LG passive 3d vs Samsung active 3d...a small showdown.

[Dirac]

At last I had a chance to watch the LG passive 3d yesterday at bajaj electronics when I went there to buy Galaxy Note 2.
Made comparision with active 3d of Samsung series 8.
Two of my colleagues were present with me who dont have a flat panel yet.
First we played the demo videos on samsung led. The experience was very good.The glasses were light.For charging the glasses the samsung guy(it seems this guy was trained by Samsung.The answers he was giving to my questions suggested to me that he was aware and knowledge about the technologies very well!) was touching the glasses to the display itself. I dint understand that and did not ask about it though.
One of my colleague expressed that light strain was being caused to his eyes.But this was not considerable.
Then we moved to I think 95 series of LG to watch the demo video.
We put on the passive glasses.
The very first thing that my colleagues complained was that why the picture is not as clear/detailed as that of samsung.The LG sales guy said that he did not have a good video like the samsung. I was wondering why a good demo disk as he claimed was not there.

The next thing was that the 3d effect was enjoyable in only the sense that somebody points a long stick at you while the image is not in motion, you feel little excited.
Thats it. Soon me and my colleagues felt that the picture lacked clarity and depth than that of Samsung.
We unanimously agreed that Active 3d is superior to passive 3d.

Then I started to talk to the Samsung expert about passive 3d. What he was saying was this.

1) Active 3d is definetly superior to passive 3d because the TV and glasses are electronically synced and separate images are created and projected that contain all the picture elements of the full hd image. There is no loss of contrast/color information in the projected image.

2) The passive 3d of LG has no way of sending all the picture info as the glasses and TV are not synced. The function of producing the 3d image and PQ is left to the brain to process.

3) Passive 3d of LG is different from the ones we see in theaters.

4) Passive 3d becomes weak in dark surroundings. It needs ambient light. This is the basic difference between 3d in theaters.

My conclusion is this. Unless something flies at you, there is no real sense of depth in the picture of LG passive 3d.

 

[nSinghal]

.For charging the glasses the samsung guy(it seems this guy was trained by Samsung.

He wasn't charging the glasses there. He was pairing them with that specific tv. Samsung glasses are bluetooth enabled and since they have a lot of TVs in the showroom, it sometimes becomes inevitable to put the glasses clost to the tv so it doesn't sync with some other tv by mistake. I'm using the same glasses with my epson projector and there's never a need to put them close to the PJ for pairing.

Then we moved to I think 95 series of LG to watch the demo video.
We put on the passive glasses.
The very first thing that my colleagues complained was that why the picture is not as clear/detailed as that of samsung.The LG sales guy said that he did not have a good video like the samsung. I was wondering why a good demo disk as he claimed was not there.

The next thing was that the 3d effect was enjoyable in only the sense that somebody points a long stick at you while the image is not in motion, you feel little excited.
Thats it. Soon me and my colleagues felt that the picture lacked clarity and depth than that of Samsung.
We unanimously agreed that Active 3d is superior to passive 3d.

Then I started to talk to the Samsung expert about passive 3d. What he was saying was this.

1) Active 3d is definetly superior to passive 3d because the TV and glasses are electronically synced and separate images are created and projected that contain all the picture elements of the full hd image. There is no loss of contrast/color information in the projected image.

2) The passive 3d of LG has no way of sending all the picture info as the glasses and TV are not synced. The function of producing the 3d image and PQ is left to the brain to process.

3) Passive 3d of LG is different from the ones we see in theaters.

4) Passive 3d becomes weak in dark surroundings. It needs ambient light. This is the basic difference between 3d in theaters.

My conclusion is this. Unless something flies at you, there is no real sense of depth in the picture of LG passive 3d.

Passive 3d works at half HD resolution (limitations of the technology) compared to active 3D which depending on the content, can utilise full HD resolution. So yeah, it's going to be be a little less detailed than active. Active 3D on the other hand will lose upto 50% brightness and color/contrast will be affected a bit mor than passive. But the tv makes up for it by increasing the brightness/color/contrast when ever you activate 3D.

As far as as comfort and 3d effect is concerned, I've personally found passive glasses to be more comfortable and (slightly) less fatiguing whereas active ones to have more significant 3D effect. But in the end, both are as bad as each other. Can't imagine usin either of these for more than a couple of hours. Both give me enough headaches to not bother with 3d movies more than once every other week. Ymmv

 

[Dirac]

BTW something else.

