The Coming Problems For Rolling Out 3D TV 232
holy_calamity writes "Now that Sony has announced it will sell 3D-capable televisions in 2010, people are thinking more seriously about the rocky road leading to mainstream 3D TV adoption. New Scientist says that not only do program makers lack the technology to make shows in 3D, but that little is known about the creative problems posed by shooting shows that make use of a whole new dimension, and what works for audiences. Engadget's own pundit focuses on the more predictable problems of format wars between competing 3D display technologies. Suddenly 2010 seems a little too soon."
Am I missing the point? (Score:5, Funny)
My TV is already 3D. It goes with my 3D furniture and 3D house.
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Am I missing the point?
3D pr0n.
Are you missing the point? (Score:2, Funny)
Yes. I suspect it's intentional. Or genetic.
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Yet the only girls in your life a 2D :P
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Yeah, well, I have a Sony XEL-1 [gizmodo.com], you insensitive clod!!
This is a simple decision for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
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+1 insightful. I don't even watch TV most of the time, preferring to just listen. The only time I actually watch a show is for a favorite program like Doctor Who or Babylon 5.
I guess that's why I'm satisfied with my current set even though it's "only" an analog 720x486 NTSC set.
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Most television will probably remain 2D, but the 3D tech integrated for those shows that are in 3D will probably require something like polarized glasses for at least the first generation.
It will take some time to transition to 3D. At first, it will be for special use. I can see HBO shelling out for a new series, and some movies made for 3D presentation (mostly animated films right now) will benefit. Provided viewers can accept it, as it becomes more common, it will become less expensive, and eventually
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SONY actually isn't planning on a polarization scheme (which would require either retrofitting existing TVs with polarization masks (column, typically, byebye half of the horizontal resolution, but that may be acceptable), or telling people 'tough luck - buy our new special 3D TV!') at first..
SONY is pushing 3D on BluRay as simply two separate streams and doesn't specify how this ends up being displayed.
SONY themselves, however, are at the moment pushing for shutter systems. I.e. the TV - and this can be '
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I had this on my Canon XL1 back in the 90's it came with 2 set's of the glasses and worked on SDTV without too much of an issue. each field was the other image so you got 30fps that was not bad to watch.
The adapter for my camera was expensive as hell, and I sold it all on ebay shortly after for the 3X zoom lens that was more useful.
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You mean with an emphasis on the characters and story rather than the effects thus producing better although dated looking films?
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Hell even HD is not mainstream in TV yet. 90% of all Tv content is SD and is likely to stay that way for at least another decade.
if they think anyone is gonna jump on their new darling tech that will require millions for a network to outfit just ONE studio with they are on some really good drugs.
It's like pulling teeth to get Tv stations and networks to go 720p HD. and they want to try and make it even more prohibitive for these penny pinchers?
vertigo (Score:4, Interesting)
If I have to wear any sort of headgear, even paper glasses, it's a no deal. I like to multitask when I watch TV.
You do bring up an interesting point indirectly. Will 3D perception even without headgear cause vertigo or other disorienting effects to people moving in a room? As the 3D gets better and better you will genuinely perceive the TV as a hole in the wall to another room but the attachment of that room to yours will be constantly shifting relative to your floor. Your brain may choose to perceive it as your floor is tilting.
Additionally the may be problems with filming in 3D that are hard for actors to accomodate. Certain kinds of motions in stereo vision systems can cause the image to become momentarily fuzzy. You can see this in many 3D animated movies where combinations of fast charater motions or doors moving while the camera pans result in anomolously fuzzy images in the otherwise infocus foreground. Someone once tried to explain to me why this is: I think it was somthing about the object sheering rates exceeding the framing rate. Supposedly this is why disney equiped theaters use a faster framing rate and show each frame four times to each eye interleaved.
We have binocular vision which means that our sense of 3D for left and right comes from our eyes directly but our sense of 3d for up and down is less direct by the eyes and aided by head motion which stereo 3d systems don't provide (actually get wrong).
hence it does make sense that how a scene is staged, how pans and zooms are done, and how moving objects traverse the screen will matter to filming good 3D products. and bad results can look worse than 2D, even seeimg less dimensional when they suddenly become fuzzy. and then there may be vertigo effects as well if you are moving around.
