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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.)
3D tv is just a scam. tried every 20-30 years and they just don't learn...
3D TV didnt catch on because its pathetic bling. Its flashy crap to hide the fact they didn't bother to hire writers or decent actors.
Making things louder & flashier is NOT better.
I hate having to wear glasses just to watch something. More so, it looks and feels like a gimmick.
Easily 30% of people can't view 3d tv for one reason or another. Headaches. Doesn't work. Ect.
Most of the 3d shit needs glasses of some sort. And alot of people already wear glasses. Doesn't work. Plus you have to have enough of them for everyone who wants to view 3dtv.
We JUST got done upgrading to hdtv, digital and flatscreens all over the freakin country. And most of us feel that was stupid anyway. But it was all we could buy when our old tvs finally died.
And we found out all our tvs don't work with the cable/sat systems directly and we need another stupid little box sitting there. So we all spent all this money on what is pretty much a damm monitor. And paid a premium to do it.
3d all seems to come down to 'ooo look! object comming right at you!' It's not natural. They use it instead of a good story. And not in addition to.
Who the hell wants 3d tv. Not me.
Consumers will flock to 3DTVs when there is basically nothing else on the market: otherwise, it just doesn't provide enough benefit to justify the added cost. This happened with HD too; did the TV makers really expect it to be different this time?
i recently bought a new 55" Samsung LED. I didn't see a lot of products at this size and price class that didn't have 3D capabilities.
So count me in with the 3D TV purchaser statistic.
Have I ever used it? Hell no. Would I have paid less for the same TV w/o 3D if it were available? Absolutely. So even as the 3D-TVs in the home percentage rises as manufacturers stuff it down our throats, the real indicator is who uses the feature? My guess is very few, but I'd love to see a survey on that little tidbit.
Pay a premium for a TV that requires special glasses, which as mine are prescription, means not settling for what's on the market, but waiting for someone to produce prescription lens 3D glasses for that particular model and paying an arm and a leg for them.
After waiting for those non-existent glasses to be developed, paying hundreds or thousands of dollars extra, what will I have?
A TV that gives me a migraine.
No thanks.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
My girlfriend and I tried a couple of 3D TVs at Best Buy. They all appeared blurry and none had a 3D effect, so either the displays were set up wrong or they just plain suck. However, we did go to a 3D viewing of some movie (there was no 2D showing of it at the time) a while back and that impressed me. Not enough that I'd pay to have the 3D effect at home, but enough to pay a couple extra bucks for the odd movie in theaters.
I find that 3D on larger television sets (55" and up) does work. It is not as good as viewing the same movie in the cinema, but sometimes it's good enough, and I usually pick up the 3D version of a movie instead of the regular one, if available.
But just as in the cinema, you need to settle down to watch the movie in order to get "sucked in" by the 3D. Same as in the cinema, were you generally won't "scan email, skim through a magazine, or keep watching out the corner of my eye from another room.". If you let yourself be distracted every minute, 3D is going to suck, whether you're in your home theater or a proper one.
By the way, I too am curious about no-glasses 3D but I'm not holding my breath. LG is already selling sets with passive 3D glasses, but the viewing experience is decidedly poorer than with good shutter glasses.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
I experimented with a 50" 3D set on display and found that if I was any further away from it than about 6 feet the scale on screen was all wrong. Basically, for stereoscopic TV to work, you have to fill your field of view such that the images hitting your eyes are the right distance apart. Change that distance and the scale changes so people start to look like marionettes rather than real people. This is especially bad in a typical home setting where you wouldn't sit so close or so face on. I can see 3D for home cinema and I might consider replacing my current 100" HD front projector with a 3D rig but for regular TV use it doesn't work.
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
I've seen two movies in 3D (well, the same one twice) ... both times it gave me a splitting headache that lasted for hours.
I don't like 3D. I don't want 3D. I'm not willing to pay for 3D. To me, 3D is a pointless failed technology I don't want.
Granted, everyone else is free to choose to have it, and I may actually be in the minority. But I'm not willing to spend a single penny on it. Not now, not ever.
I just view it as yet another reason why new TVs are a moving target. The HD spec has changed half a dozen times since about 99 when I bought my DVD player ... HDMI, HDCP, and now 3D. Do they really think people are going to buy a fresh new TV for another moving target spec every 2-3 years?
Used to be that you could buy a TV and have it last a decade or more ... now it's just baubles and doo-dads they try to change every year,
I finally just replaced my ten year old rear-projection TV with an LCD TV ... and I have no intention of replacing this for at least another 5+ years. As always, 3D is a gimmick that will attract some people, but the rest will simply watch it pass by and fade away.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
About two to 12 percent of the population can't see 3D, and I'm one of them. That's why we will probably never spend the extra money for a 3D TV.
HDTV was a reasonable improvement on NTSC and PAL. 3D really isn't. Compare to: DVD was a huge improvement over VHS. Blu-ray isn't enough of an improvement over DVD to be interesting.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I thought the same, I bought my TV without really wanting 3D but it's pretty much standard now so it came with it anyway, I'd not really tried it much, I tried the BBC Wimbledon 3D test, I tried Street Dance 3D when it was on the other day but none of it was anything special.