One of my colleague was saying that passive 3d glasses gave him more strain!!!

One more thing is that my colleagues felt that except for the stick in the face scene, samsung produced effects that were closer to ther face than LG.

 

[lake1988]

At last I had a chance to watch the LG passive 3d yesterday at bajaj electronics when I went there to buy Galaxy Note 2.
Made comparision with active 3d of Samsung series 8.
Two of my colleagues were present with me who dont have a flat panel yet.
First we played the demo videos on samsung led. The experience was very good.The glasses were light.For charging the glasses the samsung guy(it seems this guy was trained by Samsung.The answers he was giving to my questions suggested to me that he was aware and knowledge about the technologies very well!) was touching the glasses to the display itself. I dint understand that and did not ask about it though.
One of my colleague expressed that light strain was being caused to his eyes.But this was not considerable.
Then we moved to I think 95 series of LG to watch the demo video.
We put on the passive glasses.
The very first thing that my colleagues complained was that why the picture is not as clear/detailed as that of samsung.The LG sales guy said that he did not have a good video like the samsung. I was wondering why a good demo disk as he claimed was not there.

The next thing was that the 3d effect was enjoyable in only the sense that somebody points a long stick at you while the image is not in motion, you feel little excited.
Thats it. Soon me and my colleagues felt that the picture lacked clarity and depth than that of Samsung.
We unanimously agreed that Active 3d is superior to passive 3d.

Then I started to talk to the Samsung expert about passive 3d. What he was saying was this.

1) Active 3d is definetly superior to passive 3d because the TV and glasses are electronically synced and separate images are created and projected that contain all the picture elements of the full hd image. There is no loss of contrast/color information in the projected image.

2) The passive 3d of LG has no way of sending all the picture info as the glasses and TV are not synced. The function of producing the 3d image and PQ is left to the brain to process.

3) Passive 3d of LG is different from the ones we see in theaters.

4) Passive 3d becomes weak in dark surroundings. It needs ambient light. This is the basic difference between 3d in theaters.

My conclusion is this. Unless something flies at you, there is no real sense of depth in the picture of LG passive 3d.

Felt the same thing at a demo last November checking HX850, Samsung series 8 with Lg cinema 3d tv. Best part is HX850 3d pic quality was as good as 2d pic quality...no brightness, contrast or color lost.

 

[sammydude]

My friend who owns a LG Passive 3D set came over to my house to check out my Samsung PS518000 Active 3D set. He said that popout was more in LG, but he felt that Samsung Active 3D had good depth and that there was good balance between the depth and popout. Depth and popout not trying to outdo each other.
I also feel that Samsung Plasma Active 3D is far better than Panasonic Plasma Active 3D. I read lot of reviews for UT50 crosstalk issues. That's why settled for Samsung since I was keen on 3D. Guess Panasonic is content with their exceptional 2D picture quality

 

[Dirac]

I also got the opportunity to see the LG ultra hd set, think 84 inches.
Very very interesting.:licklips:

 

[nSinghal]

I also got the opportunity to see the LG ultra hd set, think 84 inches.
Very very interesting.:licklips:

I think there's a typo in your post. Don't you mean "Very very expensive"?

 

[Dirac]

True. But LG has the uncanny Knack of quickly Making it more affordable before Sony can do it.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk 2

 

[aakashr]

passive 3D will cause less eye fatigue and more comfortable for long hours of continous 3D viewing but I feel that is the only advantage over active 3D. In all other areas active 3D would score over passive 3D. Overall when you look at performance you look at 3D + 2D not just 3D, so overall I would go with Samsung. How many of us would ONLY buy a tv for 3D???

 

[Indian11]

My friend who owns a LG Passive 3D set came over to my house to check out my Samsung PS518000 Active 3D set. He said that popout was more in LG, but he felt that Samsung Active 3D had good depth and that there was good balance between the depth and popout. Depth and popout not trying to outdo each other.
I also feel that Samsung Plasma Active 3D is far better than Panasonic Plasma Active 3D. I read lot of reviews for UT50 crosstalk issues. That's why settled for Samsung since I was keen on 3D. Guess Panasonic is content with their exceptional 2D picture quality

Well, I would like to contradict on your post here...I am having a 55" lm8600 from quite sometime and I would say that my experience is just opposite what you said here...the 3d depth has been just upto the mark till date.
And you are saying that samsung is better than panasonic plasma :lol:

 

[Indian11]

I think there's a typo in your post. Don't you mean "Very very expensive"?

lolzzz....either it be the lg ultra hdtv or the sony one,,,,both are expensive.