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If I have to wear any sort of headgear, even paper glasses, it's a no deal. I like to multitask when I watch TV.
Agreed. No way in hell I'm wearing anything extra to watch TV on a daily basis.
Maybe the occasional special program or event... I could probably put on some goofy glasses to watch the Super Bowl, for example...
But on a day-to-day basis? Not happening.
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That's fine, I for one welcome headgear for shows i watch and dont really look at the tv much for shows the background that i mainly listen to. For a film/nature doc/anything i actually sit down and watch I'd be fine wearing paper glasses (what is the advantage of fancy other stuff over paper glasses?).
Then you need a lenticular stereoscopic TV (Score:2)
If you don't want any headgear, then at the moment your only viable option is a display with lenticular lenses.
You can kiss half the horizontal resolution goodbye, any '2D' image is going to look odd, you have to remain in a relatively specific area (your left eye sees the left image, your right eye sees the right image. Now move your head 2.5 inches or so to the left. Hey that's odd, now your left eye sees the right image, and your right eye sees the left image. woo fun!).
So I'm not sure how much multit
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Yeah, if you had a set that required polarization filter glasses and you tried to use any other LCD (computer, cell phone) at the same time, you'd only be able to see the image out of one eye. Pretty big drawback.
That's worst case when one filter is perfectly perpendicular to the polarization of the other display. It could be just at a lower intensity in both eyes (filter axes at - vs / in one eye, | vs \ in the other).
But...but... they need new technology! (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone's already upgraded to shiny-new HDTVs and premium HD services. The manufacturers need to invent a new "toy" that people will demand and spend copious amounts of cash. They need 3D to succeed.
Oh and forget Bluray. You say you already upgraded your movie collection from VHS to DVD to Bluray? That's a shame because the new technology will be 3D Crystal technology. They want us to keep repurchasing the same thing over-and-over.
(Yes I've turned cynical in my old age.)
Re:But...but... they need new technology! (Score:5, Insightful)
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That might be a personal preference. Keep in mind you need A Blu Ray Player, HD Cabling, HD Sound Devices (That support Dolby 5.1 preferably), and an HDTV.
If you don't notice a DIFFERENCE, then you aren't doing it right. If you don't find yourself more entertained, that means you enjoyed the movie for something more. I know what you're going to say, and I agree:
The Notebook does not need HD.
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I've found the more recent Bond movies and those actiony type films have not done those soft filters when shooting an intense action sequence.
See, my understanding was that they reformatted it to fit my television screen, or at least thats what the little blue message at the beginning has led me to believe.
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>>>you need A Blu Ray, HD Cabling
Well of course. You can't send HD video over an old S-video or composite cable. That's only common sense and I think the person you were talking to already knew that.
>>>HD Sound Devices (That support Dolby 5.1 preferably)
This isn't HD. It isn't even something new. I've had Dolby 5.1 since 1997 when I got a Sony received equipped with it. Heck even my old VHS deck supports 4.1 sound, and that's a feature that goes back to the 1980s. Please don't miscat
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woah buddy, chill out.
Alot of people think their HD player will send to their HD TV with regular cabling, you'd be surprised. I'd say about 2 in 5 make that mistake.
5.1 has been out for a while, yes, we know that. There IS such thing as HD sound, that kind of stuff comes on High Definition Discs like Blu Ray. The speakers required to output these properly are generally the higher end, packaged 5.1 deals. If you get 2 speakers and are expecting HD Sound you'll have trouble getting that full experience.
The po
Re:But...but... they need new technology! (Score:4, Funny)
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You have got to be kidding!!! Blu-Ray gives you the time you need to make popcorn, go to the bathroom, mix a drink, and make yourself comfortable - all in the time it takes to load the menu screen.
Many conventional DVDs also possess this "feature."
I have a 119" projection system, but my reluctance to adopt Blu-Ray has everything to do with the fact that I find little plastic disks inconvenient. What few movies I buy, I rip to a computer hard drive (using HandBrake), and everything else is either downloaded or streamed. Blu-Ray rips take up A LOT more space.
