Coinciding with this week’s Ceatec electronics show near Tokyo, Toshiba has unveiled two 3D television sets – the Regza 20GL1 and the Regza 12GL1 – which will enable ‘glasses-free’ viewing. While the Regza 20GL1 is a 20-inch flat-panel display with a 1,280x720 resolution; the Regza 12GL1 is a 12-inch flat-panel display with a 466x350 resolution.

Talking about its new 3D TV sets, Toshiba said that its 3D technology – presently the best-suited one for small displays – essentially provides “nine different perspectives of each single 2D frame”; and these perspectives are “superimposed” by the viewer’s brain, thereby creating “a three-dimensional impression of the image.”

In other words, the left and right eyes of the viewers will receive slightly different images which, instead of parsed by glasses, will arrive through a “lenticular sheet” of magnified lenses, sent out at several angles.

Despite the fact that Toshiba’s newly-unveiled 3D TVs, scheduled for a December launch, will be among the first ‘glasses-free’ sets to hit the markets, these models will also be plagued by the main issues affecting glasses-free
3D in television sets – namely, limited viewing angles and high costs.

With Toshiba having stated that the 3D effect will be possible only within a 40-degree area in front of the TV sets, the Associated Press has elaborated that viewers must also sit at a three feet distance from the 20-inch LCD and two feet from the 12-inch LCD to view 3D content.