Makers Keep Flogging 3D TV, Viewers Keep Shrugging

A Wired article (as carried by CNN) attempts to answer the question of why 3D television hasn't caught on. The reasons listed there (high price, paltry content, the need for 3D glasses for typical sets, headaches and strain) all seem to be on the money, in themselves, but I think don't go far enough. 3D on a set small enough for home use outside a high-end home-theater rig seems to me like a clever novelty that I can't even enjoy unless I've given it my full attention. It's nothing like the jump from black-and-white to color, or even the jump from my old (circa 1993) 19" Trinitron to a flat-panel display. On the big screen, it's another story — there, 3D can be arresting and involving, even when it's exaggerated (and it is). On home sets, even quite large ones, to my eye 3D usually looks phony and out of place. Never mind that the content is limited and often expensive, or that there are competing standards for expensive glasses to wear — I just don't like that the commitment is greater than that required for casual, conventional TV; I can't readily scan email, skim through a magazine, or keep watching out the corner of my eye from another room. (I'm hoping to find some actually watchable no-glasses 3D sets at CES next week, but I'm skeptical.)

Comments

Re:scam

[Dogtanian]

3D tv is just a scam. tried every 20-30 years and they just don't learn...

No, AFAIK this is the third time they've tried it with movies ('50s, early '80s, present day), but only the first they've tried it seriously with television.

(Not counting sporadic special events and gimmick fests that require special glasses and have limitations, but work with an ordinary TV, and hence would not be much use for getting people to buy a new one!)

Coincidentally, I just overhead my boss this afternoon telling a customer that he doesn't have much use for the expensive 3D television he bought last year, and even admitting that it was a "gimmick". No big surprise, he was never even into TV that much in the first place, but likes his boys toys until he gets bored of them... which is pretty much as soon as he gets them :-).

Re:scam

[skids]

you can't seem to buy a new quality tv today that doesn't have 3d capabilities in it.

Because it is an easy feature to add. It's just software and one component (the emitter).

Anyway, I've found it works wonders with racing games -- they are both more exciting and it is easier to make the tricky corners when your brain actually sees them in 3D.

Re:scam

[PopeRatzo]

For a scam it seems to work pretty well for me.

I have to say that I'm pretty impressed with it.

Last year, I got a little Nintendo 3DS and hated it. Got headaches. Gave it to my daughter who says she's not bothered by it. Didn't really love 3D movies or the one experience I had with a 3D television at a friend's house.

But in November, I was at a card game at another friend's house and he had just gotten a big-screen 3D TV and we sat down to watch the movie Drive Angry. It was just spectacular. The movie was basic grindhouse fare, done pretty well and certainly with gusto. But the 3D was terrific. It didn't try to make anything subtle about it, just blasted the 3D into your face with every dumb 3D trick that's been around since the 50's. And it all worked. The well-designed and manufactured 3D glasses fit nicely over my regular glasses.4 No headache.

Now understand, it's still way too expensive. If I went out and bought a big 3D TV and 4 sets of glasses at the current prices, my wife would cut my throat in my sleep and I couldn't blame her. I don't know how that 3D technology would look on content that didn't already have an unreal feel about it. Maybe there's something that's so cheesy about the 3D that it would look stupid on a film that wasn't already cheesy, I'm not sure.

I doubt very much that the current 3D technology will last more than a few more years before it's passe again, just like the way it's gone every time the entertainment industry has tried 3D in the past. I'm sure that better 3D technology will supplant it before long, probably within the next couple of years.
 

Re:Why?

[David Gerard]

Skype found the killer app for videophones: grandmothers. My mother literally got broadband just for Skype, to talk to her kids and grandkids.