June 20th, 2005
The Holographic TV Blows HDTV Out of the Water
Can you feel it? Holographic technology is heating up. First came the Optware 30GB holographic storage card, that I think will kill off other storage mediums once the drives can get down to an affordable price point.
But today we’re stepping into the future with a look at the Holographic TV.
By Johnathan Keats
Popular Science
Even if you had free run of any skybox in Madison Square Garden, you still wouldn’t see half the action that you will in your own living room, one day soon, on a large-screen holographic television. Without ever leaving your chair, you’ll be poised to watch each play unfold from whatever perspective you choose, gazing into the depths of your TV. The only thing lacking will be the soggy cheese fries.
Although this scenario is a decade away, a small-scale version exists today in the Dallas laboratory of Harold Garner, a tireless 51-year-old medical doctor, plasma physicist and biochemist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. The prototype he built is the first machine ever to generate holographic movies—true 3-D without special glasses or nausea.
How did a guy who works in a medical center discover the key to depicting holographic objects in motion? Garner’s chair in developmental biology at UT is endowed in part by the founders of Texas Instruments, and the company gave him early access to a digital micromirror device (DMD) that is now used in high-end video projectors. It is made up of nearly a million reflective panels, each of which can be angled by a computer several thousand times per second to reflect or deflect beams of light, producing moving pictures. Garner’s big idea was to blast the DMD with a laser rather than with a typical projection bulb. He programmed the DMD to reflect a sequence of 2-D interference patterns (called interferograms) that disrupt the laser light in such a way that it reflects a 3-D hologram.
More on the Holographic TV Popular Science
Lockergnome's Tech News Watch says:
Holographic TV Blows HDTV Out of the Water
Can you feel it? Holographic technology is heating up. First came the Optware 30GB holographic storage card, that I think will kill off other storage mediums once the drives can get down to an affordable price point. But today we’re stepping into the f…
June 20th, 2005 at 12:18 pm
Edwin says:
Yea, I remember these. They had them at the arcade when I was a kid. Though the images were faint. I visited NASA in Florida a few years back. They had them there too. It’s cool to walk around the image and see the left ear on the left side, walk around and see the right ear on the right side.
“Decades into the future” is probably right. They’ve been around a while already.
Just imagine the bandwidth required to display these 4D images.
June 20th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
m says:
ok
January 24th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
John-Patrick says:
Did this guy just say “4D images”? Did I miss something? WTF ever.
June 17th, 2006 at 11:06 pm
Damon Betz says:
It almost seems as if people are doing this the hard way. I have seen holograms that look really good at a photography museum. There is a little halogen lamp lighting up a piece of film. Why not just duplicate this film using the same technology as a multi-layered DVD like Blue Ray in which each layer mimics what is happening on a holographic film? The light shines down on these moveable reflective surfaces to refract different colors of light the same way it does with the film. It just seems logical to me and this, like the flying car is taking too long to mature.
August 25th, 2006 at 9:17 am
Some Dude says:
You people leaving comments have no idea wtf you’re talking about… ever heard that saying “It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”? You all have definitely removed all doubt. Now stfu morons.
July 14th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
George says:
check this product! it is amazing ! Looks alike holography !
www.illusionscreen.com
May 24th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Alphazee says:
Myself i know this is going to happen if you realy think hard into technology its only possible brkthru for now, its a matter of time till we see the life size holographic tv for now i can only imagine playing Gears Of War # on that…
October 19th, 2008 at 9:56 pm