File this one under crazy/awesome/but really more crazy. Later this year, Sony will be releasing personal 3D home theatre headgear for one viewer at a time. Called the HMZ-T1, it’s your chance to finally quash your Geordi La Forge envy.
You connect the half-helmet, half-goggles contraption to its own gaming console-sized processor, which in turn attaches to your Blu-ray player or gaming rig, and voila! The two 0.7-inch OLED screens — one for each eye — create an immersive 3D experience. Because each display is independent of the other, that should eliminate the horrible, heading inducing cross-talk that other 3D technologies (like active-shutter or glasses free) bring. Each screen packs in a resolution of 1280×720, and it’s reportedly like looking at a 19m screen from about 18m away. At the same time, your ears are treated to some surround sound candy.
While it sounds like the HMZ-T1 delivers a high-quality 3D experience, I can’t help buy wonder if this is too crazy to catch on. I mean, it would absolutely kill the social element of watching a movie with someone. I could see it being extremely appealing to 3D gamers, but there isn’t any mention of it having an accelerometer or gyroscope built in, which means (unless I’m missing something), turning your head and looking around wouldn’t change your view at all. A feature like that would make it a gamer’s wet dream (like what the Virtual Boy could only dream of being).
And if the pure weirdness doesn’t turn people off, the price certainly could; it’s set to come out in November for Japan and will cost 60,000 yen ($733) when it drops. That’s more than a decent-sized and spec’d LED TV. There’s a distinct possibility that it could be out in the US and Europe for Christmas, but that’s just rumour at this point. [SF Gate and Slash Gear]