Great guide to 3D glasses
There is a big variety of different models and brands of 3D glasses on the market, which ones are the best? Which will work with my projector or 3D TV? Truly, choosing suitable glasses is not an easy task. Let’s divide glasses into two main categories. Passive and active.
Passive 3D glasses
Passive polarizing glasses can be based on a polarization technique or work as a color filter. If you have a set of 2 projectors with polarizing filters then you have to buy polarized glasses. But that’s too easy, right? This might end up in a situation where you will have a polarizing filter and polarizing glasses but the system will still refuse to work. This might be caused by several reasons:
- The orientation of your filters on projectors does not correspond with the orientation of the polarizing filters in glasses in the case of using linear polarizing filters.
- You are using an incompatible set of polarizing filters together. That means circular polarizing glasses with linear polarizing filters or vice-versa.
So, it’s very important that you know if you are using circular polarizing filters or linear polarizing filters. Passive glasses are available from a number of different manufacturers in a lot of styles. From cheap paper glasses to more complex lenses that can be attached to your diopter glasses.
Passive color filter glasses don’t rely on polarization. Very common, very cheap, and not plausible to use are anaglyph glasses. Anaglyph glasses cannot be taken into account for serious 3D viewing. Each company has its own color filter technique, therefore there are not any universal glasses. If you own an Omega system, then you will need omega glasses.
Active 3D glasses
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There are a lot of active glasses on the market. Which one to choose? First, it’s important to know whether you need 120Hz or 144Hz glasses. This will be written somewhere in the specs of your TV or projector. Of course, 144Hz are much better because of the faster refresh rate / less flicker. When we know what refresh rate we need, it’s time to choose. There are two main types of active 3D glasses.
- DLP-link
DLP-link glasses work only with DLP 3D projectors that support this technology. Once again you have to look into the specifications of your projector if it supports DLP-link. It doesn’t need any external emitters. The chip on the projector will send a visual signal in between the movie frames and glasses will synchronize using it. People are usually reporting that the 3D effect is not that great, synchronization not perfect, there might be a little ghosting or crosstalking. DLP-link glasses are pretty cheap starting from 20$.
- IR/RF
This means infrared emitter and radiofrequency synchronization. Both are very precise and perfectly synchronized. Infrared emitters work just like remote control of your TV using an infrared diode. Radio glasses work precisely like remote keys from your car. The infrared system has its downside, and that is that it relies on light. If the emitter gets blocked by something/somebody, your glasses might temporarily get out of sync. The radio system works great under all conditions and is the most recommended. Don’t forget that you will also need an RF emitter for your RF glasses.
Useful tip: Usually there are all models of supported projectors/TVs written in the description of each 3D glasses.
Active 3D glasses and batteries
The great advantage of passive glasses over active ones is their price and the fact that they don’t have to be charged. But how long will the battery an active glasses last? Is it really such a problem?
Batteries nowadays are performing much better than they used to in the past. Active glasses with RF technology often last up to 70 hours of watching, recharge time is then only 3,5 hours!
