor. In 3D mode, the phone uses dual 5-megapixel cameras to snap 3D stills and videos and displays them on a 4.3-inch capacitive QHD (960 x 540 pixel) touchscreen. Video capture resolution is 1080p in 2D and 720p in 3D, Sprint said, and videos can be output to a TV using HDMI or DLNA.

Masterimage will deliver 3D handheld and tablet displays to several mobile providers for fall introduction, Matt Liszt, vice president of marketing, told us. Masterimage announced Tuesday that Samsung Venture Investment has invested $15 million in the company, in a “validation” of its 3D mobile display technology. Liszt wouldn’t disclose how many suppliers will release Masterimage-source 3D displays but said there will be handsets and tablets. He wouldn’t say what the company expects its revenue mix to be as the cinema 3D market matures. “Both markets are growing,” he said.

Masterimage became the first company to market a commercial stereo 3D handset when it sold more than 300,000 units of the Woo to Hitachi in 2009, Liszt told us. Sales of the Woo withered without 3D content to support the launch, he said. In the past year, “the 3D ecosystem has evolved dramatically,” he said. The 3D content market will grow over the next 12-18 months, driven by self-generated videos, theatrical content, games and custom user interfaces, he said.

3D has been a “hand-me-down market,” Liszt said. A “perfect storm” of technology, content and market conditions -- including always-connected devices, always-on applications, interactivity and social media -- are creating a more nurturing environment for 3D, he said. “You're going to see a renaissance of 3D content creation,” he said.

Notwithstanding a slow start on the living room TV, 3D does interest mobile users, said Jim McGregor, an In-Stat analyst. “There is definitely interest, and it looks like the Nintendo 3DS will be leading the charge,” he told us. Ergonomics will be key to 3D’s success in smaller products, McGregor said. Users will likely “shun mobile devices that require glasses,” he said. “Glasses are just one more thing to carry, drop, break, or lose,” and they add cost.

Quality will also help determine 3D’s success in mobile. Poorly converted 3D content and challenges in capturing live 3D can degrade the viewing experience in a way that’s particularly noticeable on small screens, McGregor noted. “Most devices can capture 3D content effectively, but simultaneously viewing it on smaller screens can be difficult,” he said. In-Stat forecasts that 29.3 million 3D smartphones and 10.5 million 3D tablets will ship in 2014, he said.

Distribution of the devices probably will broaden beyond current mobile channels. Phones and tablets with 3D, HD video resolution and HDMI outputs have technology chops that put them on par with other HD video sources. Pro Group specialty AV dealers are looking at tablets “as a potential area to expand into as a convergence category between the TV and computer,” David Workman, Pro Group executive director, told us. Specialty dealers view tablets as potential new business “because of the nature of the device and the way consumers drag in applications to view media,” he said. Apple has owned the category and has restricted distribution. “We'd all like to be in the tablet business, but we're kind of holding our breath and waiting until some of the competing products come to the marketplace,” Workman said.

Passive 3D technology in a tablet “is interesting for gaming and singular viewing,” Workman said. Inexpensive polarized glasses work well with a tablet, he said, as opposed to the $150 glasses required for active-shutter 3D TVs. Workman said the tablet could end up being used as much for 3D display as TV sets are. “I suspect that the 3D experience for most people will be as much individual as it will be group because not everybody wants to see everything in 3D,” he said. “It’s an occasional use feature.” Games will be popular on tablets “because the experience can envelop you quickly,” he said. Computer-generated graphics “lend themselves well to 3D."

Home Technology Specialists of America dealers won’t enter the mobile 3D market, despite a hint at its fall meeting that it might explore the smartphone market, executive director Richard Glikes told us. “We are abiding to the hedgehog theory and only doing what we do well,” he said.