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

scam

[arnodf]

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

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

[tripleevenfall]

I have been thinking this was the main issue. How will an expensive 3D TV set improve most of my TV watching? It won't really enhance news, informational, sitcom kinds of shows. Some dramas and movies, perhaps. Sports and action-type programming, sure.

I think most people shrug at 3DTV because, who needs it?

Especially as expensive as it currently is, and since most cable operators are probably going to charge extra for it (and most are already paying extra for HD capability). This isn't a boom time, economically speaking, to be asking people to upgrade all their equipment.

I don't think most people see the benefits as being worth the expense.

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:scam

[pixelpusher220]

I saw Avatar in 3D and literally didn't see anything useful in using that medium over regular 2D. I would assume they pulled out most of the stops on something that big to make 3D work.

Perhaps when it evolves into something that is 'actually' 3D and not 'simulated' 3D they will have something, but until then it is not and never has been '3D'. You can't change your perspective to look at an object from a different direction like you can in actual 3D life.

Re:scam

[ColdWetDog]

"tiny' 52 inch television?

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Re:scam

[mykepredko]

A 'tiny 52"' tv?

You young people have it so easy now adays; why in my day we used to huggle together as a family around an 8" TV watching Jack Benny and arguing who was Jack and who was Rochester.

myke

Hey you kids, get off my lawn!

Re:scam

[jedidiah]

> Are we to understand you did not see the extravaganza, which was Avatar?

One movie? Is that all. There have been tons of movies recently released in 3D. The fact that people find it necessary to fixate on a particular movie doesn't say anything positive for the format.

So am I supposed to replace all of my equipment and deal with those stupid glasses over ONE movie?

Sounds pretty stupid.

No wonder 3D uptake is not so hot.

3D is more often than not annoying or irrelevant.

I will never adopt 3D

[metalgamer84]

I hate having to wear glasses just to watch something. More so, it looks and feels like a gimmick.

Re:I will never adopt 3D

[swanzilla]

I hate having to wear glasses just to watch something. More so, it looks and feels like a gimmick.

Gimmick aside, the glasses aren't necessarily requisite.

Re:I will never adopt 3D

[jelwell]

I hate having to wear glasses just to watch something. More so, it looks and feels like a gimmick.

Can you imagine if you had to wear glasses every minute of your waking life? Those people with bad eyesight must think the whole world is a gimmick!
Joseph Elwell.

Re:I will never adopt 3D

[Cro Magnon]

Wearing prescription glasses is one thing. Wearing 3D OVER my prescription glasses is another. Not going to happen!

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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.

No thanks

[msobkow]

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.

3D on TV does work, but not for casual viewing

[JaredOfEuropa]

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.

Distance from the screen

[GreatDrok]

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.

Because not everyone likes 3D ...

[gstoddart]

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.

There's a Significant Stereoblind Population

[dringess]

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.

Re:It's the old catch-22

[Baloroth]

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 think they might have. HD TVs sold in droves, for a while anyways, as people upgraded. They were a significant upgrade, and prices dropped while quality increased rapidly, causing a huge bubble for TV makers. It wasn't even that nothing else was available: HD TV's are simply far better than old CRT TVs, in nearly every possible way. 3D TVs are almost worse, in 3D mode, than regular HD TVs (although usually slightly better in non-3D mode), which means they simply will not sell. But based on the bubble, TV makers expected them to. Basically, they expected (or hoped, anyways) sales to continue at what they were, using 3D TVs to push that, not realizing they were in the middle of an upgrade bubble. Similar story with Blu-ray: DVDs were far (far far far) superior to VHS, so they sold well, whereas most people can't tell the difference between an upscaled DVD and a Blu-ray disc.

3d is not important

[roc97007]

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.

Re:3d is not important

[roc97007]

Caveat; I've been a video geek since the early eighties.

There is no contradiction.

NTSC was not good enough. It was interlaced, had poor resolution, and was the wrong aspect ratio. "Letterboxing" the content, of which I was a big fan at the time, (because seeing the entire frame was more important) admittedly reduced the (vertical) resolution even further. Some say part of the problem was also the analog nature of the signal (as opposed to HDTV being digital) and there is some truth to that, but I personally think the term "digital" is way overused. [1]

HDTV was non-interlaced [2], had resolution that was good enough (take note, we'll come back to that later) and was closer to the aspect ratio used in theaters. (In that 1.85:1 would have a tiny bit of zoom or letterboxing, and 2.39:1 would still be acceptable.)

Now, VHS was a horrible medium, that didn't even come close to the resolution of the better TVs of the time. (Can you imagine today watching content in 170 horizontal line resolution?) Laserdisc (of which I was a consumer) came closer. DVD represented a huge, easily visible increase in quality over VHS. (Moreover, a well-crafted DVD on a good player was visibly better than even the best Criterion laserdisc on a good player, without all the disadvantages of laserdisc.)

