Question: I can't seem to play any of my PS3 3D demos in 3D. I dont know what to do. I bought a 3D-Ready Viewsonic projector and active shutter glasses (PGD-150, also from Viewsonic), got all the firmware updates on my Playstation 3, and even bought a new highspeed HDMI cable, but it's still a no go. What's wrong? - asked by edthedemon

Answer:  This day and age, we buy technology products with an expectation that they'll be virtually plug and play. After all, it's logical to assume that if you buy a 3D-ready projector that you'll be able to plug in a 3D source and watch it in 3D.

Unfortunately, this isn't the case, and the exact answer as to why can be a little complicated. I'll try to explain below as simply as possible.

The problem you're running into is that digital 3D can come in many different formats. Companies selling DLP-3D products, which have been around since 2006, accept 3D signals in the Texas Instruments 3D-DLP Format, which is also commonly referred to as the "checkerboard format." Most will also accept nVidia's 3D Vision products as well. The PS3, however, relies on the final HDMI 1.4 specification for stereoscopic 3D, which is based on a 3D format known as frame packing.

It isn't really necessary or important to understand the technical differences between the formats, but if you go online and start reading forums, prepare to get lost in debates between field-sequential 3D vs. interleaved side-by-side. What is important, however, is to understand that your projector wasn't designed to accept the (newer) format the PS3 outputs, although it will work just peachy with the latest crop of 3DTVs being sold by Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, etc.

Mitsubishi DLP TVs have the same problem as your projector, but Mitsubishi has alleviated that problem by creating an adapter for their televisions which converts alternate 3D formats (frame-packing, side-by-side, etc) into the checkerboard format used by the set. This adapter, unfortnuately, can only be used with Mitsubishi TVs (although I've read some crazy setups where people have gotten it to work on other brands). There have been no rumors that Viewsonic and other companies selling 3D-Ready products plan to release a similar adapter.

There is one game on the Playstation 3 that will work with your projector without modification. If you can find a copy of the Avatar game, you'll find that it has 3D options built into the game directly (it came well before the PS3 3D gaming firmware update), and selectable 3D output options, including the checkerboard format. I wouldn't plan on seeing any more games take this approach going forward.

Although (in my opinion) Sony could pretty easily update the PS3 to provide an option to output in checkerboard and make it far more compatible with existing displays, they have two reasons for not doing so. The legitmate reason is that the checkerboard format (again, in my opinion) doesn't look as good as frame-packing, which offers full-res 720p (and maybe someday 1080p) frames for each eye. The crappy reason is that Sony has a business interest to sell and support their own products, and adding a checkerboard option would only support their competitors. It's a major reason why Sony didn't add any 3D features until their own sets were on the market.

So what do you do? Well... if you really want to experience all the new PS3 games in 3D, you're going to have to go with a current 3DTV product that supports it. If you want 3D Blu-Ray movies, you will be able to watch those, but not through the PS3. There are PC based solutions that will help you do that.

I know... being an early adopter can be tough.

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