LG Begins Production of New 3D Panels

A model wearing shutter glasses watches a full HD 3D monitor panel developed by LG Display, Thursday. LG will roll out more 3D-enabled flat-screens at a time when major TV and PC makers are shifting their panel focus to 3D from the current 2D. / Courtesy of LG Display

By Kim Yoo-chul, The Korea Times

LG Display, the world's second-biggest producer of LCD panels, has started mass production of what the company claims is the world's first 3D full high-definition (HD) panel.

"We've started shipping the panels to a global PC manufacturer," Claire Ohm, a company spokeswoman, said Thursday.
The official, however, declined to give further specific financial details such as the deal volume or LG's next targets for the panels.

LG said the new product was a 23-inch 3D monitor LCD panel for use with shutter glasses that delivers full HD resolution. The product offers picture quality that is almost twice as crisp as HD 3D displays currently available in the market.
"The 3D-enabled notebooks rely on a 3D film coating on the display, polarizing the glasses and bespoke software to display videos, games and photos in 3D," a company executive Davis Lee added.
Unique LCD technology works flawlessly as both 2D and 3D displays create a brilliant viewing experience.
Meanwhile, real-time 2D-to-3D playback convert technology enables the viewing of any video, DVD, pictures or game as a virtual 3D output, according to the spokeswoman.

3D Sweeps Panel Industry
The 3D flat-screen market is on rapid pace as leading television and PC makers are shifting their focus from 2D to 3D technologies.
One roadblock for 3D content has been the lack of an industry standard. But that's changing fast.
Active glasses use LCD material to block the light first to one eye and then to the other at very fast rates.
By synchronizing them to the content on the HDTV, 3DTV technology can present full-resolution images sequentially to the left and right eyes.

Other technologies can show 3D images with either passive glasses or no glasses at all, but are too expensive to manufacture or have significant viewing limitations.
Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest LCD TV maker, is planning to roll out more 3D-enabled flat-screen TVs and monitors, while Japan's Sony intends to expand its 3D-compatible hardware line-up to cover PCs, in addition to TVs and game consoles, officials said.

Taiwan's Acer has also launched 3D notebooks and a laptop with a multi-touch display.

In South Korea, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the nation's top broadcasting regulator, recently announced a plan to start a trial service for full HD 3D terrestrial broadcasting from the second half of 2010.
"Also the number of 3D movie screens is on the rise globally from 2,500 in 2008 to over 7,000 in 2009 and will grow to 15,000 by 2013," Morgan Stanley, a U.S.-based brokerage, said in a note to clients.

"Cost, the oddness of a family sitting together in their living room and health impacts are major concerns for the time being. But the market should see further launches of 3D-ready TVs and Blu-ray players as well. Price may not be that different from the current high-end 2D models," according to the brokerage.

DisplaySearch, a market research firm, suggests that about 120,000 3D TVs will be sold in the United States in 2010, the majority of them being large screen plasmas.

By 2013, more than 11 million are forecast to be sold, with LCD TVs capturing about 70 percent of the world's single biggest TV market.