The result of this is that almost nothing I watch is in full 1080p or even 1080i. The stuff I download or stream is typically 720p, at best, an
Re:But...but... they need new technology! (Score:4, Interesting)
Speak for yourself, to me 480p vs 1080p is the difference between a movie and a moving picture. All the little details that that aren't important but somehow my brain notices aren't there are there in 1080p. Of course it doesn't make a good movie anu more than CDs make good music, but it's definately improvement if you ask me. Now if only we could get 1080p60 for smooth pans under all circumstances, I'd be happy. If you desperately want the p24 feel, you can put a filter on it.
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How far do you sit from your TV. I have a chart to show you.
You are correct though, 60hz "p" (and eventually 120hz "p") television is the next wave.
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How far do you sit from your TV. I have a chart to show you.
About 2 meters from a 42" LCD screen when I'm in my chair, more like 3 meters if I use the couch if it's a movie or good enough, otherwise I might just watch it on the monitor (1920x1200) which is definitively close enough.
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Lets watch x at 480p and watch x at 1080p you will see a difference...
Watch y at 480p and watch z at 1080p you may know as much. Until you see y at 1080p
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Um no.
i dont enjoy being able to seethe film grain.
i find my DVD copy of blazing saddles or Evil dead to be far superior to the Bluray version I have.
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>>>I have yet to find that my movie watching experience was in any way noticably improved by watching a film on Blu-Ray instead of DVD.
>>>
I have. Movies on DVD are frequently plagued with compression artifacts (especially in dark scenes) whereas those same movies on Bluray make the artifacts disappear. This is because a Bluray can hold about 6 times more data, and therefore doesn't need as much compression, so fewer errors appearing on the screen.
However one drawback to Bluray is watchin
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I have. Movies on DVD are frequently plagued with compression artifacts (especially in dark scenes) whereas those same movies on Bluray make the artifacts disappear.
Which is why I only bought Superbit versions of DVD movies.
any mildly serious Video guys knows about superbit discs.
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However one drawback to Bluray is watching old shows that were never meant to be HD. Like Star Trek. When a hairy caveman throws a spear at Spock, it looks like a spear on the old analog sets, but on the new HD sets the spear looks like a piece of foam.
Yeah, this was the BBC's official reason for not broadcasting the new Doctor Who in HD. Apparently, they were still using an old prop for the police box and it only looked convincing at standard definition.
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you are sitting WAYY to far from your TV.
you need to be 5-6 feet from a 42" 720P set to see the difference over SDTV.
your eyes cant resolve the resolution if you sit more than 6 feet away from a tiny 42" screen.
Re:But...but... they need new technology! (Score:4, Insightful)
It never ceases to amaze me how people insist on fixating on the visuals.
These are just one part of the movie. The entire "experience" needs to be
properly set up.Also, a properly configured surround sound setup goes a
lot further to create that "cinema experience" at home. This is likely
why a surprising number of people are unimpressed with HDTV or Bluray.
A much smaller screen, a well done sound system and a DVD can yield you
a much more effective "cinematic experience" than most HDTV setups.
This is why Lucas pushed for better sound in cinemas.
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No, its not.
Lucas pushed for better sound in cinemas because sound quality is important to immersive cinematic experience, to be sure, but the relative effect of better sound vs. moving from SDTV to HDTV quality visuals wasn't part of that consideration, because film as used in theaters has (both now and at the time Luc
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I have yet to find that my movie watching experience was in any way noticably improved by watching a film on Blu-Ray instead of DVD.
Back when I was into Laserdisk the startling thing was the improved sound quality when I ran it through even a mediocre stereo. It felt like I was back in a theater. If you are sitting there on a couch talking to a friend while watching a movie I doubt quality will improve your experience but if you watch a film properly on quality equipment the experience is similar to a theater only without the sticky floors, crying babies and teenage girls talking.
I highlighted the two aspects that indicate that your understanding of what is an appealing new technology are out of touch with reality.
Laserdisk was a technology whose primary appeal was the inability of the consumer to record to it. Since the consumer did not view that as a desirable feature, Laserdisk failed (there were other reasons, but they all amounted to the fact that Laserdisk did not have any features that most consumers found worth the effort).
