By Paul Gagnon – Director, North American TV Research, DisplaySearch

One of the hot topics at the DisplaySearch USFPD 2010 conference was the issue of interoperability of active shutter 3D glasses between sets made by different brands. The brands have all been fairly quiet about the issue, aside from wishing that there was some cross-compatibility, but without stating that their glasses will work with another manufacturer’s set. With accessories typically sporting much higher margins than sets, perhaps their goal is to sell more of their own branded glasses.

Incompatibility of glasses between brands could be a problem if consumers want to invite visitors over to watch the World Cup in 3D on their fancy new set, only to find that the visitor’s glasses don’t work. And right now, only high-end sets are shipping with one or two pairs of glasses, so the first thing a family might need to do is buy a few more pairs.

However, third-party glasses manufacturers are taking advantage of this and could well cut-off the accessory sales of the brands by introducing their own Universal 3D glasses, as XpanD has done. The company is positioning its glasses as compatible with “almost all” of the 3D-ready TVs, as well as indicating that they could be used with computer monitors and for 3D cinema. There was no word on pricing, or how the glasses would be usable (a switch for frequency?), but this does a lot to solve one of the big hurdles in the early 3D TV marketplace.