Then I noticed Assassins Creed on the 360 supports it, and thought I'd give it a go. It really is pretty fucking good, I know a few other games like Crysis and Gears 3 support it but I've not tried them yet.
At the end of the day I guess it's just like at the cinema, Avatar was phenomenal in 3D but little else has been, likewise, it appears games are suited to 3D too.
I'll assume it's the difference between something genuinely built in 3D, and that shitty cardboard cut out version of 3D.
Still, it's early days, and Toshiba is already testing glasses-less 3D TVs so I think it'll only get better. All in all, I don't think it's a bad technology, in some cases it certainly adds something, when you're stood at the top of a massive tower in Assassins Creed looking down, you can really feel the height.
I'm going to skip the whole 3D TV craze and hold out for a 4D one. One extra D has to be better, right?
Add another 4 and another D and then we'll be in business!
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
TV sets should be no more than UV/IR "blue" screen hung on a wall.
Give me comfortable glasses that can overlay reality. Then I can use those glasses for all my general purpose viewing needs, be they 2D or 3D.
It's more than credible that you can turn off the lights in your bedroom or TV room and have the equivalent resolution experience of a movie theater, be it 2D or 3D.
They just need a short range transmitter with enough bandwidth that can match the resolution of both eyes for up to ten people in a room. Have an aux input that can plug into an external receiver for a specialized receiver for occasions where your in a larger crowd such as a theater. Everyone they can have the quality glasses they can afford. It opens up a world of augmented reality. Just like cell phones they will be big at first and then they will get smaller and more fashionable.
Then much further in the future we will have implants that plug directly into the optical nerve and augment what you see more directly.
Will 3D add anything to watching Two And A Half Men? Probably not.
Will it add something to watching movies, or sports? Probably so.
HDTV adoption was driven by movies and sports, and not so much by sitcoms. 3D adoption could be the same. I know ESPN does a few sporting events in 3D. If DirectTV started showing all of their sports packages in 3D, it might push the TV adoption considerably.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
I think the problem is that 3D movies and TV are not really "3D", they are 2D movies using a stereoscopic effect that can fool the brain into thinking that the picture has depth. But it's not really 3D, which results in headaches and other effects that make it uncomfortable for many people.
If they could come out with a holoscopic projection mechanism that shows true 3D, maybe then people will be more interested, but high quality full-color holoscopic projection is probably decades away, if ever.
Even in a galaxy far, far away, the holographic projections created by R2-series droids have flickering low-quality images.
Some of us paid thousands of dollars on LASIK surgery specifically for the purpose of not having to wear glasses. I'm not about to pay thousands more so that I can again.
At the end of the day I guess it's just like at the cinema, Avatar was phenomenal in 3D but little else has been, likewise, it appears games are suited to 3D too.
Pop quiz, hotshot:
1. Who was Luke's mentor in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi?
2. Who was the character in The Lord of the Rings that chased "his precious"?
3. Name the blue girl in Avatar.
3D doesn't make for good, memorable characters. It makes for gimmicky crap. Avatar was a terrible movie with a 3D effect, 2D characters, and a 1D plot.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
It's because of the way cinemas project the movie. I'm not sure about the exact setup they generally have, but they project the left and right frames on top of each other using opposing circular polarisation. This works well with passive glasses and is very easy to achieve with a special projector. On a TV where you don't project anything but stare at the pixels themselves, managing varying polarisation is a bit harder. LG somehow found a way to get 3D on a TV panel with passive glasses; you do get proper 3D but the quality suffers visibly.
By the way, any 3D will work a lot better with less ambient light, be it a cinema, shutter glasses at home, or a TV with passive glasses
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The current passive 3d tvs use half the vertical resolution. If you are close enough, that shows. If you use the motion enhancing features, that shows too. Shutter glasses aren't perfect either. Even though my TV is a 3D one (for the very small price difference between non-3d and 3d, I decided to get it), I'm not using it much. Perhaps with more usage you can forget about the artifact, but so far I'm not running after 3d movies.
I find it surprising that all the comments above are focused on 3D movies, and none mention gaming. Hello people? Gaming in 3D is freaking amazing. It really adds to the immersion, and looks pretty fantastic. That's the only reason to get a 3D-capable TV in my opinion. 3D movies suck even in theaters, and "converted" content is just plain wrong. Gaming in 3D, on the other hand... If you haven't tried it yet, you should.
Oh, it was useful if you liked sports - but things got complicated when we moved to satellite TV and digital cable. You needed two tuners to get all your channels, and that just started getting silly.
If your point is that 3D is a niche product and many people won't want it, then I agree. Colour TV is something everybody wants; HD television is something almost everybody will want once they see the improvement in picture quality; 3D just isn't that much more interesting.
3. Name the blue girl in Avatar.
Which one? Most of them were.
Oh, BTW, since I personally cannot name characters in just about any movie, does that mean they are all gimmicky crap? Or just that I've watched Empire Strikes Back many times since it came out, including when I was an impressionable kid, and read the LOTR in book form decades before the movie, versus watching Avatar a total of once?