You talk about the theater experience as if it is
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>>>Laserdisk was a technology whose primary appeal was the inability of the consumer to record to it.
First off it's LaserDisc with a "c" and second laserdisc probably would have succeeded despite its inability to record, just as DVD succeeded even though it was not recordable. (Yes that's correct - recordable DVDs never caught-on except with the 90s-era geeks. The average Jo Consumer used VCRs or DVRs.) The problem was that laserdisc didn't offer an appreciable improvement over VHS movies - not
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Yea, why does progress have to keep happening. Can't they see we already have enough stuff. Why do they keep making more?
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The problem isn't "progress" but the sinking feeling that we all
are going to end up wearing those funky paper glasses from the 50's.
3-D is a technology that film makers continue to push and always seem
to fail at.
When 3-D movies are considered less of a joke, perhaps then it will
be time to try and push that technology into every living room on the
planet. Perhaps by then the technology aspects and the artistic aspects
will have been sorted out.
Why do we make more stuff? (Score:2)
Yea, why does progress have to keep happening. Can't they see we already have enough stuff. Why do they keep making more?
Well, see, Ben Franklin and the forces of Hell were going to invade Earth at the start of the Rapture in order to harvest all the human-made Stuff - but the angels in heaven got greedy, imprisoned God, and delayed the Rapture in the hope of getting more Stuff for themselves - not realizing that doing so would also cause the world to become progressively more distorted as time went by.
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>>>Yea, why does progress have to keep happening. Can't they see we already have enough stuff. Why do they keep making more?
I keep asking the same question. Although the VHS to DVD upgrade was worthwhile to remove the blur, I often wonder if the DVD to Bluray upgrade is worth it. I don't enjoy buying the same movie or television show three times.
I'm also annoyed that all my old Super VHS-C camcorder home videos are going to be difficult to play due to lack of hardware. Yeah I know - "copy them o
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Everyone's already upgraded to shiny-new HDTVs and premium HD services
According to Nielsen, only one-third of US homes had HDTVs in February 09. Most people don't care about HD, they'll just get one when their current TV breaks.
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the only reason I will be buying an HD set is that when my current set breaks, I will have no options except flatscreen super HD +++ . This will come at premium dollars, as the cheap models using older but functional technology wont be in stores for purchase.
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Wow... that's a lot considering it just came into full mainstream a few years ago. 1/3rd of homes in the US is a LOT of people, especially considering we're in a recession and people "aren't buying luxury items", and HDTV's fit squarely in that category.
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mainstream a few years ago? HDTV has been available for over 10 years. I am throwing away some customers HD sets as they are worn out.
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Actually HDTV sales are one of the few items that has held up well in the recession.
http://www.audioholics.com/news/industry-news/hdtv-panels-prove-recession-proof-in-us [audioholics.com]
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The good news? You save 79 cents because it doesn't require any s
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Of course. How else are we going to watch the new remake of "The Parent Trap"?
Everyone? (Score:2)
I think not. I know a lot of people who still don't have a HDTV. I still use my 20" CRT TV from 1996. Same with my parents, relatives, friends, strangers. Some don't even have a TV!
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Everyone's already upgraded to shiny-new HDTVs and premium HD services. The manufacturers need to invent a new "toy" that people will demand and spend copious amounts of cash. They need 3D to succeed.
really? MOST tv networks are still broadcasting in SDTV. Most homes do NOT have a HDTV.
How has everyone already upgraded when less than 35% of the population has it and less than 50% of all TV networks use it?
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yeah, add 3D support to Blu-Ray! Yet another high-bandwidth stream to suck-up the already precious bandwidth!
By the time they get finished adding TrueHD streams in English, Spanish, French, Chinese and Klingon, multiple camera angles, plus an HD look Behind The Scenes, and now an additional parallel 3D stream, there's not much room left for a quality 1080P main movie. At that point, you might as well be watching a DVD, with the poor resolution you'll be seeing.
console wars (Score:5, Insightful)
The next generation game consoles will support 3D TV's. I suspect that much like the PS3 driving bluray adoption whatever format the winning console chooses will be the new 3D TV format of choice.
People forget but real HDTV's came out more than 9 years ago. In the start there wasn't any HD content to watch either; just upconverted DVD's. But now every one I know has a HDTV set.
