Sony's 3D Vision at CES 2010

source: hardwarezone.com
Turning Ideas into Real 3D

If you think about it, Las Vegas is the perfect illusion: turning the middle of a desert into a mirage that beckons to well-heeled punters is an impressive feat. Which is appropriate that this year's CES, held as always at Vegas, is becoming a 3D love-fest. The trick of bringing images to vivid, 3D life on the big screen is moving rapidly to the home. Avatar's success at the box office may be a contributing factor but whatever the reason, the big CE firms are jumping on it faster than we can say James Cameron.

Following LG's earlier press conference which involved lots of thin TVs, including a 3D ready model, Sony's turn in the evening further cemented the 3D CES impression. The media was given 3D glasses, with the opening sequence marked by a Jimi Hendrix performance, in 3D of course. Expect more to come from Sony as it revitalizes older content by making them 3D.

You can't miss Sony's new global brand message, Make.Believe, which is making its North American debut here and will be unified across all of Sony's many divisions.

The packed audience from the media putting on the RealD 3D glasses provided in order to enjoy the first 3D content of the evening - a Jimi Hendrix concert 'remastered' in 3D.

If that's not impressive enough, hey, what about a pop star to up the glamor quotient? Taylor Swift was brought out by CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, to talk and then to perform (without Kanye West to interrupt) before the media. Hovering in the background however, was Sony's 3D camera, which managed to capture the performance and '3Dify' it almost instantly, which was displayed on the screen behind Ms Swift in full 3D glory.

Chairman, CEO and President - Sir Howard Stringer certainly wears many hats at Sony and he's also here at CES to talk about Sony's grand vision for the future, one involving 3D, an unified platform spanning hardware, software and content services and of course, the many CE product lines that Sony is famous for.

A live performance from young pop star, Taylor Swift is converted to 3D right before our eyes. Notice that giant 3D camera hovering in the background? It's running live too and outputting the 3D result to the screen behind the singer.

What was to come from Sony was its blueprint for creating a 3D world. First up, 3D capable TVs of course and descending from above, was the new look for Sony's BRAVIA TV (the new HX, LX and NX series). A new monolithic design that gives it an appearance of a black slab, with a special mount that tilts it at six degrees off the vertical for a presumably better viewing angle. More importantly, Sony has pencilled in a model, the XBR-60LX900 which will come with integrated, full HD 3D capabilities, accompanied by two pairs of active shutter glasses, and two other models, the XBR-52HX900 and 55HX800, which are 3D capable but with the glasses and transmitter sold separately, making them optional. These three models will be available this summer.

The new monolithic look of Sony's refreshed BRAVIA TVs or 'Monolithic Design' as Sony terms it, was shown off by Stan Glasgow, Sony Electronics' President and COO.

This monolithic design motif extends to Sony's entire range of home theater products, including Blu-ray players. The better for it to blend in with that big TV for a clean, minimalistic look.

Sony knows too clearly that 3D is not just about the TVs. ESPN is doing 3D for the upcoming World Cup on the first ever 3D sports channel and Sony is producing the 3D Blu-ray for the event. Meanwhile, Sony is plunging headlong into the production aspect, with Discovery and IMAX brought in as partners for a planned 3D TV network. While we probably won't see this till 2011, Sony is laying the foundations.

It's a mad, mad, 3D world! Sony's conglomerate status means it's involved in every stage of the 3D lifecycle, from producing the 3D movies, both literally and thru its studios, to bringing it to your homes via the TVs and Blu-ray.

With its 3D cameras in wide use for producing 3D content, a movie arm that can be counted on to produce 3D movies and now going for a 3D TV network, it's an entire 3D ecosystem from Sony.

Sitting as we are back in the hotel, we can't help but wonder when and some say if, this future of 3D entertainment and gaming in the home will become the present and mainstream. Only recently have the prices of HDTVs fallen sufficiently low that the lower middle-class is able to afford them. In the U.S, with analog TV broadcasts done away with in June 2009, you would expect HDTVs to be more prevalent. But even then, a recent Nielsen report notes that there are around 47.4 million HDTVs in the U.S, which is close but still less than 50% adoption rate.

Are these 3D glasses truly the future of home entertainment or merely green-tinted ones?

While it may appear a bold gamble by Sony to dive into 3D so quickly, unlike HD, 3D is an optional feature on almost all of these BRAVIA TVs. The other qualities of Sony's bestselling BRAVIA TVs, from its engine to the intelligence and connectivity features, will certainly continue to attract buyers, especially with the new monolithic design.

But lest you think that 3D was all Sony did, click on the next page for other highlights.

Other Press Conference Highlights

The PlayStation 3 ended 2009 on a high, with sales reaching almost 4 million during the year-end holidays, an increase of 76% from the previous year. And there's more to come from the PlayStation Network, with Sony planning to increase its scope and content by allowing users to get their content from internet capable devices like TVs and even notebooks
. All this using a single ID. To handle this, a new company, Sony Network Entertainment, has been set up. Now if only the disparity in content between the U.S and Asia PSN can be resolved next, it would indeed be a perfect content distributor.

The PSN has grown quite a bit since its inception. Not only will it include more premium video content, it will be expanding its reach to internet capable BRAVIA TVs and Blu-ray players and even VAIO notebooks. It will also launch in more European countries.

Next, we touch briefly on some of the exciting new products shown at the press conference:

Let's not forget that besides the 3D craze, Sony does make lots of other CE products. And they have many handycam, digicam and of course notebooks at CES 2010.

One of the new VAIO series announced by Sony, the 13.1-inch Z series boasts SSD configurations powered by Core i3 and i5 processors. Switchable graphics ensure that it has both performance and power saving when you need them, making it quite the choice for the road warrior. It's available for pre-orders now starting from US$1900.

The new dash from Sony is what it calls a personal internet viewer. With a 7-inch touchscreen, it looks like a digital photo frame but is much more than that, with Wi-Fi included. It runs Chumby OS, (Linux based) and has more than 1000 applications and widgets available online. It's not battery powered however, limiting its portability to the home (or power socket). Available in April for US$199.

Is the Flip the model for the Bloggie? We don't know but this new HD digicam is aimed at the same social networking crowd who needs to get that shot uploaded to the whole wide world in the least possible time and hassle. Sony has a two Bloggie cameras available now, with this version (MHS-PM5) having a 270-degree swivel lens and costing US$170.

We'll be covering the new Sony products in-depth tomorrow with more pics, specifications and prices, so stay tuned