Dolby Laboratories has developed a new type of inexpensive passive 3-D glasses for theater owners that are lighter and easier to wear. The company said it joined with 3M to produce the glasses, which are compatible with existing Dolby 3D Digital Cinema systems.
The new glasses use a nylon frame and multilayer optical film lenses from 3M that reduce the weight and increases comfort for moviegoers. In addition, the new frames fit comfortably over 98 percent of prescription glasses and are well-suited to youth and adults. The new 3M lenses are scratch-resistant and include an antireflective coating.
The nylon frame features wide side temples and a shelf along the top edge of the frames to help prevent extraneous light from entering the glasses while reducing internal lens reflections.
Matt Cuson, senior marketing director of cinema for Dolby Laboratories‚ said the new Dolby 3-D glasses are reusable, “bringing per-ticket costs well below disposable single-use 3-D glasses.”
The new glasses are currently available at a list price of $12 or lower when purchased with a Dolby 3-D bundle. Dolby also plans to make children-sized glasses available next quarter.
Dolby said that beyond the antitheft tag included in previous generations of Dolby 3-D glasses, the new Dolby 3-D glasses also include individually serialized radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, which can be used for inventory tracking and management.
Dolby 3D Digital Cinema technology, in conjunction with digital cinema projectors from Texas Instruments (Digital Light Processing), uses full-spectrum color-filter technology that provides realistic color reproduction and extremely sharp images. Since launching in November 2007, Dolby has shipped more than 7600 Dolby 3-D systems to 400 exhibitor partners in 67 countries.