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IMHO, HD content is still far from being ubiquitous. It seems like it's still treated as a novelty, reserved for sports and higher budget productions. Does anyone have any stats on what percentage of total available common cable/satellite program
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of course (Score:2)
There is no need for it (Score:2)
2D TV is just fine. HiDef TV is a great enhancement that enables more detail It works and it serves its purpose. What purpose does 3D solve? Things already look "real" enough.
FWIW, I have seen 3D porn. It didn't offer much in my opinion. 3D for games is good. 3D is good for anything that uses focus and concentration. 3D for TVs and movies? Not so much.
Don't do 3D crossfades. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Crossfading in 2D, when everything's in one focal plane, is no problem. In 3D, different objects are in different focal planes, and everything's a confused mess until the fade's over.
Depends on the scenes. Going from one "complex" scene to a "simple" one, or vice versa, wouldn't be nearly as bad ("simple" meaning the entire scene was at basically the same focal depth – distant would work well, a near wall would still work tolerably well I suspect).
Re:Don't do 3D crossfades. (Score:4, Interesting)
Say... what would the 3D equivalent of a star-wipe be?
You could do a z-axis wipe from far to near (probably after cross-fading the background plane). That would avoid most of the issues with shifting focal planes. It wouldn't be too dissimilar from the 2D effect where you cross-fade the background and then a bit later cross-fade the foreground. OTOH, in real 3D it might look really freaky --- only way to know is to try it...
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Yeah, they're going to have to learn to make movies to use the tech... No big surprise there. The same thing happened with the initial movies, then sound, then color, etc etc. Things change and directors/etc have to improve their abilities to keep up.
Re:Don't do 3D crossfades. (Score:4, Informative)
Can someone translate whatever industry's jargon this is to geek English, please?
A "fade" is a technique in TV and film for changing from one scene to another. The simplest (and laziest) is a "jump cut", in which the image one your screen abruptly changes. Sometimes a fade is done by juxtaposing objects of similar geometry (i.e., pan the camera to a woman's circular parasol, cut to a shot of the sun in the same position on the screen, then pan down to the scene below.) Another option is to fade to black and then fade in the next scene (Tarantino has been doing that for his chapter breaks, and a lot of TV shows, such as LOST, like to fade from black coming out of commercials.)
A "crossfade" or "wipe", is when the image of the next scene is "wiped" over the previous one, like somebody sliding one painting in front of another. George Lucas used them A LOT when making the Star Wars movies.
The problem that Dr. Manhattan was talking about is, when you do a crossfade, you briefly have two images on the screen at once, which really messes up the stereoscopic 3D effect. For that reason, re-mastering a movie like Star Wars to be a 3D feature would be nearly impossible without major edits. If fact, you'd probably need to go back to the original raw footage and re-cut the entire movie.
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For that reason, re-mastering a movie like Star Wars to be a 3D feature would be nearly impossible without major edits.
or that pesky little fact that it was shot in 2D.
If you can give me real 3d from a old 2d source you'll be richer than Bill gates and the Dow chemical family combined.
you have to SHOOT A NEW FILM with TWO CAMERAS to get 3d. so who cares what wipes or dissolves they used.
it's why you have 2 eyes.
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A "crossfade" or "wipe", is when the image of the next scene is "wiped" over the previous one, like somebody sliding one painting in front of another.
Wrong! A crossfade is not a wipe, it is a dissolve. Citation, with example video [mediacollege.com]. If you've learned otherwise, I'd like to know where.
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Off topic but funny. From the link you posted: "This video requires Flash Player version 8. Your Flash Player is version 10 [Upgrade Now]"
And I *so* want to hate Sony... (Score:2)
What format wars? If Sony beats everyone else to market by a few years, Sony wins the next few decades, end of discussion.
Now, if (as has happened so often in Sony's history) someone else comes to market with a similar product at half the price... Well, BetaMax 3d, we hardly knew ye...
Point of view (Score:3, Insightful)
If first person games haven't driven sales of "3D" computer monitors through the roof (or even off the floor) what makes anyone think 3D TV has a snowballs chance?
