Investigating the cross-compatibility of IR-controlled active shutter glasses

Active Shutter Glasses (also known as Liquid Crystal Shutter (LCS) 3D glasses or just Shutter Glasses) are a commonly used selection device used to view stereoscopic 3D content on time-sequential stereoscopic displays. Regrettably most of the IR (infrared) controlled active shutter glasses released to date by various manufacturers have used a variety of different IR communication protocols which means that active shutter glasses from one manufacturer are generally not cross-compatible with another manufacturer’s emitter. The reason for the lack of cross-compatibility between different makes of active shutter glasses mostly relates to differences between the actual IR communication protocol used for each brand of glasses. We have characterized eleven different 3D sync IR communications protocols in order to understand the possibility of cross-compatibility between different brands of glasses. This paper contains a summary of the eleven different 3D sync IR protocols as used by a selection of emitters and glasses. The paper provides a discussion of the similarities and differences between the different protocols, the limitations for creating a common 3D sync protocol, and the possibility of driving multiple brands of glasses at the same time.