Japan Will Start 3D TV Programming This Summer

An anonymous reader writes "Japan HD TV operator Sky Perfect will start 3D programming this summer, with focuses on live events and sports events. As more Hollywood movies are shot in 3D, and 3D TVs are expected to come onto the market in the very near future, Sky Perfect is hoping that people will switch to 3D TV just like people switched from black and white to color. How about 3D TV in other countries?"

Comments

Meh

[Antony-Kyre]

If you have to wear glasses, will any bother?

Re:Meh

[Trepidity]

Yeah, that's why it doesn't seem quite analogous to me. There's no real practical downside to a B&W->Color switch. There is some artistic interest in B&W over color, but it's fairly niche. But 3d TV requires glasses, which 2d TV doesn't, a big practical difference. And I think the number of people who find 3d annoying / motion-sickness-inducing / etc. to watch, and prefer 2d even just aesthetically, will be greater than the number who prefer b&w over color.

Here's what a 1997 review article (from Displays 17(2):100-110) concluded:

[A] broad range of fairly mature 3-D equipment is already on the market. The available systems, however, suffer from the drawback that users have to wear special devices to separate the left eye's and right eye's images. Such "aided viewing" systems have been firmly established in many professional applications. Yet further expansion to other fields will require "free viewing" systems with improved viewing comfort and closer adaptation to the mechanisms of binocular vision. The respective technologies are still under development.

...which is pretty much the state of technology in 2010 as well.

High Def, 3D, all meh!

[kimvette]

I've upgraded three televisions to High Def (all three panels are Samsung) and while I do like high definition, the high def aspect was not the primary motivation. The motivation is that the televisions are not 200lbs behemoths that take up a lot of space, plus I gain HDMI/DVI and reduction of the typical home theater rat's nest. Most "high def" programming isupscaled, or through cable, overly compressed, often completely negating any improvement in clarity. OTA broadcasts are horrible - you either get a perfect picture or nothing, or completely unwatchable random MPEG blocking and stuttering in the sound stream. I LOVE high def on blu-ray though.

3D? Existing systems require goggles; either polarizing glasses (which give you the 3D effect through psychological effects arising from how the brain processes video and gives "priority" to the eye which receives more light) which gives you 3D only when pans and other movement is moving in the correct direction, or red/blue glasses, which screws with color perception and is often not very convincing (and practically unwatchable without the glasses), or through shutter goggles which are cumbersome, prone to breaking, and expensive - or prototype models which feature prismatic screens similar to 3D photos, which depend heavily on being on-axis with the screen (sit to the side, for example, you will only see one side of the prism). For 3D TV to become mainstream, there really needs to be a monumental leap forward in display design. There needs to be a holographic or similar solution which isn't confined to a narrow field of view, doesn't require goggles, and doesn't become unwatchable (or degrade at all) when viewed on a conventional receiver.

Until then 3D TV is just a novelty only designed for early adopters to pay to be beta testers and lose out when a real standard is introduced (at which point your receiver proves incompatible) and to show off how you throw money away. IMHO of course.

Re:High Def, 3D, all meh!

[emurphy42]

How polarizing 3D does work (I got to see and hear about this at a conference last year):

1. You're shown two overlapping images. One, corresponding to what your left eye should see, is polarized (say) horizontally; the other, corresponding to what your right eye should see, is polarized vertically.
2. The lenses are oriented so that the left one only lets horizontally-polarized light through, and the right one only lets vertically-polarized light through. Thus, each eye sees what it should, and fails to see what the other eye should.

As usual, Wikipedia has more on the techniques and options.

Re:High Def, 3D, all meh!

[bertok]

The glasses I got for Avatar don't seem to be linearly polarised.

That's because they used circular polarizers. One clockwise, and one counter-clockwise. They're more expensive to make than linear polarizers, but don't resulting in ghosting if you tilt your head. I guess they got the filters cheap enough.

3Ality and Sky TV...

[longacre]

...will be broadcasting today's Manchester United vs. Arsenal match in 3D, which I believe will be the first live 3D sports broadcast in Europe (though it's only being piped in to nine pubs in the UK).

ESPN will launch a 3D network in June, though content will be limited.