NVIDIA picked its GeForce LAN 6 tourney to unveil the second generation of its 3D glasses hardware. 3D Vision 2 helps cure a common weakness of 3D by producing a twice as bright picture and improving the color saturation over traditionally washed out 3D video. The lenses are also 20 percent larger, immersing the gamer more in the image, and are made of softer materials that fit better with headphones.
A companion implementation, 3D LightBoost, touches on the displays themselves: they themselves put out a twice as bright 3D image with more color accuracy. The brighter, updated picture has the side benefit of creating more ambient lighting while cutting back on ghosting pixels.
ASUS is launching the first 3D LightBoost display in the VG278H. The 27-inch, 1080p panel has both the brighter 3D as well as fast updating, both through the 120Hz refresh rate it needs for 3D and a short 2ms pixel response time. It takes 3D both through a dual-link DVI input and an HDMI 1.4 input built from the start for 3D.
A 3D Vision 2 glasses kit will ship later this month for $149 with both the glasses and the infrared transmitter needed for the wireless signal. Extra glasses will cost $99. The VG278H is due towards the end of the month for $699 and has a pair of the 3D Vision 2 glasses bundled in the box.
3D LightBoost is also expected to come to Acer and BenQ displays, and several existing notebooks from Toshiba already support it, such as the Satellite P770 series and the Qosmio X770 series.
