LG TV Offers Full-Screen Multiplayer

26 responses to “LG TV Offers Full-Screen Multiplayer”

1. 

   NotoriousR

   September 5, 2011 at 9:25 am

   More importantly though, how much? I love this idea of full screen local co-op, but I fear the price (both on the 24-inch Sony version and this LG model) will be ridiculous.

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   1. 

      Batguy

      September 5, 2011 at 9:41 am

      It really shouldn’t be particularly expensive – it’s exactly the same technology as existing 3D and it’s really only the console software that needs to change.

      In fact, you can do it already with existing 3D TVs if you’re willing to put up with a distorted image.

      Reply
2. 

   Chazz

   September 5, 2011 at 9:26 am

   Might be worth a look in if they price it right.

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3. 

   masha2932

   September 5, 2011 at 9:27 am

   At least the LG screen is big enough for the living room. The Sony screen was too small for me.

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4. 

   Tech Knight

   September 5, 2011 at 9:40 am

   That’s really neat! Wouldn’t be great for parties but against your sibling/friend would be awesome!

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5. 

   Doraiya

   September 5, 2011 at 9:44 am

   How is this news? This feature has been featured in a bunch of tvs since last year.

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6. 

   Noobheadshot

   September 5, 2011 at 9:45 am

   Finally 3D is actually useful for something!

   As someone who dislikes this 3D fad, I could actually put up with it for something like this.

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7. 

   plmko

   September 5, 2011 at 9:49 am

   How on earth does the TV know how to divide a split-screen game?

   The Sony has specific PS3 game firmware, but the LG?

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   1. 

      Batguy

      September 5, 2011 at 9:53 am

      I fairly certain it’s the same as for broadcast 3D – the video source simply provides a double width image, and if the TV expects it to be a 3D image then it splits it down the middle and sends half to each eye. Usually this would result in a 3D image, but if the two halves are instead different player views, you end up with full-screen multiplayer.

      Happy to be corrected by somebody who knows better though…

      Reply
      1. 

         plmko

         September 5, 2011 at 5:05 pm

         Yeah that makes sense except that split screen games are not full screen and are not outputted via a 3D dual image signal, the screen is literally split in the middle for two players. There is no way the LG TV could know where to crop the screen.

         Unless I’ve mistaken, and this is actually for two consoles on one TV?

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   2. 

      Chazz

      September 5, 2011 at 9:53 am

      I believe it’s the same way the home hack works. One set has two left lenses the other set has two right lenses. That way you get the same result as the Sony TV but without the excess cost of pointless “active shutter” technology.

      Reply
8. 

   Brett

   September 5, 2011 at 10:37 am

   I understand how the technology works but can this be done with any game connected to a 3DTV? What kind of graphic downgrades will we see with this technology going forward as rendering two seperate images would take more rendering power?

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9. 

   Awnshegh

   September 5, 2011 at 10:42 am

   This is terrible. How am I supposed to watch the other player’s screen to know where they are? For those of able to multitask enough to follow the 2 images this is ruining our advantage.

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   1. 

      Batguy

      September 5, 2011 at 10:44 am

      Turn your head sideways 🙂

      Reply
      1. 

         Palstran

         September 5, 2011 at 12:13 pm

         Batguy, my good sir a very clever.

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      2. 

         Russell

         September 5, 2011 at 7:04 pm

         This comment made my day XD

         Reply
10. 

    Cameron

    September 5, 2011 at 10:47 am

    How does it handle the image distortion of games not designed for this type of set up? If it’s using split screen images as it’s source for this, then the split will have to be extended to the full frame of the TV (you’d hope), but the image will be distorted.

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11. 

    Peter

    September 5, 2011 at 11:19 am

    This is a cool idea, playing black ops split screen online would only get better because I could see better 🙂

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12. 

    snapshot

    September 5, 2011 at 12:05 pm

    Is gaming really the only market for this? I can see a great opportunity for using this for multiple people watching different shows or even being able to play your games while others can watch the telly, all you need to do is chuck in a good pair of wireless headphones. seems they are targeting this far too narrowly at the gaming market.

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    1. 

       TechaNinja

       September 5, 2011 at 3:02 pm

       You don’t know how 3D works do you?

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       1. 

          James

          September 5, 2011 at 6:07 pm

          It seems like a valid question. All the stereoscopic 3D technologies work by providing separate left eye and right eye images.

          This DualPlay idea and snapshot’s “two couch potatoes” ideas just adapt that to send only left eye images to one user and only right eye images to the second user. Providing separate audio via headphones is not a stretch at all.

          Reply
13. 

    Blood Apathy

    September 5, 2011 at 2:07 pm

    This is a kinda cool idea, but I doubt i’ll be forking out of a TV just to avoid split screen. Good to see 3d is finally being used for something useful though.

    Reply
14. 

    Casey2

    September 5, 2011 at 3:15 pm

    So, if they are seriously going to go down this path (which is good), why stop at 2 players? As long as the 200Hz supports it, they could offer 4 player co-op. bump up the hertz, get the synch right and you could go fairly high.

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    1. 

       Chazz

       September 5, 2011 at 5:49 pm

       Because 3D creates two images thus one image for each player.

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    2. 

       James

       September 5, 2011 at 6:15 pm

       Because that isn’t how LG’s Cinema TVs work. Rather than displaying a full resolution left eye image and then flipping to a full resolution right eye image and rely on shutter glasses to separate the images, the LG TVs display both images at once with half the rows on the TV polarised one way and half the lines polarised the other. This is how they manage to work with passive glasses.

       As well as the problems you’d get from switching to quarter image resolution, it may not be possible to output two half resolution images, since the polarisation filters are built into the screen.

       For 3DTVs that do support shutter glasses it might be possible, but you’d need to crank up the brightness even higher. With two images, each lens in the glasses is filtering out half the light from the screen. With four images, each lens would have to filter out three quarters of the light.

       Reply
15. 

    Shempz

    October 19, 2011 at 11:18 pm

    LG didn’t actually know about this capability…it was discovered by some consumers/gamers. LG have now decided to market it as if they meant for this to be one of the capabilities of the TV…proof here:

    Reply