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Why People Should Stop Being Duped By the 3D Scam
Phoghat writes "The entertainment and electronics industries keep trying to push 3D on consumers, even though a lot of smart people have caught on to the fact that it is a scam and not innovation as the industry would like you to believe. From the article: 'This is a bad experiment that the industry is forcing consumers to subsidize. And since they can’t create a better product, they’ve simply latched on to 3D as a marketing ploy that the entertainment and electronics industries can use to trick people into thinking that they are getting a superior experience. It’s only working because just enough people are falling for the scam to keep it alive.'"
1. The colors in Avatar most certainly were NOT muddled by any stretch of the imagination. I saw it in IMAX the first time I saw it, and my color vision is actually better than most mens, it's actually better than most womens. I have on the other hand been to theaters that poorly maintain their equipment (Deer Brook Mall)
2. The Toy Story movies, depending on your interpretaion were indded originally 3D models rendered for 2D viewing. The movies were "enhanced" in a few places, like Buzz's suit glowing in the dark, then RE-RENDERD for 3D use. This is VERY different than the not shot in 3D but shown that way anyways garbage like the less than stellar all all the way around Alice in Wonderland.
3. When I took my daughter to see the Toy Story movies it was a double feature, I didn't have to pay 3x2 like the author said I should, I paid 3x1.
4. The LED TV's the author is referencing are most likely LED back-lit LCD monitors unless they truly were OLED models (or similar) that you can only see at technology demo's and tech conferences because thay aren't for sale in anything bigger than a mobile phone right now.
All of that being said, I agree 3D is a bit gimmicky at times. I think it is an evolution of things that will probably stick around and continue to evolve (LG is now making 3D TV's with polarization instead of shutter glasses), but it's a technology in its infancy. I don't think the companies are pushing it too hard anymore, they were. I think it's going to be like color and LCD's were. At one time a lot of people thought of those as gimmicks, especially before the color standard was finalized (hint there were competing standards), not to mention remote controls, especially the wired ones (like we had for the BetaMax) or the actual audible clickers. Try to buy a brand new black and white TV without a remote control today. Certain gimmicks have a way to becoming permanent. This is one of them even if the current incarnation dies off.
(on a distantly related note I like to shatter the little worlds the WOW 3D VIDEO GAMES people live in by pointing out that nVidia has support the same basic shutter glasses tech on ALL 3D video games since abuot the mid 90's, with CRTs, the only difference was they had a wire)
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I think that by now people know whether they like 3D or not.
Personally, I do, and telling me that I'm being scammed for something that I actively enjoy isn't going to suddenly persuade me that I don't.
"Oh my, I hadn't realised, but the time when I was completely blown away by How To Train Your Dragon that I was being scammed. In retrospect I shouldn't have enjoyed it at all!"
If you don't enjoy movies in 3D then the simple answer is to not watch them. Telling other people that they're wrong to enjoy something isn't going to gain you anything.
My Journal
The movie industry are selling entertainment, people pay for what they find entertaining, if they pay more money to watch the 3d version then the 2d version, then that means that they think that the 3d version is more entertaining.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that everyone else is getting scammed. (However it's worth noting that some movies are scamming in that they're doing really shitty 3D just to get the higher ticket price, but just like anything else shoveled out the door for a quick buck word catches on quick and their sales become abyssmal)
Typical geek blither-blather. "I don't like it therefore everyone who does is an idiot who's being duped." Here on /. I've seen this argument used against: Apple, craft beer, very spicy chiles, tablets in general, 3d film and TV, hybrid cars, wind power, solar power, drug laws, Democrats, Republicans and organized sports.
Just accept that people like different things and move on. I realize this is a strain to the borderline Asbergers types who are rife around here, but come on. Sometimes there isn't a "right answer" for everyone.
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
3D is just a scam, I didn't really watch Avatar in 3D and enjoy it far more than when I watched it in 2D, nope, that was all just part of my imagination.
Really, this is one of the more fucking retarded Slashdot stories I've seen in a while, the article can be summed up entirely as:
"3D is a scam, because I, Mr Random Nobody, says so. End of."
Sure 3D isn't brilliant everywhere, some attempts at it are pretty naff, sure sometimes it's misused, but so is audio particularly the likes of surround sound, so are special effects, so is colour. It's a tool, and like any tool, when used right, it can be pretty effective. But a scam? That's like saying a hammer is a scam because you can't screw screws into the wall with it when you try. It'd help if there was anything in the article other than his mere reiteration of his personal opinion that it's a scam and absolutely nothing more than that backing up his point.
The guy is a douche of the highest order, but the Slashdot editors moreso for letting such utter shite through. If someone is going to suggest something is a scam, they at least need to explain why. People spouting unfounded shite without an ounce of evidence to back up their point is what I expect from the comments, not the story... I know, I must be new here.
"Consumer"-types had as much vitriol in the 1950s, when they too insisted 3D was the Next Big Thing. Flopped then, too. Fake 3D doesn't work for everyone, and causes massive headaches. It is a scam, in that the companies pushing it know very well it will never be adopted on any meaningful scale. But they'll happily sell you expensive, jittery, eyestrain-inducing "3D" equipment, and you'll masquerade as an "early adopter" and be surprised when the "3D" titles remain rare and finally vanish for a few decades (again).
In case you haven't figured it ut yet, 3D is not at all in the same category as color or sound -- because actually we have very good tech for producing sound and color that work for everyone who can see and hear. Duh...
Caveat Utilitor
I have been into 3D photography since my Grandfather gave me his Realist Stereo camera sometime in the 1970's. I have added many other stereo/3D cameras to the mix since then. I also have a 3D slide projector that uses polarized light to separate the images, as well as an 1890s stereo card viewer.
3D has been really big since the 1890's.
3D was big in the 50's - both movies and photography
You could get 3D comics in the 60's
Disney has had 3D movies at least since the late 70's
Viewmaster has been around since -forever-
NASA has been taking 3D images also since -forever-
And lets not forget the hologram.
Bottom line however is that 3D is a novelty and will forever remain a novelty, because viewing a stereo image is a perceptual trick that gives our brains all the clues that we are viewing an image in 3D EXCEPT that you cannot shift your point of view as you can with a real image.
This combined with the inappropriate manipulation of the apparent interocular distance by the photographer and parallax problems and other off-axis viewing problems make viewing 3D images problematic for a lot of people. And they always will. You can't fix these problems although they can be somewhat mitigated if you know what you are doing.
I enjoy 3D movies because I have been into for a long time, know where to sit in the theater, (dead center vertically and horizontally) and know how to hold my head. (level, on axis and still)
So is it a marketing scam? Sure, yes it is. Arguably 2D is much better for most content and situations. Is it fun or informative. Yes, it can be.
Will I buy a 3D TV? No.
Kurt
This technology fools the eye into thinking that objects are close while the actual image is still distant.
That is an absurd complaint for 3D movies in the theater.
Why? Because we only use the convergence of our eyes and focal length of our pupils for distances less than 30 feet.
Looking at stuff beyond that, our focus is completely 'relaxed' and our eyes are parallel. We have no actual depth perception past that, we're just inventing it from the size of objects and their location on the ground.
This is one of the reasons people prefer to sit at the distance they do in a theater. Sitting closer is tiring for the eyes, not just because they can't see the whole screen at once, but because the eyes keep trying to focus past the screen, and then back to it.
And, no, the 3D effect can only make things further away from the screen, not closer. It can't trick your eyes into focusing 10 feet away or whatever. The whole 'popping out of the screen' is just because we mentally think of the screen as a window where the actual stuff in it is at a distance.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?