The Joke Known As 3D TV

harrymcc writes "I'm at IFA in Berlin — Europe's equivalent of the Consumer Electronics Show — and the massive halls are dominated by 3D TVs made by everyone from Sony, Samsung, and Panasonic to companies you've never heard of. The manufacturers seem pretty excited, but 3D has so many downsides — most of all the lousy image quality and unimpressive dimensionality effect — that I can't imagine consumers are going to go for this. 'As a medium, 3D remains remarkably self-trivializing. Virtually nobody who works with it can resist thrusting stuff at the camera, just to make clear to viewers that they’re experiencing the miracle of the third dimension. When Lang Lang banged away at his piano during Sony’s event, a cameraman zoomed in and out on the musical instrument for no apparent reason, and one of the company’s representatives kept robotically shoving his hands forward. Hey, it’s 3D — watch this!'"

Comments

Harry, you're a MORON

[oldhack]

You're bitching about the douchebaggery of program producers, not the TV gizmo.

Get a brain.

Never gonna happen

[sohp]

Comparing 3D tv to color is completely missing the problem. The move to color made sense and was a natural progression that mirrored film. The move to 3d is just another to way to get consumers to consider their old equipment obsolete and force them into buying new TVs. Like a lot of the consumer electronic gadgetry out there, the benefits are questionable at best and the upgrade treadmill only benefits the vendors. Now that they've sold digital to everyone and forced the decades-old standard into obsolescence the electronics makers smell blood. What better way to ensure profits than following the personal computer model of convincing everyone that the perfectly good equipment they bought two years ago is now "outdated" and needs replacing.

Anyone remember the 1981 movie "Comin' At Ya!"? Noted at the time for all the action shots of exaggerated movement towards the camera (arrows, knives, boobies), it was nothing but a gimmick. Sounds like almost 30 years later the salespeople are still pushing the same tricks.