Turn any television into a 3D TV with this cool gadget

When it comes to 3D, I’m sort of on the fence. I’ve enjoyed the few 3D movies that I’ve seen in theaters, but the glasses aren’t very comfortable and the technology sometimes gives me a headache. It’s the kind of thing I’d like to enjoy at home occasionally, but not often enough to even consider the US$1,000-plus it would cost me to buy a 3DTV.

But as it turns out, it may be possible for me to enjoy the 3DTV experience without an expensive 3DTV. Meet the Edison 3D, a gadget from Taiwan’s Ching-Yun Technology that’ll turn any screen into a 3D-capable screen, and even turn 2D video content into 3D. And at least during its Kickstarter campaign, it’s available for less than US$200. Here’s the pitch:

Now, to be clear, this technology isn’t going to turn your old 2D content into amazingly immersive 3D. Typically, 2D-to-3D conversion works by popping moving objects outwards and making the background look a little bit further away. This is enough to give the video a 3D effect, but you won’t get that same “the ball’s coming right at me!” sensation that you often get from made-for-3D content. I haven’t tried the Edison in person, but there’s no way any system could convert a 2D film into a 3D film in a way that’s as satisfyingly immersive as a film that was shot in 3D to begin with.

Even if you ignore the 2D to 3D conversion, though, the Edison offers a way to watch 3D content on any screen you already own for far, far less than it would cost to buy a 3DTV. And Ching-Yun Technology CEO Kirk Hsu claims it offers “greater 3D effect than the most expensive 3D setups.”

Kirk says the importance of 3D as a home entertainment technology struck him at the same time it struck many other people: December 2009. That, you may recall, was when global blockbuster Avatar was released. Kirk saw it in IMAX 3D, and was impressed. Being an engineer, he started looking into 3D tech, but he soon discovered it was very expensive. You needed a costly 3D screen, 3D media, and a 3D media player. Kirk wondered: would it be possible to turn all of that into a plug-n-play console that could put 3D content onto regular screens?

It is – the Edison 3D is proof of that – but it hasn’t been easy getting here. Kirk and his team have been working on this project for years, and he said they faced “many uncertainties and unpredictable challenges” along the way. They had issues finding manufacturers. Supply chain issues and delays. Design issues. “Put simply, it was a mess!” Kirk said. It took four years of R&D before Ching-yun had a product it was ready to show the world.

Many people simply don’t believe this technology exists.

Although it’s just now hitting Kickstarter, Kirk and his team actually first unveiled their prototype back in 2015, and it immediately impressed. The gadget won an award at the ICT Month Innovation Elite Golden Awards. But Kirk says he realized he really had something on his hands not because of the award, but because people at the event kept coming and asking him where they could buy the gadget. So in late 2015, Ching-Yun linked up with Foxconn to get them to produce the Edison.

All that’s left now is to sell the thing, and that’s what the Kickstarter is about. It has been a challenge getting the word out, Kirk said, but the project seems to be doing well so far – as of this writing it has a month left and is more than a quarter of the way to its goal. Still moving that needle is a struggle. Kirk says the company has found that many people simply “don’t believe this technology exists.”

If the Kickstarter doesn’t reach its goal, Kirk says that Ching-Yun will be “disappointed” but not worried. The company already has partnerships lined up with several other firms, and it will continue to pursue those partnerships and look for another way to bring the Edison 3D to the marketplace.