So if you go strictly nerd-like by the numbers only, the resolution of vhs (170 lines) is about the same fraction of NTSC (525 lines) as DVD (480P) is of HDTV (1080P). So DVD must be just horrible on HDTVs, right? In real life it's not that simple, for a few reasons:

(1) As we do not change out our eyeballs with every upgrade, at some point, the video quality is good enough. The difference between VHS and a well crafted 480P DVD is striking. Even your grandparents notice it. But the difference between 480P and Blu-ray? Shrug. The difference in detail can be noticeable, but it's just not striking. For most people, 480P is good enough. 720P is an embarrassment of riches. 1080P is overkill. [3] (Note I didn't include any interlaced modes. I hope interlace goes away and never ever comes back.)

(2) The reason I keep saying "well crafted" is that it's an important issue in and of itself. I was an early adopter of Blu-ray as a backup medium, but since I had one in my media center I could also use it to play Blu-ray discs on the TV (Sony 48 inch Bravia). What I found was that there is a considerable overlap between the best DVDs and the worst Blu-rays. As one would expect, as it takes more than a medium to craft a brilliant video. Buying a title on Blu-ray is not, in and of itself, a guarantee that you're getting better video quality.

(3) Screen size is important. In less than 50 inches, the difference between DVD and Blu-ray is insignificant. Up to 60 inches it becomes noticeable, and at 100 inches or larger (projection) Blu-ray is required, as DVD just doesn't hack it at that screen size. Now, it used to be that the bigger screen you had the better, right? People were putting 60 inch sets in rooms way too small, and forcing themselves to sit way too close to get a good viewing experience, but hey, it's BIG. And big is BETTER. However, I've read lately that there is some reversal in this trend, and now 32 inches is considered a good size because it's GREEN. And green is BETTER. Shrug. The point is, unless you have a viewing room big enough and a screen big enough and every single component in the video stream is good enough, you're wasting your money. Sorry, it's true. We can make ourselves believe we're having a better experience, but really we're not, except in our imaginations.

And so, for most people in most situations with most equipment, Blu-ray just doesn't buy you enough to warrant paying more. Once it's dead even and Blu-ray players are $39 and there's a huge pile of discs in the cut-out bin (and by that I don't mean "Ernest saves Christmas") I might consider it when the current DVD player fails and can't be fixed. But it's ju

Re:I'm actually skipping this generation.

[CanHasDIY]

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!

It's not 3D

[hawguy]

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.

Re:Err

[Anonymous Coward]

Just look at what MTV did to music.

OK, just what the heck does MTV have to do with music?

Re:It's the old catch-22

[gfxguy]

I don't think that's really it, though. From a simple "quality" point of view, there's no reason not to have a 3D TV - you can watch 2D with just as much quality and still have the option for an occasional 3D experience... it's choice, and it's win-win.

The problem for me is that finally going from SD to HD cost a lot of money. I had to upgrade the TV, I had to upgrade the disc player to BluRay, I had to upgrade the DVR, I had to upgrade the service I was getting.... now I'm supposed to upgrade all those devices to 3D? I don't think so... the cost isn't worth the benefit. I suppose if I was still at SD and decided to upgrade now, I'd go straight to 3D, but that's not the case for me nor the vast majority of people, IMO.

I expect when I spend that much money on a television that it last more than 2 or 3 years... more like 10 (at least) or more. Both televisions I replaced were over 12 years old. I need a REALLY compelling reason to upgrade, and there just isn't one.

Some of us...

[KingSkippus]

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.

Re:Not much better than it was before

[Beardo the Bearded]

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.

Re:Err

[Lord Apathy]

It is not catching on because makers haven't figure it out yet. Here is the deal. Most people that watch tv donâ(TM)t' want a interactive experience. They don't want to strap on crappy do-dads or watch complex things where they have to pick and choose a path or answer questions.

People sit down in front of a tv to be mindlessly entertained. Something a standard 2d tv does just fine.

You want a interactive video experience play your Xbox. Want to be educated, read a book.

Re:Passive glasses

[JaredOfEuropa]

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

Re:Passive glasses

[PIBM]

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.

Re:Not much better than it was before

[Beardo the Bearded]

For fuck's sake, James Cameron, get an account already.

Sports worst feature of 3D Re:scam

[AJ Mexico]

Actually,sports is the worst programming for 3D. For previous technology advances, sports was obviously better. Sports looked great in color, and sports looked great in Hi-Def and that helped those technologies gain acceptance. Not so for sports in 3D. 3D works best when the "director" can carefully control the strength of the 3d effect, and keep it consistent throughout, as is done in (well-made) movies, and in video games, where everything can be calculated in advance. I watched one of the first (US) football games broadcast to theaters in 3D. It was a painful experience.

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.

Re:It's 2D (ok, maybe 2 and 1/2D) at best

[MonsterTrimble]

What I want is a holodeck & Deanna Troi.

Porn?

[witherstaff]

Some tv manufacturer needs to get the porn industry behind them - it helped VHS win the format war with Betamax.

Re:It's 2D (ok, maybe 2 and 1/2D) at best

[pak9rabid]

What I want is a holodeck & Deanna Troi.

In fact, forget the holodeck!