Film-type patterned retarder


FPR is a technology promoted by LG that is employed in its line of 3D televisions based on circular polarization. It shows left and right images through different patterns in a circular polarizer. Left/right polarized glasses allow the left and right images to then be seen by the left and right eyes separately. Both images are combined in the brain and generate the 3D effect. The FPR technology uses the precise film which polarizes different pixels differently to show a different image for each eye. FPR 3D tech is said to deliver a brighter screen with less cross talk, less ghosting, and no flickering.

History

SG 3D shows the left and right eye images alternately. When the TV displays the left eye image, the glasses block the signal of right eye image by closing the shutter of right glass lens. By contrast, FPR 3D shows the images of left-eye and right-eye simultaneously, dividing the images into right-eye and left-eye by the correlation between FPR film on panel surface and polarizing glasses.
Shutter glasses mostly eliminate "ghosting" which is a problem with other 3D display technologies such as RealD 3D, or Dual projector setups. Moreover, unlike red/cyan colour filter 3D glasses, LC shutter glasses are colour neutral, enabling 3D viewing in the full colour spectrum, but the technology has problems such as twinkle, vertigo, and uncomfortable glass Liquid crystal shutter glasses.
FPR 3D has been developed to overcome some of the restraints of shutter glasses. Some obstacles such as eye-health-concern caused by flicker & cross-talk, and heavy and inconvenient 3D glasses run by rechargeable battery are there in 3D TV industry.
An early implementation of the technology was by Zalman, in their 'Trimon' computer monitors rather than TV, available around the end of 2007.

Overview

FPR improves on the cost of Patterned Retarder technology that needed to add an extra polarizing glasses substrate to the LCD TV panel. FPR has reached the point where it can use film instead of glass, reducing the extra cost to 25% of what it used to be, while the polarized glasses are 80% cheaper than shutter glasses.

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