Get ready for 3DTV?

The World Cup proved what an incredible experience 3DTV can offer.

People who watched the football on new 3D televisions felt like they were right there, with the ball appearing to fly right out of the screen.

Now that 3D TVs are available to buy, everyone can enjoy the experience.

Reach for the Sky

If the football wasn’t enough to capture your imagination, Hollywood has created fantastic 3D films, such as the mind-blowing Avatar.

Plus, Sky World customers with the HD Pack will receive Sky 3D at no extra cost and other broadcasters are preparing their own services.

Meanwhile, if you don’t have Sky, you can enjoy 3D programmes through a Blu-ray player.

Even when the programmes you love weren’t originally created for 3D, you can still watch them in three dimensions thanks to clever upscaling 3D TV technology.

It’ll feel like the characters are walking right into your living room…

How does 3D TV work?

The secret is high-tech, stereoscopically offset 3D glasses.

While 3D cinema systems use polarised lenses in their plastic glasses to help create the 3D effect, 3D TVs use a much more serious – and effective – system.

When you buy a 3D TV you’ll also receive glasses with active shutter LCD lenses.

3D works stereoscopically, with one image captured for the left eye and another for the right.

The offset between the two images gives the illusion of 3D.

Per second, 3D TVs display 120 images for the right eye, and another 120 images for the left eye.

The shutters in the 3D lenses operate in sync with the screen, ensuring that each eye sees the image it’s intended to.

The battery-powered glasses are slightly heavier than 3D glasses from the cinema and fit more closely to your head, but create the 3D effect much more effectively.

In your living room

Get a 3D television and the action will step out of the screen and into your home…

1. 3D TV

Choose a 3D TV model and it will create offset stereoscopic images for both your right and left eye on the high definition screen. This creates the 3D illusion.

2. Glasses

The 3D glasses that come with your set have LCD screens in their lenses that block your right eye when a left eye image is showing, and vice versa. This way you don’t see the two offset images.

3. The action

Your brain accepts the illusion of depth. Thanks to the two offset images, characters can dance into your living room, and the explosive action seems all the more real as it lands in your lap.