With recent announcements from ESPN and others about abandoning-or at least tabling-3D content, the idea of such a service gave me pause. The biggest problem there, however, is the need for on-board hardware that can decode the processor-intense Hi-Fi 3D format. And when I asked about expanding beyond TV, the company said it was looking at the likes of Roku, PlayStation, and Xbox as logical extensions. But the company just signed a deal with Panasonic to bring 3DGo to its 3DTVs, and is also talking with Samsung (which means I’ll have to wait a while to show it off to my kids). The biggest problem with the service right now is compatibility: As mentioned, it currently only runs as an app on Vizio TVs (and only in the U.S.). If your TV supports the service, it’s just like having Netflix or any other on-demand option that you use when you want. The benefit of a service like 3DGo is that you don’t need to buy a 3D Blu-ray player and expensive 3D movies (although if they’re meant for the kids, you’ll probably save money in the long run versus renting every time).
3D MOVIES FOR RENTAL MOVIE
To get the best results, the company even requests the raw left and right channels from movie studios (rather than the master file) to combine them properly and make sure frames match up. How? The company behind 3DGo, Sensio Technologies, has spent more than a decade developing 3D technologies, and its Hi-Fi 3D format is pretty darn efficient.
3D MOVIES FOR RENTAL FULL
That means 3DGo can deliver full resolution 3D in the same bandwidth as 2D-roughly 4 mbps to 6 mbps works. Instead of sending separate streams for the left and right eye, 3DGo transmits a single stream that gets decoded to stereoscopic 3D on the receiving end. New customers get a free movie when they sign up. The user interface is pretty basic-a 1.0 design, by the company’s own admission-but with a relatively small catalog to navigate through, that didn’t seem like a big problem right now.ģDGo movies are rental-based, at $6 to $8 a pop, and like other video-on-demand services, you can watch a movie as many times as you want within 24 hours. I couldn’t see any noticeable macroblocking or other problems common with motion and transitions on streaming content. Watching parts from several live-action and animated films, the quality of 3DGo’s streaming pretty evenly matched with demos of Blu-ray-based 3D content I’ve seen at CES and other places. I had a chance to go eyes-on with 3DGo during a private demo at San Francisco’s Wingtip Club, and was pretty impressed with what I saw using an M-Series Vizio TV, a pair of 3D glasses, and a fairly pedestrian Internet connection.