Someone had to do it.
(Yes, I realize the majority have been "marketed" into thinking stereo-vision is actually really 3D. But that doesn't mean they won't notice when real 3D displays replace this lame 2D hack. The first time they stand up and the POV changes so they can look down the cheerleader's cleavage will be the very last time they ever even *think* about purchasing a 2D set.)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Oh, BTW, since I personally cannot name characters in just about any movie, does that mean they are all gimmicky crap? Or just that I've watched Empire Strikes Back many times since it came out, including when I was an impressionable kid, and read the LOTR in book form decades before the movie, versus watching Avatar a total of once?
Interesting. Perhaps part of the reason you've watched Empire Strikes Back so many times is that you enjoyed the story? I mean, I don't think we're breaking new ground here if we say that special effects (e.g. explosions, 3D, explosions in 3D) don't make up for flat characters or a weak story.
Try out a projector. It is easy to jump to a 120" screen. I think that the OP was correct in calling a 52" screen tiny.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
For fuck's sake, James Cameron, get an account already.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
While watching 3D, you can gradually get accustomed to the infra-ocular distance used to film the scene, which may differ from your view of the natural world. When adjacent scenes use different camera configurations, your mind takes time to make the adjustment to the new 3D perspective. This is one of the contributors to the headache effect.
In sports, the action is unpredictable, and may move towards or away from the camera(s) unexpectedly. Cuts from one view to another are frequent. This causes the viewer to continually readjust to new 3d perspectives. IMHO, this problem is the unavoidable Achilles heel of 3d sports. Remember, this is technology-independent. It doesn't matter what kind of glasses are being used, or whether no glasses are used -- this problem still exists.
Computers obey me.
Actually it sounds facetious since it is already a thing but the "next big thing" is user generated content, and that is 2D.
Already we geeks and some definitively non geeks have hooked our TVs to the net but that's still not a reality for the vast majority of people. Most people still watch regular TV, either via cable or air waves. Even Netflix is in many ways "Old Media".
But as HTPC become the norm more and more people will start watching user generated content predominantly. It is already the case that I can be entertained for weeks just by watching and reading stuff that's not only completely free but desperate to get any attention at all. And as technology improves, the quality of content will only improve. And the content that doesn't improve in production quality will improve in other ways. As wifi access becomes more ubiquos and SSD become cheaper more people will start making recording on the spot, Meaning that there won't be a public event small enough to not be filmed.
And on top of that there is the rise of public domain content. Yes there is a market for old movies, and old movies are getting newer each year, and it's not only old movies, public domain content includes government funded productions too, including educational and artistic stuff that doesn't sell well but is popular enough when free.
Big Media will always exist but their market-share can only shrink. I see the insistence on 3D as an attempt at making themselves seem irreplaceable. If they convince people that content must be 3D, then they are the only ones making content. But I don't see that happening.
Bonus point: Last year scientist made a humble first step into reconstructing images from the visual cortex activity (link) , a previously though impossible feat. If that technology only doubles each year we might be watching dream movies in less than a decade.
But... the future refused to change.
Some tv manufacturer needs to get the porn industry behind them - it helped VHS win the format war with Betamax.
I'll tell you what will end yet another foray into 3D...... 1. Price!! 2. Price!! 3. Price!! just before Christmas I was so excited to have got my new 3D TV, I rushed out to buy CAPTAIN AMERICA. After a few minutes of looking inwardly dejected at the shelf with people going about their shopping around me I had no other option but to do the 180 degree shuffle. I mean, come on, £23 for a film!! Is this some kind of joke that I'm not in on? More than twice the price of a DVD release!!! I didn't want it that badly. I almost heard the box cry out to me as I walked to the exit "But no wait theres a shiny DVD and a digital copy!!" The problem is I didn't want a DVD I wanted a 3D bluray. I didn't want a digital copy (which btw I could physically ingest the DVD and fart a better transcode than what you get on the disk) I wanted a 3D bluray. I don't know about you but I'm not fooled by the triple play scam. Extra disks does not mean extra value. If I want extra copies I'll make 'em myself. Its a shame really because I like 3D and I think it deserves to do well this time round but as usual some Grey haired Just for men using board room stiff in a suit is going to kill it off because what they lack in foresight they more than make up for in greed.
Half the glass out there has strange effects through polarized lenses. Automotive glass (especially small car rear windows for some reason) looks like a dot-grid, the windows outside my workplace turn into rainbows, and even the sunlight reflecting off of the road gets brighter or dimmer depending on how I tilt my head with my sunglasses on.
The first week that I wore polarized sunglasses was very interesting.
If you find yourself in situations where you end up at 3D movies despite your wishes, get a pair of the $8 "2D glasses" from Amazon (or wherever). It's just a left-eye lens on both eyes, so you'll see the same 2D frame with both eyes at the same time. That should fix it for you.
Of course, the easiest thing is to just not go see 3D movies, but even on slashdot, people sometimes have friends they like to hang out with, and it's not always possible for a group of friends to agree on something that's perfect for the entire group.