Red, a company with roots in digital cameras for movie productions, has rolled out the new Hydrogen One, a mobile phone with a holographic screen that produces 3-D visuals without needing special glasses. It is launching with two major movies converted to this format and allows users to create and share their own videos shot with the phone.

Hydrogen One carries a hefty US$1,295 price tag.

Red calls the screen technology 4V (four-view), which is another way of saying it’s doubling what twin-lens 3-D cameras produce by adding depth data to each image.

There’s a special material under the screen that lets 4V photos and video appear to the viewer in 3-D. Images that aren’t shot or converted to this format will look the same as they do on any other screen.

Attempts to photograph a 4V screen will also produce images that don’t look any different.

Yet the 3-D wizardry indeed works, though it’s more pronounced in some scenes than others. Images of a soccer goalie blocking a shot feels realistic, but a waterfall at Yosemite National Park looks like video taken with a regular camera (though leaves in the foreground looked 3-D).

The Red phone might remind you of holographic stickers in which the view shifts slightly as you tilt them.

The Hydrogen One also has twin lenses in the back to capture 4V photos and video. But people you share them with will get a normal image unless they also have a Hydrogen One.

The phone also has a handful of 4V games.(SD-Agencies)