 

[naveenjn]

Do the 3D popout and depth feel better on Samsung due to any special hardware or software feature of the Series 8 in particular or is it generally better on Active 3D? I am also considering a 3D TV but my budget doesn't allow me to go for Series 8; I am looking at Series 6 (UA40EH6030). I was wondering if I will get the same quality effect as you mentioned about Series 8.

 

[madhur45]

Then we moved to I think 95 series of LG to watch the demo video.
We put on the passive glasses.
The very first thing that my colleagues complained was that why the picture is not as clear/detailed as that of samsung.The LG sales guy said that he did not have a good video like the samsung. I was wondering why a good demo disk as he claimed was not there.

Thats it. Soon me and my colleagues felt that the picture lacked clarity and depth than that of Samsung.
We unanimously agreed that Active 3d is superior to passive 3d.

First of all thanks for such a detailed hands-on review about Samsung and LG 3D technologies. And secondly the information that Samsung guy had shared with you somehow is not acceptable for me Ill brief you about everything below but to honest in either way Im not saying that Samsung active 3D tech is not up to the mark, Im just trying to elaborate the logical facts nothing else.

For 3d depth Im also wondering why they dont have the highest quality video in the store at least for demo purpose; it was supposed to be there. Id recommend to clarify your doubt by visiting a known electronics store next time and go for similar demos once again to judge the 3d depth control on LG 3d TV. IMO the 3d depth on LG 3D TVs is decent enough.

Active 3d is definitely superior to passive 3d because the TV and glasses are electronically synced and separate images are created and projected that contain all the picture elements of the full hd image. There is no loss of contrast/color information in the projected image.

Technically speaking undeniably its true that the active 3d glasses are synced with 3d screens, but did that Samsung guy told you that due to this phenomenon (i.e. Sending separate images to individual eyes) creates flicker in the eyes. I believe no, but it's technically proving by various international tech certification agencies and considered as the biggest put down of active 3d technology.

The passive 3d of LG has no way of sending all the picture info as the glasses and TV are not synced. The function of producing the 3d image and PQ is left to the brain to process.

I do agree here that LG 3D TV glasses are not synced with the TV, but let me ask you have you bothered to know why so? Answer is because of technology change; they dont need to be in sync with the TV; their working pattern is totally different from active 3d glasses.

Furthermore, even for passive 3d technology Im not saying its a superior one, it has its own drawbacks but yeah comparitively passive 3D seems to have an edge over active 3D. For more details about contrast ratio, color production and technical significance in between the two visit this link: Active 3D vs. passive 3D: What's better? | TV and Home Theater - CNET Reviews

 

[madhur45]

He wasn't charging the glasses there. He was pairing them with that specific tv. Samsung glasses are bluetooth enabled and since they have a lot of TVs in the showroom, it sometimes becomes inevitable to put the glasses clost to the tv so it doesn't sync with some other tv by mistake. I'm using the same glasses with my epson projector and there's never a need to put them close to the PJ for pairing.

Passive 3d works at half HD resolution (limitations of the technology) compared to active 3D which depending on the content, can utilise full HD resolution. So yeah, it's going to be be a little less detailed than active. Active 3D on the other hand will lose upto 50% brightness and color/contrast will be affected a bit mor than passive. But the tv makes up for it by increasing the brightness/color/contrast when ever you activate 3D.

As far as as comfort and 3d effect is concerned, I've personally found passive glasses to be more comfortable and (slightly) less fatiguing whereas active ones to have more significant 3D effect. But in the end, both are as bad as each other. Can't imagine usin either of these for more than a couple of hours. Both give me enough headaches to not bother with 3d movies more than once every other week. Ymmv

Thats a sort of misconception we all are dealing with regarding passive 3d resolution over active 3d. While doing some search on the web regarding passive and active 3d resolution I found a quite relevant and informative link of Displaymate about the same. 3D TV Display Technology Shoot-Out
Go through this link thoroughly I am pretty sure youll have a different perception at the end about resolution and color production of these two 3d technologies.

 

[madhur45]

BTW something else.

One of my colleague was saying that passive 3d glasses gave him more strain!!!

