One Pair To Rule Them All: Why Monster Video 3D Glasses Will Help Unify TVs
From the World Cup to Panasonic's impressive TVs, 3D tech now has the delivery model as well as the content. However, the deliverers are doing the proprietary dance: Panasonic, Toshiba and other manufacturers are insuring that their televisions only do 3D with their glasses. Monster Vision actually has a slightly less expensive solution that could push corporations into a standard.
Their Vision Max 3D glasses promise universal compatibility on all 3D TVs -- which is fantastic -- but you'll need to use Monster's base station to make said TVs work with the glasses.The glasses aren't cheap at all: It is $790 for a family of four. The principle, however, is rock solid and will be a popular alternative to riskier living room investments. Here's why:$250 buys you a base station (transmitting shutter sync information over 2.4GHz) and one pair of glasses. $180 buys you an extra pair of glasses.
- The 3D winners are still unclear: Nearly every major TV manufacturer is diving into 3D units, most of which require proprietary glasses. As previously noted, the new Panasonic Viera 3D TV sets with four glasses would run more than $3,000. The Monster Vision package would be cheaper to adapt than having to reinvest in a TV and new glasses when the Viera or its competitors update their products -- especially while many rise out of the recession.
- Universal platforms are on the rise: Consumers are more interested in technology adapting to them than the other way around. An excellent example is the video game service OnLive that lets major titles from Nintendo (NYTDO) Wii, Sony (SNE) PlayStation 3 and Microsoft (MSFT) XBox 360 be played on the PC and other mobile platforms. Monster Video's plan falls into this trend.
Photo courtesy of Lucas Hoyas.
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