Sony Confirms It Will Build Conversion Chips Into Its 3D TVs

By Thursday afternoon, spokesman Greg Belloni at Sony headquarters in Rancho Bernardo, Calif., confirmed that his company’s U.S. models will feature the same 2D-to-3D conversion technology as in the European versions. “Like the European models, the technology is a unique proprietary solution and it will be user-adjustable,” Belloni said.

How the disclosure sits at ESPN, which has signed on Sony as the charter sponsor of ESPN 3D debuting June 11, was hard to read. “ESPN wants to be sure consumers are receiving the best possible quality from next generation television sets,” Bryan Burns, ESPN vice president of strategic planning and development, told us in a Thursday e-mail that didn’t address Sony or its disclosure by name. “We know that original 3D production will be better accepted by sports fans and our affiliates as compared to 2D productions that are converted to 3D.” In a DisplaySearch conference keynote last month, Burns hinted his network might walk away from its ESPN 3D support if TV makers flooded the market with sets containing conversion chips and told consumers in their messaging, “Buy this TV, and you'll be fine” (CED March 3 p1).

Sony is calling the feature “3D Up-conversion,” the Sony Europe announcement said. In a footnoted disclaimer, it said the feature “converts 2D content to simulated 3D and is intended as an additional entertainment feature and not a replacement for ‘real’ 3D. Quality may vary depending upon the quality of the original 2D source content.” Questions about Sony’s “3D Up-conversion” feature remained unresolved at our deadline. For example, Sony’s U.S. and European subsidiaries didn’t answer queries about how the “proprietary” conversion is built into the TVs, except to say that the Cell processor used in PS3 isn’t involved. Sony uses Cell in the highly regarded MPE-200 signal processor developed by its professional division for live 3D broadcasts. That Cell is built into the PS3 explains why it’s the one example of an existing Blu-ray hardware product that will be upgradable for Blu-ray 3D through a firmware update that’s expected to be available this summer.

Until Thursday, Sony executives here and abroad had sidestepped our questions whether Sony 3D TVs would have 2D-to-3D conversion chips. Even AV specialty retailers we polled Thursday in wake of the Sony Europe disclosure said they had posed the same questions to Sony but hadn’t gotten clear answers. One said Sony hadn’t confirmed either way whether it will build conversion chips into its sets. Another said Sony confirmed it would, but had opted not to market the feature actively in the U.S. Best Buy, in a 3D FAQs section at its website, said Samsung, Sony and Toshiba “have announced that their 3D-ready HDTVs can convert 2D content into 3D, while Panasonic, LG and others are not making that claim yet. There is still an open question about how good the ‘2D to 3D’ conversion will look in these initial HDTVs."

On that last point, we queried Sony Pictures Entertainment for comment about whether it played a role in designing the “simulated 3D” feature being built into Sony TVs and if it felt confident that the feature would do justice to native 2D content. “We defer to our counterparts at [Sony Electronics] regarding the technology included in Sony TVs,” Ann Burkart, a spokeswoman for SPE’s technical operations chief Chris Cookson, told us in an e-mail Thursday. “Our focus is on the creation of and training of others in the techniques for high-quality, original 3D content.”