An attendee plays Everquest in 3-D wearing Sony's 3-D glasses and PC gaming audio headset at the Sony Online Entertainment booth during the Electronic Entertainment Expo or E3 in Los Angeles June 7, 2011.
An attendee plays "Everquest" in 3D, wearing Sony's 3D glasses and PC gaming audio headset at the Sony booth during the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles June 7, 2011. Reuters

Many have said a lack of unification on 3D glasses has held back the burgeoning 3D film and video industry. A few major electronics companies are looking to do something about that.

Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and X6D (XPAND) have joined up to collaborate on the development of a new technology standard for consumer 3D active glasses. The initiative, called the "Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative," will see the companies work together to create a standard for the development and licensing of radio frequency (RF) system 3D active glasses technology.

There are two types of 3D glasses, active and passive. Active glasses use LCD lenses to sync alternating frames on the TV. This new consortium has decided to go with active, which is not surprising since they have all used active in the past. The cheaper passive kind has been used by LG and Real D for 3D movies. The quality is typically higher on active, although passive glasses are cheaper. Passive 3D glasses are already interchangeable, but active glasses have to be conformed.

The consortium plans on creating a unified technology suitable for televisions, personal computers, projectors and 3D theater displays. The license created from this consortium is expected to hit the market in September. The consortium hopes the new glasses with the unified technology will be available to consumers in 2012 and available for retroactive compatibility with 2011 3D active TVs.

"Panasonic has been working to standardize 3D glasses technologies, and in March, we announced a joint licensing of IR system protocols with XPAND, backed by several participant companies. We are very pleased that today's latest collaboration will incorporate our previous concept into these new standardization efforts," Masayuki Kozuka, general manager of Media & Content Alliance Officer at Panasonic said in a statement.

Until this announcement, the major 3D TV manufacturers had been working against each other without any of their glasses being compatible. It was one of the major reasons analysts said the 3D industry was being held back.

With this announcement, the manufacturers have stressed they are a "unique collaboration of the world's leading 3D TV manufacturers and 3D technology providers for the benefit of consumers."

Follow Gabriel Perna on Twitter at @GabrielSPerna

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