Synch dongle for PC allows use of many new TV's for 3D

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There are a couple of just-out-of-beta-testing devices, USB-A bluetooth "dongles", that will allow many of the shutter glasses in the market to synch with the playback on windows pc's to fast-refresh-rate modern TV's.

This means that many TV models from the last few years capable of "true" 120hz refresh rate or above, especially many OLED models, could be used to display 3D films with reasonable (very low) flicker, with results in many cases similar or better than old "active" 3D TV sets (i.e. Samsungs) or even similar to the experience in many movie theaters (i.e. RealD 144hz modulators, in spite of use of "passive" glasses, the "screen" itself "flickers" at 72hz per eye).

Some TV sets, "LED" (LCD) tv's or less likely OLEDs, might have some issues with many shutter glasses due to polarization conflicts, so just beware that your TV, in spite of being 120hz capable, might not work "correctly" (be much too dark or have one of the eyes "blank") with some or even "all" of the available shutter glasses. This shouldn't be very common, though.

When I receive mine, hopefully in a week or two, I'll post the results on how well it works and more details.

The "system", the USB dongle, drivers and software player, only works on PC's/Laptops running windows 10 or 11. Also, the graphics system must be capable of output to HDMI 1080p/120hz or above to really be useful.

It won't playback blu-ray's directly, so blu-rays would have to be first converted to something compatible with the player(s) software under windows, and mostly only works with TV's capable of true 120hz input/refresh rate or higher and certain (many, actually) types of 3D active shutter-glasses (RF, DPLink, IR, BT3D), as long as the glasses are fast enough to support the desired refresh rates. You might need a USB male-female extension cable to place the USB dongle correctly for your glasses.

It will also work with some combinations of PC's and older TV's, but the flicker and/or ghosting in those cases is probably going to be problematic, so it's not a good universal solution.

It's probably not going to be for everyone as a certain proficiency with windows computers will be necessary to install and adjust the drivers to properly synch with the glasses, but it may be a good solution for finally watching 3D content in full-color on many available modern TV's and not need to rely on projectors or VR goggles exclusively.

The dongle is around $80, and compatible 3D glasses can often be found for well under $30, so at least it's not an expensive option if you already own a fast-refresh-rate TV set and a half-way-decent windows PC or laptop that supports at least 1080p/120hz output over HDMI. There is a more limited, cheaper, similar sync-dongle product for $40, but limited to one model of glasses and possibly much more limited in the number of cases it will work properly.

Please note that at this moment some of the products have just finished development and are not a universal solution for all hardware cases. If you are planning on returning the product if it doesn't work for your use, I suggest you better wait a bit until it's more tested and developed so you can be more sure it would likely work for your case.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that this is a small "one man" operation and it's better not to purchase the products if you are not sure what you are getting into and are not willing to take the risk of ending with a purchase that doesn't work for your case and would like to return it in that situation.

But if you are tech savvy, know what you're getting/doing, think it's likely it will work for you and are willing to bite the bullet if it doesn't or resell it to someone with a compatible setup, well what else can I say.

I have a production unit on its way and hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll start seeing more reports on how well it works in different hardware configurations on the support group.

The page of the developer is

https://en.gradient-sg.com/

Hopefully some of us might at last be able to get a good 3D viewing experience in a good choice of current and future TV sets.

**Please note that I don't endorse anyone and haven't tested the product personally, so take it with healthy dose of skepticism and proceed at your own risk. The wise choice might be to wait until reviews of the product show up etc. As I said, the products have just been out of development and advertised as finally available only days ago.