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3D TV Is Dead (cnet.com)
While Samsung dropped 3D support in 2016, LG and Sony -- the last two major TV makers to support the 3D feature in their TVs -- will stop doing so in 2017. None of their TVs, including the high-end OLED TV models, will be able to show 3D movies and TV shows. As a result, 3D TV is dead. The question is no longer when (or even why) 3D TVs will become obsolete, it's will 3D TVs ever rise again? CNET reports: The 3D feature has been offered on select televisions since 2010, when the theatrical success of "Avatar" in 3D helped encourage renewed interest in the technology. In addition to a 3D-capable TV, it requires specialized glasses for each viewer and the 3D version of a TV show or movie -- although some TVs also offer a simulated 3D effect mode. Despite enthusiasm at the box office and years of 3D TVs being available at affordable prices, the technology never really caught on at home. DirecTV canceled its 24/7 3D channel in 2012 and ESPN followed suit a year later. There are plenty of 3D Blu-ray discs still being released, such as "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," but if you want to watch them at home you'll need a TV from 2016 or earlier -- or a home theater projector. Those market trends are clear: Sales of 3D home video gear have declined every year since 2012. According to data from the NPD Group, 3D TV represents just 8 percent of total TV sales dollars for the full year of 2016, down from 16 percent in 2015 and 23 percent in 2012. Native 3D-capable Blu-ray players fell to just 11 percent of the market in 2016, compared to 25 percent in 2015 and 40 percent in 2012. As for whether or not 3D TVs will ever become popular again, David Katzmaier writes via CNET, based on his own "anecdotal experience as a TV reviewer": Over the years, the one thing most people told me about the 3D feature on their televisions was that they never used it. Sure, some people occasionally enjoyed a 3D movie on Blu-ray, but the majority of people I talked to tried it once or twice, maybe, then never picked up the glasses again. I don't think most viewers will miss 3D. I have never awarded points in my reviews for the feature, and 3D performance (which I stopped testing in 2016) has never figured into my ratings. I've had a 3D TV at home since 2011 and I've only used the feature a couple of times, mainly in brief demos to friends and family. Over the 2016 holiday break I offered my family the choice to watch "The Force Awakens" in 2D or 3D, and (after I reminded everyone they had to wear the glasses) 2D was the unanimous choice. But some viewers will be sad to see the feature go. There's even a change.org petition for LG to bring back the feature, which currently stands at 3,981 supporters. Of course 3D TV could come back to life, but I'd be surprised if it happened before TV makers perfect a way to watch it without glasses.
Was it ever really alive?
As for whether or not 3D TVs will ever become popular again
From where I sit 3D was a nonstarter. Why? The glasses. I paid something like $2500 to get my eyeballs lasered so I didn't have to wear glasses anymore. So a new TV standard comes along that requires me to wear glasses? Non-fucking-starter.
I'm hoping "Smart TV's" are the next to go.
It is now official. Netcraft has confirmed: 3DTV is dying
One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered 3DTV community when IDC confirmed that 3DTV market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that 3DTV has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. 3DTV is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
You don't need to be the Amazing Kreskin [amazingkreskin.com] to predict 3DTV's future. The hand writing is on the wall: 3DTV faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for 3DTV because 3DTV is dying. Things are looking very bad for 3DTV. As many of us are already aware, 3DTV continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Free3DTV is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time Free3DTV developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Free3DTV is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Open3DTV leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of Open3DTV. How many users of Net3DTV are there? Let's see. The number of Open3DTV versus Net3DTV posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Net3DTV users. 3DTV/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Net3DTV posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of 3DTV/OS. A recent article put Free3DTV at about 80 percent of the 3DTV market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Free3DTV users. This is consistent with the number of Free3DTV Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, Free3DTV went out of business and was taken over by 3DTVI who sell another troubled OS. Now 3DTVI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that 3DTV has steadily declined in market share. 3DTV is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If 3DTV is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. 3DTV continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, 3DTV is dead.
Fact: 3DTV is dying.
