Experimental 3D launcher?

[EarlyMon]

Have an Optimus 3D or EVO 3D? SPB Shell 3D Might Be Worth Checking Out With Experimental Autostereoscopic Support

 

[mak916]

I hope they make a video on their site so we can get an idea of how this would look.

 

[EarlyMon]

That would make too much sense!

 

[themuffinman75]

Damn didn't even realize that SPB cost so much......sheesh!!! Also though, I don't see how this can be practical in anyway what so ever. Might be cool for a few minutes but no way will this be worth the battery drain.

 

[JD_from_da_80s]

I hope they make a video on their site so we can get an idea of how this would look.

Video in app store. Has some pretty nice features, not enough for $15 though.

That would make too much sense!

You'd think they'd record in 3D, nope

 

[PyroSporker]

Have an Optimus 3D or EVO 3D? SPB Shell 3D Might Be Worth Checking Out With Experimental Autostereoscopic Support

Thanks for the scoop! Definitely helpful when I tend to not follow front pages very closely.

Check out this good video from PocketNow. I trust them, especially Brandon. He seems like a great dude that truly knows what he is talking about and tells it like it is.

From what I gathered, he overall felt that it is a pretty good substitute, with potential, but its not worth $15 yet.

Spb Shell 3D 1.2 for Android Has Tablet Mode

The 3D mode seems to be colored glasses required (time-stamp 2:22). Unless it somehow detects what type of hardware have and allows side by side options if your system can run it (he was on a Sony Ericsson Xperia).

There is one other video so far on youtube, but it is in German. Verdammt!

 

[JD_from_da_80s]

There is one other video so far on youtube, but it is in German. Verdammt!

If you search in the market, they have a video in English. I watched it from my phone & it's not in 3D, which sucks.

 

[jean15paul]

$15? ... ouch! I'll sick with sense. Although if someone buys this please post a review.

 

[LBPHeretic]

I watched that video yesterday and saw that it had 3D capabilities and wondered how it would be. The price is a bit steep though.

The tablet mode actually looked pretty cool. You can fit tons of icons and widgets on your home screens with that enabled.

 

[PyroSporker]

If you search in the market, they have a video in English. I watched it from my phone & it's not in 3D, which sucks.

Yeah I watched it, it was not very good in my opinion. Their own video was created and distributed by themselves. It is a glorified commercial, where-as youtube videos are generally made by third parties who can provide true insight.

 

[BlackDynamite]

I have SPB Shell 3D. I love it.

However, the 3D doesn't work. Not sure what the heck they're talking about claiming it's stereoscopic 3D, but it is not. It's listed in the experimental section, which claims it is for features that aren't yet ready for prime time, so hopefully they fix it someday.

I can't see any stereoscopic 3D at all, and when I slide to a different panel, I then see the top layer slide first and the bottom layer gets dragged behind it, one red and one blue or green or something. That probably makes no sense but if you ever see it you'll know what I mean.

I turned off the stereoscopic 3D feature because it sucks. But the launcher itself is way better than Sense, and I run it and would recommend it to anyone. $15 is high, I agree, but the product is top notch.

 

[NeoteriX]

I have SPB Shell 3D. I love it.

However, the 3D doesn't work. Not sure what the heck they're talking about claiming it's stereoscopic 3D, but it is not. It's listed in the experimental section, which claims it is for features that aren't yet ready for prime time, so hopefully they fix it someday.

I can't see any stereoscopic 3D at all, and when I slide to a different panel, I then see the top layer slide first and the bottom layer gets dragged behind it, one red and one blue or green or something. That probably makes no sense but if you ever see it you'll know what I mean.

I turned off the stereoscopic 3D feature because it sucks. But the launcher itself is way better than Sense, and I run it and would recommend it to anyone. $15 is high, I agree, but the product is top notch.

I believe the Evo 3D's parallax barriers only work/are aligned when the phone is in the horizontal position. Does that change anything?

 

[BlackDynamite]

I believe the Evo 3D's parallax barriers only work/are aligned when the phone is in the horizontal position. Does that change anything?

Nope. The Shell 3D works in landscape too, and there is no stereoscopic 3D in landscape either.

 

[EarlyMon]

The red and cyan layering suggests that their 3d is anaglyph, requiring colored glasses to work.

 

[novox77]

Few things to clear up:

1) viewing in 3D uses roughly the same power as viewing in 2D. There would be no signficant tax on battery life when the parallax barrier is engaged. The exception is when live view is on, for example, in the camera app, barcode scanning app, etc. That takes a lot of processing power and is a known battery hog not only for phones, but for dedicated cameras and videocams.

2) the parallax barrier DOES work in portrait mode, but not very well. The barrier lines are much thinner in the portrait orientation; therefore the sweet spot is even narrower. Often times, the barrier doesn't mask the entire pixel, so you end up seeing the colors of the subpixels, typically red and blue. View a 3D photo in the gallery in portrait, and you'll see what I mean. There will be glimmers of red and blue if you're not dead on in the sweet spot.

