Underlying tech in the Evo 3D - qHD, 3D, dual-core SMP

[novox77]

Some good news here.

In theory, I totally agree with everything you just said. However, in practice, I just tried my polarized sunglasses with my 3VO, and they have (almost) ZERO effect on the screen. I can turn my head any which way and still see the screen perfectly. It's only as much darker as you'd expect from wearing, well, sunglasses. So if there's polarization from the LCD, I guess the conclusion is that it's not quite so simple as a simple linear polarization. I actually thought about waiting for an OLED display like a hypothetical SGS2 just because of the polarization problem, but it turns out it's no problem at all with the 3VO.

(I say "almost" zero effect because at extreme angles I see some prismatic/diffraction effect, but it's not pronounced, and I mean literally looking at the screen from the side.)

My sunglasses are horizontally polarized and neutral filtered. When holding the phone looking at the home screen in portrait mode, it's just slightly darker. Rotate 90 degrees to landscape while looking at the big flip-clock/weather widget - the colors shift - but the top portion of the flip-numbers (already a slight gray) darken quite a bit and the lower half of the numbers go off-white.

So - the AVS panel isn't a simple linear polarization but like most all LCDs it is polarized light coming off it.

Try it like that and see if you can reproduce my results.

When I get a chance, I'll the same in 3D viewing - however, the parallax barrier for 3D is simply an active linear polarizer, so I'd expect a bigger change. And - when rotating the glasses to the display by 90 degrees, a good part of the 3D effect is lost.

Yep, I didn't know if the polarization was linear or circular, or both (i know next to nothing about how the parallax barrier works, especially since I observe 3 different states that it's in.

But I DO know that with my circularly polarized filter for my camera lens, I can completely block out an LCD monitor and HDTV. Neat little party trick to take a pic of the TV while it's on and show people a TV that looks off.

So I guess that means we're dealing with circularly polarized light coming from the LCD panels, and even though a linearly polarizing filter can't line up with that, it probably still has an effect, as both of you are describing.

Kinda like seeing that egg carton pattern on car windows when you wear polarized glasses.

 

[SamuraiBigEd]

Neat little party trick to take a pic of the TV while it's on and show people a TV that looks off.

I can do that without the polarizer, it's called an off switch!

I was noticing a little flicker and vignetting with my polarized Maui Jims (which also have readers, sad but true, they help me see my new wonderful screen) but things got worse with the Otterbox Defender I picked up at Sprint earlier. I will be cutting the screen protector off and going with a Skinomi once it arrives.

 

[EarlyMon]

Yep, I didn't know if the polarization was linear or circular, or both (i know next to nothing about how the parallax barrier works, especially since I observe 3 different states that it's in.

But I DO know that with my circularly polarized filter for my camera lens, I can completely block out an LCD monitor and HDTV. Neat little party trick to take a pic of the TV while it's on and show people a TV that looks off.

So I guess that means we're dealing with circularly polarized light coming from the LCD panels, and even though a linearly polarizing filter can't line up with that, it probably still has an effect, as both of you are describing.

Kinda like seeing that egg carton pattern on car windows when you wear polarized glasses.

There's really no one rule on LCD polarization. Example, repeating the test I described on my IPS laptop display, at 45 degrees counterclockwise, the display was clear, at 45 degrees clockwise, it went completely dark - so that's a linear polarization set at a diagonal. On my Sammy LCD TV, I got results similar to the 3vo display.

My camera polarizer filter is as old (school) as I am - it rotates and has an index marker indicating linear polarization direction; useful to simply set orthogonally to the glare source.

Fun facts on polarization:

• A linear polarizing filter is just a film or glass with an insane number of parallel, super-closely-spaced, micro lines or grooves laid down - think of parallel slits.
• A linearly polarized filter will essentially allow light through that is "vibrating" in the same direction as the slits.
• If you take two of those and line them up with the second one rotated by 90 degrees - so think one set of slits going up/down and the other going left/right - no light will pass through. The up/down light can't get thru the left/right filter.
• At this point - there is no light.
• But - if you then place a third linear polarizer at a 45 degree angle to the first two - in the line of the darkness you just created - you get light.
• Unlike water or anything mechanical, light follows quantum rules - not stranger than you imagine, stranger than you can imagine. The light doesn't see the filters in any order your eyes are telling you exist - the photons are following quantum rules, and they freely negotiate quantum probabilities. So the photons decide that they must come thru if you had filters 1+3 only or if you had 2+3 only - so all three filters together suddenly let light thru where 1+2 prevents it.

And the other fun fact is that I'm now moving the polarization discussions into the tech thread.

 

[cobalt]

I'm not entirely sure, but it doesn't sounds like I'm having the exact same experience as you; for me, going landscape doesn't affect much as long as I'm looking close to straight on.

Now, there is a surreal diffraction pattern of static concentric rings (like Newtonian rings, but not axisymmetric) centered at two spots: I'd say +60/+15 degrees (H/V) and another in its mirror location at -60/-15. So when you hold the phone at this rather high off-axis viewing angle, you'll see a rather trippy swirl of colors. But because it's centered at such an angle, when you look directly at the screen (near 0 degrees) the magnitude and curvature of those ring colors is so low that it has very little discernible effect. You see a little more of color banding as you start tilting the phone, though.

So for me it's a little bizarre, but I'd call mine perfectly viewable with these sunglasses, at least for functional tasks. I think I've got an older polarized pair I can try to compare against.

 

[EarlyMon]

Agree, I'd say anything too far off axis and all bets are off.