3D is for nerds. I've always loved it, since my first cyan/magenta poster from a cereal box when I was a little kid. If you can't take the glasses, you don't get to watch. I've enjoyed the 3D Blurays and I'm sure I'm far from alone in my intention to continue to use the format as it turns retro. Seeya, everyone who thought this was going to bring football holograms into your living room.
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Wait, there's VR porn?
It's no great surprise 3D TV died, while it was arguably better than the older red/blue system it still was a long shot at best; still at least it probably helped push along other developments during the cash splurge.
What however is looking to stick around and become more popular is the '360 degree' vision videos.
Perhaps if 3D rises again, they might just go straight for the neural implant - we'll see in another 25~30 years I suppose.
The preferred alternative of pure monitor plus streaming box could be marketed as 'modular TV'.
you have to ask?
> I think it's because it doesn't help to tell stories.
> But if you are tempted to use it to "make the image more realistic" then maybe you just don't have a good story to tell in the first place.
Color TV is to "make the image more realistic". Color isn't needed to tell the story. Yet nobody wants to buy black and white. Color is all anyone makes, nobody shoots TV or movies in black-and-white. The problem with 3D is the glasses - without the glasses, 3D would be a nice enhancement, much like color.
What enthusiasm? The fact that when all your showings are in 3D people reluctantly choose it over the 2D showing that you aren't even offering? Sure, that's enthusiasm....
3D is failing because nobody wanted it in the first place. They never wanted it at home, and they still don't want it in theatres. The only reason 3D sells is the lack of alternatives. For several years you almost couldn't buy a TV without it. That wasn't proof that people wanted it, it was proof that people were still buying TVs. My local theatre takes big name releases and does one 2D showing on a weekday at 2pm and 5 3D showings a night, people aren't "choosing 3D" they're trying to watch the movie.
I have in the past, and will continue to in the future, drive across town to find a 2D showing of a movie instead of being forced to watch in 3D.
I'm hoping 3D cinema are next to go.
Yes, it was fun in Avatar and all, but nowadays it only makes everything fuzzy and dark.
The last movie I watched in 3D was "Star Wars Rogue One", and I had no option for 2D (movie theaters here in Brazil are doing this dirty practice). In some scenes it was so dark I could barely see anything... I liked the movie, but 3D almost ruined it for me.
The only way to do this that I know of is with holograms, but seeing a full color holographic display at any time in the near future seems unlikely.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
>"But some viewers will be sad to see the feature go."
That would be me. I am glad my Samsung TV supports 3D (I had to jump to a higher end/significantly more expensive 7100 series model to get it in August of 2015 because the feature was disappearing on most models). I enjoy watching the occasional 3D Bluray movie. In fact, the only Blurays I own are 3D and I would buy more if more were made (and were decently mastered).
3D shot/rendered correctly does add to the enjoyment of a film for many people. But, sadly, too much poorly shot 3D was released and helped to ruin the market.
I think one reason 3D TV never caught on is that the screens generally were not large enough. There is a problem with a finite screen when objects appear near the left or right edges and relatively close to the viewer: the required binocular disparity is such that the image in one eye goes black (blank), leaving the image in only one eye. This is very uncomfortable, even if it happens for a brief instant. The screen needs to be large enough for the left and right edges to be nearly out of ones peripheral vision so that then one eye goes blank it is less noticeable. Most movie theater screens are large enough. But still, the director needs to be aware of this problem and be careful not to place up-close images near the edges of the screen. I think James Cameron knew this in making Avatar. I'm sure that Martin Scorsese did not know this when he made Hugo, as this happens many times during that movie. With TV, especially live action sports, I suspect that this might be hard to control.
Of course, the other problem is the disparate needs for the viewer to focus at one distance (the screen) and cross the eyes at another distance (the object). Most people adapt to this nearly instantly but I suppose even they find it a little fatiguing.
The only time I use the 3D feature of my LG TV is when viewing photos I shot with my Fujifilm FinePix REAL 3D W3. (Fuji, you are great at making cameras, not so hot at naming them!), or looking at other people's 3D shots with the Phereo app. These 3D sets are absolutely the best way to view 3D photos.
