I also posted this one on BWOAK. Texas Instruments has come up with a technology that allows for one TV to show individual gamers each a different screen via special glasses (along with the special TV). This is a technology they call “DLP DualView.” At the right price, this would be a great idea. At the moment, it’s stupid – here’s why.

The TV: This piece was quoted at CES as costing $1899. Bare in mind this is a DLP TV for later. Apparently there are two ways to use the TV. The first is that it can create 3D video by displaying dual images and the glasses would sort it out (which you can do with regular sets anyway) and the other is that it will filter out one of the video feeds so you can only see one (again via the glasses). The idea is that people look on your screen and use info that they would not realistically have access to to aid them. Some people call this cheating, I think it also can be classified as what’s called “meta-gaming.” No now instead of being able to do that, you’d get a jumble on the screen, something like what is pictured below. Is this really that useful?

The Glasses: $199 – with the hope that it will come down to $99 at some point. So right of the bat, for this to make any sense at all, you need two pairs of these, $498. So we’re roughly at $2400 dollars. Now wear the glasses, you feel like an idiot.

Oh yeah, you’ll have to have two game consoles. Let’s play the devil’s advocate and say that your friend is going to lug his over for this event, despite the simple labor of this being annoying. Now Player 3 shows up, “Hey guys can I play?” Nope! So this technology is useful if you only hang out with one person at a time who has the same game console and game as you…and feels like bringing it over. Or…here’s an alternative to what you can do with that same $2400 dollars…

You can buy 2 flat panel plasma TVs. Let’s go with the Panasonic TH-42PX75U, which I just found on Amazon for $1099. Two of them, $2200. DLP technology was great when it was the affordable alternative to big-screen flat panels. The price of plasmas and LCDs has dropped significantly in the last few years, many DLP manufacturers have fled the DLP (or any other projection) TV market all together. I selected plasma for the sake of this example since I feel it is simply the best picture there is. Moving right along, now you have two displays and you can feel like a king. Now you have $200 dollars left still. You and your one friend can have a nice meal together at a fancy restaurant for like $100. Maybe you can buy a new game on the way home…and then because this advice was so helpful donate the remaining $50 to us! 🙂