Glasses-free 3D TV sales stumble
Demand half of what Toshiba hoped for
Toshiba's attempt to interest us all in 3D TVs that don't require special glasses has fallen flat. The company sold fewer than half the sets it expected it would in the first month of sales, a senior executive has revealed.
Masaaki Osumi, president of Toshiba's Visual Products Company, revealed the news in an interview last week, admitting the company sold just 500 of the 20in models and even fewer of the 12in ones, Bloomberg reports.
Toshiba's Regza 20GL1 (left) and 12GL1
The glasses-free sets are only on sale in Japan where bigger isn't usually better, though World+Dog tends to think so when televisions are concerned. Considering the 20in Regza 20GL1 went on sale for ¥240,000 (£1800), the figures are hardly surprising.
Toshiba did show off 56in and 65in prototype 3DTVs at CES last month, and Osumi said large-screen models should be available to consumers by the latter half of 2011. ®
COMMENTS
I say
I'm sure Toshiba has succeeded in interesting lots of people with this tech, but turning the interest into sales requires a realistic price point. Considering that there isn't much 3D material around, these sets will primarily be used to watch 2D material, so basically you're being asked to pay £1800 for what most of the time is an ordinary 20" TV. Seems a little steep to me.
Moreover, they use the same parallax barrier technology that's been around for a few years, and have the same problems; you have to park your head in a small sweet spot if you want to see the 3D effect at all, so you're not going to get your whole family watching a movie in 3D on these things.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/televisions/toshiba-glasses-free-3d-tvs-explained-50002115/
3D needs to be heavily taxed
Let's face it, if you're the person buying one of these screen, you're probably a company selling 3D shit and want something to display it on.
On the other hand, if you're an at home consumer buying a 3D TV (any flavor) then in reality, you're probably replacing an earlier TV that you bought. In fact that earlier screen you bought probably is still quite new, remember people used to keep their TVs for 10 years.
3D is simply a gimmick to sell more screens. Selling 3D when the tech sucks as bad as it does now is just a way to sell a 3D screen to an early adopter who will buy a good one when they come around.
Nearly the entire western world "upgraded" their CRTs to LCD over the past 5-10 years. 99% of those screens are still perfectly good. I know my daughter is using out 10 year old 22" screen in her bedroom and that was cheap samsung crap and it still works just fine.
3D is a gimmick to get people to rush out and replace perfectly good televisions with a new television which doesn't really offer them anything but eye strain.
Come on, let's face it, you finally got a full HD screen. Bluray discs finally started encoding with decent quality. Television stations are now sending a borderline shitty HD signal that at least looks a little better than DVD. You finally got a clear picture on your big screen... at least clearer than you had before on your old ass CRT or rear projection screen. Now, you're going to rush out an get a 3D screen which severely degrades the perceived image quality of the picture?
The governments need to tax the shit out of this technology because if the technology every does catch on, people are going to be rushing to the junk yards with 3-5 year old 40-46" LCD screens to make room for their fancy new 22" 3D auto-stereoscopic screens. It's stupid, it's wasteful and it's wrong.
3D in the movies, while I despise it is at least understandable. But in the home? Give it 10 more years, it's just not time to throw away another gazillion TVs so that Sony and Toshiba can line their pockets a little better.
Getting quieter
You notice that there's a lot less hype over 3D lately? I think more than a few of the manufacturers and retailers saw the dismal pre-Christmas sales and realized that it's nowhere near as huge as they predicted (hoped?) it would be.
Now if they can just start releasing things in a 2D version for theatres again, I might actually go back to the movies once in a while.
Seen a good 3D tele that didnt needs glasses years ago...
Saw a 42" set by Philips called WOW 3D almost two years ago. It was actually very good when it displayed real 3D pictures rather than post-process pictures.
I dont know whats happened to them.
http://www.business-sites.philips.com/sites/philipsbs/3dsolutions/pressarea/pressreleases/philips_introduces_new_42_3d_lcd_display_for_stunning_3d_experience.page
