Glasses-less 3D TV by Xmas? Not likely, says 3D TV exec

Toshiba may be gearing up to release a no-specs 3D TV in Japan by the end of the year, but Philips' 3D TV development partner reckons we will have to wait longer. It doesn't reckon any vendor will have one out before 2013.

So says, Maarten Tobias, CEO of Dimenco, a firm founded by four former Philips people and which is now handling Philips' specs-less 3D TV development work.

Tobias told website Broadcast TV News it will be "three to five years" before glasses-free 3D TVs will be released commercially. Naturally, he expects Philips to be the first manufacturer to do so.

Whatever, that prediction puts the debut of such screens sometime between 2013 and 2015.

Specs-less 3D TVs are not new and have been demo'd by various companies - Philips and LG, in particular - for some years. The problem is working out how to make them cheaply enough.

At the IFA show this week, all the major manufacturers are pushing 3D hard, clearly viewing the technology as a way to sell us all lots more kit. The snag: there's no real evidence that punters actually want it, and are certainly not prepared to pay a premium to watch content - what little there is - in 3D.

Perhaps, then, active-shutter and passive 3D glasses and the technology behind them are merely a stepping stone to stereoscopic 3D you can view with the naked eye.

And Toshiba's Christmas 2010 release plan? Well that's what Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun claimed. Toshiba itself has only admitted it's working on the technology. ®