Toshiba Makes Good on Glasses-Free 3D Promise

Back at CES 2011, Toshiba had promised to get a glasses-free 3D TV set of reasonable size to market by 2012, and true to their word the company rolled out a 55-inch model, the ZL2, today at Berlin's IFA consumer electronics show.

 No word on when it'll be available stateside, but it's slated to hit German retail outlets in December. If it works as advertised, this could be a game changer, so we're very curious to get a look at the earliest opportunity.

Powered by Toshiba's CEVO-ENGINE image processing, the ZL2 doesn't quite offer the rumored 4K resolution (rather, it runs just shy of that, at Quad Full HD dimensions, 3,840 x 2,160 - but that's nitpicking). The glasses-free 3D works via a face-tracking algorithm which can follow up to 9 viewing positions (which'll limit the size of your TV parties for the time being), adjusting a field of tiny lenses to maintain the stereoscopic image for all concerned.

Beyond that, the set offers the usual suite of Smart TV fare. Pricing is still TBD, obviously, but we'll be keeping our eyes open, glasses or no.

X