Id say its a subjective thought they might have felt the strain but usually people dont feel so while watching passive 3d media. And of course for measuring the 3d effects we dont have any mechanical instrument which gives us logical results. However, people may even notice flicker in passive whereas, the majority says that in passive flicker is almost negligible as compared to active. So its quite a subjective terminology to describe either.

 

[just4kix]

This post is strictly restricted to 3D ...

It does not matter whether active 3D gives full resolution HD and passive 3D gives only half resolution. There is a lot of misconception here, however that is a different topic. If the viewer is not able to enjoy active 3D for whatever reason and is able to watch passive 3D with no issues, then even if the active 3D was being shown in 4K, it won't matter because the person is not able to watch and enjoy. I am in this camp. So for pure 3D reasons, I would prefer passive 3D anyday because it so much more enjoyable and bearable. On the other hand, some people do not feel the effects of flickering, cross-talk, and other such artificats of active 3D. These people can make informed decisions.

The talk about "glasses sending picture info to TV" is not correct. The TV sends sync info to the glasses and active shutter opens and closes according to the sync info. This can easily go "out of sync" creating ghosting, flickering, crosstalk, etc. Hence anything that does not require electronics to work should be preferable.

As far as low cost of passive 3D glasses is concerned, I can assure you that once again there is some misconception:

• While undeniably, the passive 3D glasses are cheaper, the difference is much reduced now. For instance LG passive 3D glasses cost Rs. 300-350 a pair but Samsung active 3D glasses are Rs. 650 a pair. Samsung glasses work very well with the new Universal RF 3D standard TVs - so in effect they will work with most TVs of today. There are 3rd party glasses that are still a notch cheaper than Samsung.
• How many times are you going to buy 3D glasses? They are not consumables. But if the active 3D glasses are not rechargeable (most cheaper ones incl. Samsungs' use a button cell), there is a recurring running cost of battery.
• The passive 3D TV is by itself more costly (LG vs. Samsung comparison) and hence the low cost of passive 3D glasses is offset by the base cost of the TV.

 

[ajay_kr]

My friend who owns a LG Passive 3D set came over to my house to check out my Samsung PS518000 Active 3D set. He said that popout was more in LG, but he felt that Samsung Active 3D had good depth and that there was good balance between the depth and popout. Depth and popout not trying to outdo each other.
I also feel that Samsung Plasma Active 3D is far better than Panasonic Plasma Active 3D. I read lot of reviews for UT50 crosstalk issues. That's why settled for Samsung since I was keen on 3D. Guess Panasonic is content with their exceptional 2D picture quality

Truly saying I have a doubt on what you said about Panasonic plasmas in comparison with the Samsung. Till date Panasonic is known as a world leader in their plasma, even after having LG passive sets in the market; Panny plasma PQ is still unbeatable.

 

[ajay_kr]

I also got the opportunity to see the LG ultra hd set, think 84 inches.
Very very interesting.:licklips:

Thats true LG 4k TV is just amazing! But down to its other side Ill go with what nSinghal said its "Very very expensive!

 

[etios]

I find LG passive 3D to be better, Sony/Panasonic may have slightly better 2D picture quality but if i was spending decent amount of time watching 3D movies etc then my choice will be LG with passive 3D tech.

 

[nSinghal]

Thats a sort of misconception we all are dealing with regarding passive 3d resolution over active 3d. While doing some search on the web regarding passive and active 3d resolution I found a quite relevant and informative link of Displaymate about the same. 3D TV Display Technology Shoot-Out
Go through this link thoroughly I am pretty sure youll have a different perception at the end about resolution and color production of these two 3d technologies.

Read through the article. No "misconception" broken yet. Didn't find anything I didn't already know except for personal opinion of some online blogger/reviewer. I'm talking from my own experience here (lg 55" passive & epson tw8100, samsung plasma with active 3d) instead of quoting some article. Everyone will have their own experiences and preferences. Claiming that half HD res is the same as full HD just coz you or someone else couldn't tell the difference is not right IMO. What next? 720p is sharp as 1080p coz most of us (myself included) won't be able to tell the difference from the distance we normally watch tv? The difference, as subtle or as hard to notice as it maybe, is there.

But in the end, my own personal opinion is that passive didn't feel as sharp and active didn't feel as comfortable. Both in the end give me enough headaches to not bother with either. Like I said in my last post too, YMMV. Both are easily available for demo. Check them out and choose the one you prefer.