DDD announces 2D-to-3D capabilities for mobile phones
You’ve seen the commercial from Sprint showing off the new HTC EVO 3D phone capturing a family ping pong game. AT&T has 
the LG 3D Thrill debuting soon. Autostereoscopic 3D for the small form factor of the smartphone is here (And here and here, where MobilizedTV wrote about 3D and smartphones over the years.)
Now DDD, the company that puts the 2D-to-3D conversion software into all of Samsung‘s 3D TV receivers, upped the ante. The company just announced their first smartphone deal with an as-of-yet-to-be-named manufacturer, whose 3D phones will not only enable consumers to shoot 3D content but to consume 2D content in 3D…and to watch the converted 3D content on their TV sets. Read the full press release here.
How’s it done? MobilizedTV had a chance to speak with DDD chief executive Chris Yewdall about DDD’s 3D smartphone technology and the implications for content creators. And, by the way, for those new to 3D, “autostereoscopic” means that you can see the 3D effect on the screen without the need for glasses.
Tell us about your smartphone deal.
Sprint HTC EVO 3D smartphone
We haven’t named the manufacturers but they’re shipping an Android-based, autostereoscopic phone very shortly into major markets in Asia, Europe and the U.S. with our 2D-to-3D conversion software in it. We worked with Texas Instruments‘ OMAP 4 platform, which includes applications processors, a comprehensive software suite and power management technology. We showed this at the Mobile World Conference in Barcelona, delivered it to our first customer in May and it went into production last month.
We’re announcing this tomorrow morning to our shareholders through the London stock exchange. As soon as we have permission to name them, we’ll announce the manufacturer.
What do these new 3D smartphones enable consumers to do? What will the phone enabled with your software add to the mix?
The latest 3D smartphones from HTC and LG have two cameras built in so you can capture 3D content using the phone itself. When you add our application, it means you can stream 2D content to the phone and turn it into 3D in real time. Suddenly everything you’ve got and everything you can get from places like YouTube can be watched in 3D. You can download movie trailers to 2D films and watch them in 3D.
These latest Android processors are very powerful. The latest one plays 720P HD and, with an HDMI cable, can play content from the smartphone on the TV set. I think people will be doing this. The big game changer will the wireless display technology, so you won’t have to hook the phone to the TV with an HDMI cable. When it’s wireless, it’ll be easy to transfer the tablet or phone content straight onto the TV. That’s one of the series of stepping stones that will make this experience ubiquitous.
In order to watch 2D-to-3D converted material sourced on my smartphone on my TV set, do I need a 3D-capable TV?
Yes, you need a 3D-capable TV. The phones coming out have a high-quality 4-inch screen that’s autostereoopic. Once you get beyond the single one-on-one experience, and put it on TV, you have to use glasses. Samsung, LG and Vizio TVs all use different types of glasses. The phone can communicate with any of those systems using the 3D HDMI standard. The Texas Instruments technology supports that 3D extension of HDMI so the phone can communicate to the TV.
Can you tell us which carrier will have the phone with your technology embedded?
Sorry, no. We work with the manufacturer’s R&D dept so we never know which carrier is going to get it. But it is a carrier that doesn’t have a 3D phone on the market yet.
What are you working on now? Wireless connectivity?
Wireless connection is something that DDD will take advantage of when it becomes commercially available. Our next step with the technology is to get the video to 1080P, full HD and put it straight onto your TV from the smartphone. What we’re talking about here is the ability to output full HD from the handsets to 1080P TV sets, through the Android processor, whether it’s Texas Instruments or anyone else’s technology.
What are the implications for content creators who will be able to get their hands on smartphones with your 2D-to-3D conversion software?
I think for the content creator, the biggest challenge in 3D has been the complexity of making the content. From the top of the food chain with special events to content that can be downloaded from YouTube, 3D is limited by this small pool of content compared to what’s available in 2D. Having phones with two cameras in them puts the content creation in the hands of the consumer. When you look at the drivers behind very popular content sites like YouTube or even MySpace and Facebook with lots of picture and video content…now we’ve got camera technology in 3D in a mobile phone and fairly sophisticated processors that can be connected to your YouTube account or your TV.
It’s a much simpler infrastructure for people to create their own 3D content. Now you don’t need a sophisticated camcorder. You can take your phone out of your pocket and just start shooting. You can’t capture 1080P yet, but most of the material we see at 720P, the quality is there even at that resolution. A High Def 3D cameras sitting in your smartphone is a pretty big advance for the smartphone maket.
Tags: 2D-to-3D conversion, 3D smartphones, Android-based processors, autostereoscoipic 3D, Chris Yewdall, DDD, LG 3D Thrill, Mobile World Congress, MobilizedTV, Sprint HTC EVO 3D, wireless display
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 13th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Content, Devices, Home Feature.
