3D Blu-ray Spec Finalized, PS3 Supported

Lucas123 writes "The Blu-ray Disc Association announced today that it has finalized the specification for Blu-ray 3-D discs. The market for 3-D, which includes 3-D enabled televisions, is expected to be $15.8 billion by 2015. Blu-ray 3-D will create a full 1080p resolution image for both eyes using MPEG4-MVC format. Even though two hi-def images are produced, the overhead is typically only 50% compared to equivalent 2D content. The spec also allows PS3 game consoles to play Blu-ray 3-D content. 'The specification also incorporates enhanced graphic features for 3D. These features provide a new experience for users, enabling navigation using 3D graphic menus and displaying 3D subtitles positioned in 3D video.'"

Comments

What?

[deathtopaulw]

Who is going to sit quietly with a headache for 90 minutes every time they want to watch a shitty action movie? Why is this 3D trend continuing despite the obvious uselessness?

Re:What?

[Toonol]

Real life is 3d. There is no question at all that display technology will eventually go that way, as it slowly approaches maximum realism. Now, the technology might not be there yet, hence your headaches; but the idea isn't useless. It's kind of ridiculous to think it is.

Re:What?

[anss123]

Remember the Nintendo Virtual Boy? It got one display for each eye and still gave you headaches. I suspect that the problem has to do with head movements: Just like how we unconsciously move our heads to determine the direction of sound we may be moving our head to determine distance of objects.

Anyone getting tired from reading 3D comics?

Re:What?

[suso]

blu ray is tanking

something like 2000 dvds sell for every 1 discounted blu-ray sale

LOOK ITS COOL BUY BLU-RAY

look at sales figures for blu-ray for the whole year in sales not shiped then look at dvd

Give it time. You're probably some kid who hasn't been around for long enough to remember, but nearly every format has this problem. Blu ray has only been around since 2006 and the format war only ended last year. It took audio CDs nearly a decade to really take off, all the while many people still bought cassettes and even LPs. DVDs probably took about 5 years to really take off, people were still buying VHS tapes just a year or two ago. It takes time because people wait to see if a format is going to survive before they invest in a player and a library. The PS3 probably has helped blu ray emmensely because it has double functionality as both a blu ray player and a game console. I thought about buying one even though I doubt I'll play many games.

I just got my first blu ray player yesterday and I generally keep up with things. I think it won't be until 2011 that you start to see sales of blu ray dominate. And even then since many players will up-convert DVDs, a lot of less popular titles will keep DVD sales up.

On the other hand, the mean time in-between formats (MTIF) is getting shorter and that probably means that people are wising up to having to invest in a new library of titles every 5-10 years. I know I'm getting tired of it already.

Re:What?

[cowtamer]

Well, you are partially right. We get our 3D information of the world not only from stereo disparity (each eye seeing something different) but also from parallax (stuff changing location as you move your head), accommodation (different objects being at different focal differences) and convergence (both your eyes changing direction to look at the same object).

The fact that parallax is important is why all high-end 3D visualization systems include head tracking (thus showing a much more realistic 3D picture). This will eventually (i.e., sooner than later) find its way into games, and can be done with current 3DTV technology.

There are several reasons for your headache:

1) The "3D" you see is at a different distance than your TV, hence your eye trying to focus on something that is not there. This can be remedied by better 3D content (i.e., once people get past the 'poke you in the eye' effect of 3D)

2) Low refresh rate or Bad Technology. I believe bad 3D is WAY worse than no 3D at all and turns people off forever. If you've ever seen an active 3D display running lower than 120 Hz or anaglyph 3D (colored glasses), or, God forbid, Pulfrich glasses (one dark and one light), you will remember the headache.

The other thing I mentioned (accommodation, convergence) will take a while to get into consumer (or even research) devices.

If you've seen the DLP projection 3DTV devices out there, you might be impressed with what can be done nowadays. I'm glad the format is out there.

That being said, 3D is not for everyone, and probably not for every type of content. I'm sure you'll be able to hit a button and turn it off if you don't like it.. :)

Re:What?

[Tyr_7BE]

Also, this is the first year that blu ray players have started to drop in price to the point where most people can afford them. A *lot* of people I know have commented on how players are cheap enough to consider now. This holiday season we're going to see a lot of households get the ability to play blu ray discs

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it took audio CDs a while to take off, but 1. they cost more and 2. the average consumer didn't really grok the difference. Furthermore, the media distribution capabilities of the internet weren't available to foster the acceptance of a digital format.

