One of the coolest features that I’ve been wanting to try on the LG Cinema 3D TV is the Dual Play. I’ve been playing PS3 games for years on a split screen against my two brothers and it really sucks even if you have a 60 inch TV. As much as you try not to cheat, there’s always someone eyeballing your part of the screen to check your location, specially in shooting games like Call of Duty.
Well all of that has changed with LG’s 3D Dual Play where each player sees a full-screen image simply by wearing the Special Dual Play glasses. I thought at first that the 3D glasses you get with the TV are the same ones you use for the Dual Play but as it turns out, there are different ones. I asked LG if they could provide me with the glasses and they were kind enough to do so. In order to understand why they are different and how LG’s passive Dual Play mode works, I did some research and posted below an excerpt from a website that explained it best in my opinion.
3D is achieved by tricking your brain into seeing “depth”. In order to see depth from a 3D TV, each eye has to have a slightly different image. Just like if you were to alternate closing one eye at a time, the image you see with your right eye, will be slightly different that what you saw with your left eye. This is the basis of how your brain is “tricked” into see “depth”. LG achieves this with their polarized TV panel and 3D glasses. Each lens of the polarized glasses has built-in filters that block lines of resolution; normally the left will block the even and the right the odd lines. When Dual Play is activated you’ll see two full screen images on one screen with the naked eye. While viewing through the special glasses made by LG for Dual Play (essentially two left lens in one pair and two right lens in the other pair). One of the images shown will use all even lines of resolution and the other will use all odd lines of resolution. Yielding full screen game play for everyone. All LG Cinema 3D LED with Smart TV have this feature built-in. Each player can see the full game from their own perspective. [Source] [Video]
Dual Play is very easy to set up as you can turn it on and off from the TV’s remote control. There’s one thing I noticed though is that you need to be sitting on the same level as the TV to get an optimal picture. If you are looking up or down at the screen, you might see a bit from the other player’s screen but they are not visible enough to annoy you. I uploaded a small video while playing Black Ops II to show you the different image each Dual Play glass is showing.
Last but not least, the great thing about Dual Play is that it works on any passive 3D TV, which means that you can use it with any console game that supports a split-screen mode, not just a few selected games. I think that’s pretty cool as more people will be able to enjoy this feature.
I know many of you are waiting for the competition to kick off to see who’s gonna win this awesome TV. I will be announcing it on Monday when I post the full review. Until then, I will be enjoying Dual Play Gaming and testing other features.