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I agree. 3D technology for games has been out for quite a while and so far, the adoption seems far from a reality. The games industry is one of the industries that pushes more interface technologies into the wild and I'm yet to see a "best played in 3D" label on a game.
3D has been on movie theaters already. Where I live, almost all theaters are already 3D capable (using polarized glasses). At least a bit of distortion is noticeable and it's not easy to immediately get accustomed to it, but it's usable.
On th
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Which is, I suppose, why stereo "3D" doesn't work in movie theaters and isn't being adopted more broadly by studios and theaters as the technology to do it becomes m
Meh (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Meh (Score:5, Funny)
hmm (Score:5, Funny)
With regular TV it looks like she has a cute mole..
With HDTV I can see a hair growing from the mole..
With 3DTV...AHH....AHH....THE HAIR...IT'S TOUCHING ME
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Lick it. You know you want to.
Production challenges (Score:3, Interesting)
I know that in the LOTR trilogy, they did a lot of clever work with perspectives, using split furniture/scenery and having actors closer/further away from the camera to make Gandalf appear significantly bigger than the hobbits, for example. I imagine this kind of trick is done quite a lot in TV production as well.
Stereoscopic cameras will mean that this trick just can't work - certain types of production just couldn't be done using camera tricks alone. It might be possible to add these effects using CGI or something - but would be a lot more expensive.
Re:Production challenges (Score:4, Insightful)
Agreed, 3D is hard and limits your ability to use cheap tricks to make scenes look the way a producer wants.
For a big blockbuster movie, I can see it being worth the cash. You can drop megamillions on producing a movie and run a reasonable expectation of making it back over a relatively short period. 3D would just be added to the list of expensive special effects, and some people will pay a premium for the 3D version for home if it's available. But I really only see this useful for big blockbuster films.
For regular TV shows? Umm, no. Not anytime soon, at least. There will probably be a few shows that will be produced just because they want to be first to 3D, but they'll probably be about the same quality as a /. "first post" message thread.
You can take months and months to shoot a single movie and everyone can be OK with that because it's a movie - it's a one-shot deal and audiences expect a lot so you have to produce something special. For a TV show, you have to release 16 or 38 minutes of footage (once you chop out the commercials and credits from a 30- or 60-minute show) EVERY WEEK, for at least 10-15 weeks out of the year (used to be in the 20s, but most series release a lot fewer shows now).
So, release one movie a year, you have to create ~100-110 minutes of actual show. To release one short (10-episode) season of a "1-hour" show, you've got to create 380 minutes. Your return probably isn't going to be nearly as high, so you simply can't afford to sustain 3D filming for that amount of time year after year and make good money, unless 3D becomes a HUGE ratings boom for your show.
Add to that the complexity of setting up certain convincing shots (long lenses that can give the appearance of an actor being in the middle of an explosion when in reality he's hundreds of feet away, perspective shots, etc), and TV shows would have to either get a lot more expensive, or a lot shorter. Most shows wouldn't even be candidates. Reality shows, sitcoms, talk shows - what would be the point? Cinematic-quality shows like the "X-Files" would be excellent candidates, but they are cinematic quality because the producers used a LOT of camera tricks, so those would be priced right out of reach.
Still, there will probably be a demand built eventually. That's why I conditioned it with "not anytime soon". Possibly someday... but in order to have a big ratings boost because of 3D, you've got to have people watching and desiring 3D shows, which means they all need 3D gear at home, and they won't do that en masse until there's enough content to watch. Home video in 3D will start the adoption because movies are easy to justify in 3D. If that takes off some TV shows might eventually follow once adoption is high enough to get the eyeballs in, and filming becomes cheap enough to afford it.
It's happened before (Score:2)
It's to be expected (Score:2)
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Or it will die a slow death of neglect. Like so many forgotten technologies.
Stereoscopic images have been touted as the next big thing every decade since 1880 or so. Why would this time be different?
Coming Problems (Score:5, Funny)
Dodging money shots.
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Try dodging dumb shows or plot lines revolving around constantly over doing the 3D effects.
All we need is a "Michal Bay of 3D" and the whole 3D hype will die in an instant.
Imagine actors continuously throwing things or lunging towards you. Nobody does this in real-life.