3) because most people use the phone's UI in portrait mode, 3D is just not a good idea. Had the parallax barrier been made with equal thickness for both axes, maybe...

IMO, a 3D UI has to be very well thought-out. The interface ought to utilize the depth to facilitate the user experience; however, since the actual interaction by the user is done on a two-dimensional touchscreen, there are some challenges to be overcome. As of right now, a 3D UI is simply a novelty, or eye candy, and doesn't really add value to the UI.

 

[novox77]

The red and cyan layering suggests that their 3d is anaglyph, requiring colored glasses to work.

And to clarify, anaglyph certainly qualifies as stereoscopic. Any 3D format that utilizes a stereo pair of images is considered stereoscopic. Anaglyph is simply a method of displaying the stereoscopic images.

 

[dzar]

Also, 3D is a product name... when this was first released, it had no stereoscopic support and was as much 3D and sense "3D" is 3D. That is, it has a 3D look to it but not 3D as we "true 3D" phone users like to think of it. It's marketing and there are lots of "3D" applications out there that have no stereoscopic support of any kind. Don't get fooled by those, either.

BTW, I'm a longtime SPB shell user under Windows Mobile. I've looked, briefly, at the shell on Android and while it's nice, and SPB has always done a top-notch job, I don't see significant advantages, for me, over Sense.

 

[EarlyMon]

And to clarify, anaglyph certainly qualifies as stereoscopic. Any 3D format that utilizes a stereo pair of images is considered stereoscopic. Anaglyph is simply a method of displaying the stereoscopic images.

Yep, I didn't say it was fake - I just said their 3d needed glasses.

Odd that you can get the product and that's not plastered everywhere or somewhere in settings so you know.

If I'm critical, it's because I don't see glass-on/launcher, glasses-off/app, glasses-on/launcher, glasses-off/app ... I'm less and less clear what's up here.

They've always had the cool 3d-like carousel anyways.

But as mentioned earlier, it's supposed to not need glasses if it detects the system can support no-glasses 3d.

 

[LBPHeretic]

1) viewing in 3D uses roughly the same power as viewing in 2D. There would be no signficant tax on battery life when the parallax barrier is engaged. The exception is when live view is on, for example, in the camera app, barcode scanning app, etc. That takes a lot of processing power and is a known battery hog not only for phones, but for dedicated cameras and videocams.

Yeah. I noticed that when my 3D camera is in live preview mode the handset tends to get pretty warm. Camera usage always uses quite a bit of CPU in my experience with any handset. I also noticed that if I take a 3D picture in landscape mode and then turn it to portrait mode it looks kind of crushed, but I assume that is just a graphical anomaly as it fixes itself eventually.

EDIT: Sorry, I thought I had quoted this, but somehow I did not. The above quote is what I was attempting to reply too. I can see how out of context it would look otherwise.

 

[EarlyMon]

Thread?

 

[LBPHeretic]

Thread?

Fixed. I do not know why it swallowed up the quote I had selected.

On topic, my friend just got this launcher and he loves it. He tried the 3D portion with cyan and red 3D glasses and it worked like a charm.

 

[ProfeZZor X]

What I'd like to know is why HTC didn't come out with this from the get go. The rotating carousel and other home screens are nice, but I would have preferred them be in sterioscopic 3D, to accentuate the 3D experience they're promoting for our 3DVO.

As for the price, it comes with the territory of having expensive hardware.

 

[LBPHeretic]

What I'd like to know is why HTC didn't come out with this from the get go. The rotating carousel and other home screens are nice, but I would have preferred them be in sterioscopic 3D, to accentuate the 3D experience they're promoting for our 3DVO.

As for the price, it comes with the territory of having expensive hardware.

I agree. It would have been cool to have a choice of a 2D or 3D spinning carousel launcher.

Sure, it would totally just be a novelty, but fun eye candy nonetheless. Maybe it will in HTC Sense 4.0.

 

[strat1227]

It's bizarre to me that they have anaglyph support but not parallax support ... novox can correct me if i'm wrong here, but both require two different "views" of the same thing, if they have that manufactured then it seems like it would be very simple to just put the two images side by side ....

15 dollars is well worth having more 3d incorporated into the phone IMO. It'd probably just be a novelty but to me that's all the 3d is anyway, it'd be nice to have it in more facets than just pictures and video.

If anyone gets this to work without glasses then please post here and i'd definitely throw down for it

 

[JD_from_da_80s]

What I'd like to know is why HTC didn't come out with this from the get go. The rotating carousel and other home screens are nice, but I would have preferred them be in sterioscopic 3D, to accentuate the 3D experience they're promoting for our 3DVO.

As for the price, it comes with the territory of having expensive hardware.

Probably because Sense is for a majority of their phones while this is the only 3D phone. Unless of course there's a way to roll up a phone specfic upgrade of Sense to include 3D.


Edit: Now that I think about it, they could have built a 3D version for this phone. Very lazy of HTC.