The W3 is maybe the best consumer 3D camera ever made (and it's pocketable!), but it didn't exactly set the world on fire either, and is now becoming a collector's item. So, yeah. . . I'm sad that this technology never seems to catch on with a wider audience, but that seems to be the reality of it.
I have worked with a couple of 3D displays for scientific visualization. The university I worked for had a fairly expensive system with an 8 foot by 10 foot 3D display "wall". It was great for demos, but after a year or so of mostly demos, it was largely abandoned. I also got a set of 3D glasses for a 20 inch CRT system and added 3D support to a program I wrote for a physicist friend to display movies of particle simulations. Most of the benefit of seeing the 3D structure could be obtained by simply rotating the scene or movie. Another friend said that chemical display software frequently uses a "wobble" option to add some 3D-like effect to molecule displays. I added a wobble option to my program and it worked pretty well. My experience was that people didn't care enough to walk down the hall to use the big 3D wall and even with 3D glasses in his office, my physicist friend didn't bother. It's not much of a surprise to me that 3D TV is largely a bust. It is cool for a demo, but it seems destined to be used only for demos. Maybe with 3D systems not using goggles or perhaps with lightweight glasses there will be a future for 3D displays. I hope so, even after seeing no one really using it.
Ray Seyfarth, ray.seyfarth@gmail.com, http://rayseyfarth.blogspot.com
To my view, much of IoT is a solution looking for a problem, and is compounded by ignorance on all levels. Corporations that are seeking it thinking it's the future don't understand Information Technology or Information Security. Developers have proven time and again that they're terrible at policing their own code for exploitation (and tech companies already have a hard enough time with this, non-IT firms won't have a chance) and consumers don't have any idea how it works by and large either.
Most of the "IoT" market that's actually relevant is already addressed through SCADA and other building management or energy management systems, and these systems usually don't require connections outside of the building or outside of the organization in order to work, and there's a better chance that the organization using them has staff responsible to maintain them, and that staff usually understands the ramifications of not maintaining them. Most of the new buzzword bingo stuff is fluff and will probably cause a lot of long-term problems when appliance manufacturers don't want to spend the money to patch security vulnerabilities in software for durable goods.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I hear you, but the twitch and bend was not painful, but significant enough to realize that there was something going on.
My pop has maculer degeneration, my mom had cataract surgery.
I program for a living and need my eyes, so 15 seconds of 3d goggles causing a spasm is more than I need to worry about.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
3D comes back every couple of decades. They had 3D movies as long ago as 1922. Since then, the popularity of 3D has come and gone several times. Each time, people get tired of the format when it loses its novelty. Then a couple of decades later, manufacturers come up with a "new" angle in hopes of selling new hardware.
Don't worry, 3D will come back. And then it will go away again.
The best use of 3D "effects" I've seen is one of the Spiderman rides. You're in a roller coaster like car traveling through a building. It blends actual motion, live action, and 3D film all together in ways where you don't know for sure what's real and what's projected. At one point you fall, you're dropping down 100 feet or so. I haven't been able to figure out how far you actually fall, if at all. I *think* it's a real roller coaster drop, a significant distance, enhanced by 3D video of scenery going past to make it feel like you fell twice as far. Or maybe you don't actually fall at all. I can't tell if it's real or just effects, and that's pretty cool.
3D TV's always seemed stupid as hell to me. I can't say I'm surprised they're gone. I never got the point, even before you factor in the need to wear special glasses and their tendency to induce eyestrain/headaches.
Good riddance!
I'm hoping 3D cinema are next to go.
Why hope for the death of something people enjoy? I was given the option of a 2D Rogue One screening. I chose the 3D one because I actually like it when done properly. What we really need is more choice rather than a battle of what people like.
To my view, much of IoT is a solution looking for a problem, and is compounded by ignorance on all levels. Corporations that are seeking it thinking it's the future don't understand Information Technology or Information Security.
If we must have smart tvs, then just making a slot for something like this:
Intel compute card(I'd also prefer to get rid of hdmi in favour of display port, but that is not happening.)
Basically this would be my ideal tv.
