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Movie Theaters Aim for Live 3D Sports
teutonic_leech writes "ZDNet has an article claiming that movie theater operators plan to be screening live 3D sports events by 2007 in a bid to lure sports fans away from their home theater systems and bolster sagging mid-week ticket sales." From the article: "Other chains are looking to much-improved digital three-dimensional projection for an experience theatergoers can't get at home. But while the projection has greatly advanced from the early 3D days, special glasses must still be worn to achieve the full effect."
This has actually become very popular already in the Boston area, where Fenway Park sells out most of the Red Sox' season by February. While baseball is kind of a religion here, not everybody can fit in the church. Several local movie theaters show the local cable broadcasts on the big screens, sell concessions, and make it a fun time, from what i've heard. It's cheaper than tickets to the game, and moreover, for things like Red Sox-Yankees games, it's the closest most people can get. And yes, there is cheering, booing, heckling, etc. The local broadcasters like to have fun with the theater-goers by giving them marching orders to do 'the wave' and other things like that, and though nobody can see them, no one doubts that they're actually doing it. If it were in 3-d, i might consider it, but then again, i wait in line on a snowy december morning for tickets to the real thing.
I don't know if your statement about not being marketable was just a quip or not, but it's completely wrong. 3D was a huge sensation in the 1950s, so it certainly can be marketable.
The problem nowadays is that 3D production suffers from several things:
Right now, 3D is relegated to crap movies or movies to kids. Look at the titles that have been produced in 3D in the past 20 years:
Friday the 13th, part 3 - Oh, yeah. Great family film.
Jaws 3 - A 3D turd.
Spy Kids - Cheesy kid flick
and a few others, primarily for kids.
I am not including 3D IMAX movies because those are not in the same realm as traditional theatrical movies, and IMAX movies are not available in every city or town like general cinemas are.
The second problem is that the 3D method that is most often used is red/blue anaglyph, which is known to cause headaches in many people and is not a very effective means on producing 3D, although the technology for red/blue has actually improved over the past 10 years.
The most effective methods are the original IMAX alternating LED glasses, but that technology is very expensive, or polarization where the glasses look like regular, clear glasses. Polarization is by far the most effective method and VERY cheap comparatively speaking. All that the theatres need is a special dual-lens adapter for the projector to project a regular frame and a polarized frame onto the same screen. (At least that's what the theatre that I once worked for used.)
What has been slowing 3D down is that it is not cheap to produce; however, with the advent of digital technology I find that this reason is growing to be more and more specious. When 3D was done on film, yes, you would need twice as much film, twice as much editing, and so forth. With digital technology, you need twice as many hard drive storage (if recorded that way) with a dual-lens camera. There are plenty of softare products out there to do red/blue, 3D conversion based on two separate images. Just apply that same technology to the frames of synchronized movie files instead of an individual picture to create a red/blue frame or to create a split frame to be used with polarizing projector lenses.
Going back to previously-made, 2D movies and converting them could probably be done with some inventive technologies, but still requires a great deal of manual work. A human will have to sit down, set the depth of field, isolate the various depths for each element in the scene, and so forth. It can be done, it's just immensely time consuming. I don't doubt that software can be written to do it, though, if it doesn't already exist. If Photoshop can isolate an section of a frame based on specified critera, like color, I'm sure that an algorithm could be written for the same thing in movies. If the isolated section gets bigger, bring the object closer, and so forth.
With today's technology, 3D movies would be *very* easy to do - much easier to do than ever before. Unfortunately, 3D has been unfairly relegated to cheesy kid flicks, pathetic "horror" flicks, or limited-interest movies for IMAX. But 3D could make a huge return if the movie makers really wanted it to.
That being said, I think that 3D sports is an excellent idea. The only drawbacks are that it's not in your own home and the extra costs. Otherwise, you've got a REALLY big screen, surround sound in most theatres, if the 3D is done properly you could have a better view of the game than the people in the stadium, you don't have to fight with stadium traffic, and you don't have to walk 1/2 mile to go to the bathroom.
The janitorial staff will deserve a huge raise, however.
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-Will they let you pause the DVR so you can take a phone call or take a piss? Definitely not
-Will you be allowed to scream obscenities at the top of your lungs when you team screws up? Most likely not
From TFA:
The cinemas brought in vendors to stroll the aisles with hot dogs, peanuts and beer, sold team gear in the lobbies and encouraged fans to loosen up as they would in the ball park.
I don't know about wings, but they'll definitely let you drink beer. And it appears that they won't mind the screaming so much, either. As for the DVR... well, you can't exactly do that at the stadium, can you? Nor was one able to do that a few years ago. I think a lot of fans will live with the theatre experience.
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I actually had the luxury to see some of the test footage Fox is working on in 3D on a highres projector. Trust me - you sitting up there in the nosebleed section are not seeing anything. You are basically on the field and sometimes you feel like you're gonna get tackled by one of the line backers - LOL. What can I say - you need to experience this to really form an opinion.