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Such is the nature of new toys. Someone makes a new toy, everyone gets excited about it, everyone uses it, we get sick of it, toy finds its rightful place. See Wire-fu and virtual camera.
3D is likely to be the way most films and tv shows will be made. Once the novelty wears off there will be less silly uses (i hope).
What i'd like to see are movies "filmed" in full CGI where i can move the camera wherever the hell i want it. Bob and Lisa are arguing in the kitchen, i can head upstairs to watch Timmy cryi
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Yeah, but machinima... with dialogue and better graphics.
Hell if it forced me to follow the along with the story buy i could move the camera, that would be cool too.
The pr0n producers are drooling about this... (Score:2)
But the most important question is (Score:2)
Will 3D TV support Quad Sound?
Fah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? (Score:2)
Single-lens 3D (Score:3, Informative)
The article points out the most obvious way to do capture: use two independent cameras. However I recently found out about efforts to build "single-lens 3D" cameras. One example of a company working on this is I See 3D [isee3d.com] (disclosure: I'm indirectly a small-time investor). The idea is to use special high-speed shutters inside the camera (intersecting the optical path) to select left-biased or right-biased imaging. The advantage is that it is much cheaper, since you only need a single sequence of lenses, and only a single detector. This also means that it should be possible to rather cheaply build this into existing manufacturing lines. And a 3D camera of this sort could revert to 2D mode quite easily. A drawback of this type of system is that you can't alter the effective distance between the left- and right- viewing angles (which could be a big deal, depending on distance to subject and the zoom you want to use).
I think such technologies are in particular interesting because they have the chance of being integrated into consumer devices in the near term. I think 3D will really "take off" when people can actually capture 3D with their cell phones and digital cameras. Once people are able to make their own 3D home movies, they will be much more inclined to invest in 3D TVs, players, and so on.
3DTv? Not for me (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Previous art (Score:2)
There already is 3d entertainment, its not doing too hot. It's called plays.
Re: (Score:2)
There already is 3d entertainment, its not doing too hot. It's called plays.
Err .. maybe I suggest that Slashdot isn't the most appropriate audience for that comment?
Plays, BTW, are very much 2D. Theatre, by contrast ... ;-)
3D movies big topic at SIGGRAPH in recent years (Score:3, Interesting)
From an artistic point of view the director has control on the "amount of 3D" in a scene. Elements of interest can be highlighted or even exaggerated in 3D, while backgrounds or less important elements may fade to 2D. For example the company that has been "dimensionalizing" Star Wars movies for Lucas ("dimensionalizing" is converting old stock to 3D from stereo clues in film, similar to what "colorizing" does to B&W). The showed a minute-long clip of a Star Wars space battle scene dimenensionalized in around eight different ways. And the results are artisitically different depending on what the director wants to emphasize.
(P.S. Lucas is perfectionist and not completely happy with the current state of dimensionalization, so he hasnt released the 3D versions yet. The parts I saw were amazing and I cant wait for the entire movies.)
Re: (Score:2)
Technical problems are technical problems, but artistic ones are... not so problematic. I've noticed that artists involved in semi-technical fields play up the technical problem solving aspect of their work when talking about it. Really what they're doing is playing about until it looks okay. The truth is that there are myriads of okay artistic effects, and hitting one that is acceptable isn't that hard. Of course, finding the few that are exceptionally good is very hard indeed--but come on, this is televis
Broadcast (Score:2)
the real driver for 3D takup... (Score:2)
Shot length is a real headache. Literally (Score:5, Interesting)
As the article mentions, shot length in film has been declining for decades. The average is now around five seconds. In 3D, more adaptation time is required at shot changes. The article says 10-15 seconds is required. If you do too many fast focal length changes, viewers get eyestrain.
There's a database of film shot lengths. [cinemetrics.lv] "Batman Begins" clocks at 2.8 seconds for the entire film. (Don't take the values in that database as definitive. Click on an entry to check it. Some entries are from clips or trailers, not the entire film.) The Bourne films are even shorter. This is going to be a real problem for action films.
As a European let me just say .... (Score:2)
We don't even have working HD television stations in most places and the adoption rate of HD TV sets is a joke. The people that need and want HD do so because of specialized applications like Blu-Ray
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