1) A few hdmi (or display port)
2) dot for dot displays in at least 24bpp color at at least 60Hz non interlaced, or better yet supporting that variable sync rate stuff graphics cards are supporting now to prevent tearing.
3) A single optical digital audio output, because do we really need to run speakers wirelessly and introduce those security issues?
4) A spot for a single replaceable compute card or similar. The card may connect to a lan port on the tv, but that just just wire routing. Basically you could swap the cards out in the mail if newer security was required. The card would also be used to help decode any video standards, and may actually be what decodes all compressed video.
5) A TV should not have a microphone, unless it goes to a closed system that can only be used to do trivial tv functions that clearly can never be routed to the internet. If you want to give up your privacy then you can add an additional microphone to the compute stick.
6) Similarly a tv should not have a camera. If a game absolutely needs one, it can add it on later
7) For add ons the compute stick may route wires to usb ports, but again these are just wires and have no security implications. Examples for USB would be game controllers, wired or wireless keyboards, direct connections to tv tuners, connects to portable blu-ray players, etc.
Over the air broadcasts, if used should be provided over the local network, wireless or wired. There is no point in dragging coax everywhere
The problem is that 3D, when it's done well, is an enhancement to the experience, but not an essential part of it.
In the theatre they hand you a pair of 3D glasses when you come in, you sit down silently facing straight forward to watch the movie, and then you drop the glasses in the box on your way out. The 3D is worth while because it's really convenient to do.
But at home? You need to find the glasses when you want to watch 3D, then you need to move around to make sure the viewing angle is right, then you need to take the glasses on or off when you wander around to do something else, then at the end you need to find a place to store the glasses again.
The enhanced experience just isn't worth the hassle.
I stole this Sig
https://www.walmart.com/browse...
Check the JVC and Sceptre out. https://www.walmart.com/browse...
Probably the same Sceptre again and an Avera... a Changhong. Not top name brands but they do exist.
that's what they do - when you put on the glasses, you see the colors as intended, otherwise you get oversaturated colors (like the crappy look some TVs produce out of the box, or your typical oled-phone screen). rogue one had a very muted/washed out palette because it was supposed to be a war-film.
I watched the golf on a friend's 3D TV and the experience was pretty awful.
I don't know what I expected, but with the glasses on it just seemed to be layers of 2D, rather similar to an episode of Captain Pugwash...
.
They will never know the simple pleasure of a monkey knife fight
we sit watching movies many times a week in the dark, 2d and 3d, and netflix.
heaps of stuff on youtube and torrents.
TV is in the middle not corner like a 80s 17"
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
implementing 3d is virtually free.
off/even frames synced to glasses, thats $1 tech.
I am sure you could retro fit a PC HDMI output with software on non-3d tvs at 100hz, and if synced to glasses by the PC would work fine as 3d, on NON 3D tvs.
The other format is polarized glasses, which just requires a thin $5 filter on top + software to filter frames to odd/even lines.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I have bought a 55" TV just to watch movies and the like. I however do not have cable. I just use it as a big monitor as they are way cheaper than a monitor of the same size and for the quality I need.
No, I do not use ANY of the features from the TV. Not the channels. Not the Internet. Not the apps.
So I already have a 'modular TV'.
To be more specific. I have 3 monitors. One monitor goes through a splitter and that goes to 3 other screens. One on my desk as monitor 3 (24"). One to the kitchen to a 22" and one to the 55" TV. Those have thus the same image and as I run XFCE with separate screens, I can keep what I watch on those monitors.
Disadvantage of a TV to a monitor is that a monitor will turn itself off completely and the TVs I have need to be turned off and on, so I have to press the button on the remote.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
I watched Avatar on a friend's system. It admittedly was pretty badass, but as I understand it, Avatar is possibly one of the best 3D movies ever made, where 3D wasn't cobbled-in for just a few effects scenes (thinking of the snake in one of the Harry Potter films sort of thing) or where as you state, looking like cardboard cutouts placed at various intervals.
If they could get 3D TV to work without requiring glasses then perhaps they'd really have something. Until then it's just too cumbersome to be more than an interesting toy.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.