Regardless, though, Blu-Ray is a losing horse. Streaming technology (Netflix, for example) already works as a don't-have-to-leave-your-house solution to the rental market, and for those who want to buy and keep a copy the download solution works just as well.

THIS is the future of media: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002USAIYS/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B001JZFQU4&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0893E9A3TQ2TX3KDXTMX (Sorry about the crazy URL, it's the Western Digital media player.) USB in, HiDef out.

I've even heard of DVD players available in Japan (of course, not here in the US) with a USB jack supporting similar functionality. And, there's one on my FiOS box that I suspect will someday do the same thing...

Why?

[Misanthrope]

You can mod me down, but who actually likes 3d video enough to spend extra money on the already expensive blu-ray format?

Re:Why?

[Chyeld]

Coraline, Up. Possibly Avatar....

Not a market huge enough to warrant a new TV, but there is a market.

Re:Why?

[arazor]

As someone planning to purchase a panasonic v10 series plasma TV I might spend extra for 3d stuff. I am not the average /.er though. Average /.er seems to hate anything HD.

Re:Why?

[glob]

yeah, filtered glasses won't catch on at home. polarised filters are better than colour filters, but still, meh.

in a home setting i expect to see an uptake of lcd blackout glasses; expensive but home cinema fans are already used to buying expensive toys :)

Re:Why?

[Namarrgon]

I don't think you can really judge modern RealD or Dolby3D by watching something with 1950s-standard red/blue anaglyph. They're very very different.

3D viewing does have its weak points, and not everyone is going to go for it, but it has come a long way in the last few years. Go see Avatar, then see what you think.

Re:Why?

[santiagodraco]

Go see Avatar in 3D and come back and say that 3D isn't worthwhile.

Subtitles?

[srothroc]

As someone who is hearing-impaired and uses subtitles almost all the time...

Why do we need 3D subtitles? What good could possibly come of this?

In my book, subtitles have several requirements. They need to: be easy-to-read, have proper spelling/grammar, and have good timing. The third dimension doesn't fit in there anywhere. Now, if they were talking about improving the subtitle specifications to allow a wider range of fonts and outlines (as some are hard to read in certain situations), I would be all for it. But 3D? No thanks.

Not 3D

[GreatDrok]

This is not like a hologram, it is more like a viewmaster. Now I enjoyed Up in 3D but it didn't really feel like I was looking at the world. Everything was exaggerated. Put these discs on a small TV and it is going to be surround sound all over again and stereo before it. It will take a while before it settles down and films are made which don't try to be sensational with their use of depth, especially since you'll be peering through a tiny 50" or so screen at most. I'll stick with my HD 100" front projection system until this settles down anyway and if it doesn't catch on, so what?

How about us handicapped people!

[bonaldo2000]

Would someone please think of us! I have what I think is called monovision - that is, I only focus with one eye at a time. I do see with the other eye too but it more, sort of, along for the ride. It's not a problem in real life - I have sub-par depth perception of course but I have learned to compensate for that. However, I am not able to use the good old red-green 3d glasses. Do anyone know if some of the new systems can be used by people with my condition?

More like stereoscopic, not 3D

[Anonymous Coward]

It's stereoscopic video. Like watching moving View-Master. Not real 3D as I would like it to be. I think it would be pretty hard to create something where you actually could see things from different perspective if you altered your position, but ability to focus on different objects at different distances would be great. This '3-D' looks more like bunch of stuff cut from cardboard and hanged at different, yet too shallow depths.

In-movie text translation

[DrYak]

As someone who is hearing-impaired and uses subtitles almost all the time...

Sometime people use subtitles for a different purpose... Like not speaking the language the movie was shot in. People need also subtitles to provide them translations.

Why do we need 3D subtitles? What good could possibly come of this?

Very often, in such foreign movie, you'll find also text written on the scenery : marquees, panels, signs, etc.
One possibility is to treat them the same way as dialog and write the translation in the same area where dialogs are translated too, with a description prefix "Signs : Do NOT feed the alligators".

Another possibility is having the subtitles positioned just over the where the original text is in the frame. Thus foreign viewer see the text in-place. I've seen this done very often in anime.
This trick works not so bad with 2D movie because everything is flat. In a 3D movie, if not corrected for depth, the translation won't seem written over the original, but would either seem floating mid-scene, or worse : would seem further than the text it's supposed to be written over.

Same argument also when the translation is written "next to" the original. For the trick to work in 3D you need to also place correctly the subtitles in depth.