Real D clip-on glasses

[Frank Cox]

After this afternoon's show was over a girl showed me her clip-on Real D glasses. She returned the packaged glasses I had given her and said, "I didn't know if this clip-on would work but it's great."

I never knew clip-on Real D glasses existed, but apparently they do.

They look just like any other clip-on sunglasses.

[Scotty Wright]

My dad had some LG clip-on’s from back when they made 3D tv’s. They work just fine. For some reason, I prefer wearing the plastic glasses over my prescription glasses. Slightly less noticeable on the bridge of my nose maybe. It’s been a minute since I tried the clip-on’s.

[Frank Angel]

In the days when the industry assumed 3D movies were going to be as common as CinemaScope was when Fox introduced it, It was a natural for sunglass manufacturers to jump on what they thought would surely become a very lucrative 3D glasses market. Passive 3D-capable TV manufacturers like LG offered their own line of polaroid 3D glasses in various styles and of course they worked fine in theatres for RealD-3D movies as well. The idea that you could have your own personal 3D glasses in the style you choose was a good marketing hook. I have a box of 3D passive glasses including clip-ons and the overly large kind designed to fit comfortably over prescription glasses. Alas, we know what happened to the 3D process.

I am waiting with bated breath to see if the latest AVATAR release will be released on DVD in 3D.

[Marcel Birgelen]

About 10 years ago, when many shows were still forcibly only shown in 3D, I had a bunch of "professional" circular polarized glasses that worked with RealD and other circular polarization formats. The polarizer glasses were way better at separating left and right AND they blocked much more stray light. I know Polaroid among others, also sold clip-on 3D glasses back then.

I also own a single pair of very limited Infitec glasses that work with most of the legacy xenon Dolby 3D installs, most of which have been gone by now. It doesn't work with modern 6P laser setups like Dolby Cinema. Those glasses are way bigger than the normal Dolby3D glasses and have far less of the "glare" effect in the corners of the image. I got those glasses at a trade show were they gave me a demo of their 3D system, they were not for sale for the general public.

[Frank Cox]

Real D has a website that I log into every Monday morning to report my current inventory of glasses. So-many Adult glasses, so-many Child glasses.

Today there's a new line: So-many Clip-on glasses.

So Real D must now have clip-on glasses available too. I've never seen them, there's just this new line on their form.

[Harold Hallikainen]

Is there a standard as to which polarization goes to which eye? Going way back to red/blue 3D, was there a standard as to which color went to which eye? There's a Canadian 3D system that I think is largely used in theme parks. It uses linear polarization. They pointed out that the USL/QSC/MIT CCR-100 display was visible in only one eye when wearing their glasses. But the display is OLED, not LCD, so why is there a polarizer? It turns out that the OLED display has a polarizer on it to reduce reflections off the display surface. With the polarizer film on the display, the unlit display looks black. If you peel the film off, the screen looks silver. But, in a dark theater, the reflective display surface was not an issue.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I'm not aware of any official standard, but it looks like RealD, XpanD, MasterImage et all have chosen the same circular polarization "flavor" for left and right, so their (passive) glasses are practically interchangeable. I guess it was more a case of "copy the leader". Most attraction use horizontal/vertical polarized glasses, much like IMAX, with the exception of their GT Laser screens (which use infinitec). As an attraction with 3D, a noticeable exception is "Star Tours v2", which switched from 70mm to 2k digital projection using circular polarization. I guess it helps against cross-talk whenever you get your head turned around due to the simulator impact on your body...

[Gordon McLeod]

Real D also suyppied the glasses for the technicolour 3d film system as well

[Mike Blakesley]

Frank, how do you distribute 3-D showtimes among your shows? Do you show a 3-D movie in that format all the time, alternate, or what?

We had Dolby 3-D for years, but when we switched to the laser projector we didn't buy that option, so now we're 2-D only.

[Frank Cox]

If a movie is 3d then I just play that one.

[Harold Hallikainen]

We only go see 2D versions of movies, though 3D ones are few and far between, so our 2D choice works well.

[Marcel Birgelen]

I tend to avoid 3D presentations and about 10 years ago, in the "heydays" of digital 3D, it was sometimes hard to do so, as some locations wouldn't run 2D versions or only at very unfavorable times or in their smallest auditoriums.

Times have mostly changed. First of all, the times were almost every release needed to have a "3D version" seems to be over, also 2D presentations of 3D features are now available at "normal" showtimes too. The very few exceptions seem to be premium formats like digital IMAX, that clearly reserve the best showtimes for 3D-only presentations.

The last movie I was compelled to watch in 3D was Avatar 2... I didn't even bother anymore with Avatar 3.

For me, stereoscopic 3D will remain a gimmick for theme park rides, unless we eventually develop a technology that works flawlessly, without glasses and eyestrain.

[Frank Angel]

I tend to avoid movies with 3D, immersive multi-channel sound, and only go to theatres that run titles in mono sound.

[Mike Blakesley]

Those are probably few and far between especially the mono sound part!

[Frank Angel]

That was old man curmudgeon sarcasm, Mike!