Still looking for a new dimension in TVs
14 September 2009
Has 3D cinema and TV really arrived, or are we still climbing the technology ladder in entertainment?
A colleague came into the our office at the beginning of this week having enjoyed a trip to the cinema this weekend. What she went to see was Final Destination 3. Having seen the first Final Destination film myself, I was a bit surprised that they managed to stretch the concept to three films. But then they squeezed seven films out of Police Academy so I assume there is some sort of ‘Movie Multiplier’ in Hollywood that allows film execs to calculate if there is still a return on ideas that most of us might consider to have run their course.
Beyond my surprise that Final Destination had proved that a destination is only final until the next destination comes along, my real interest in it was that it was in 3D.
Experimentation with 3D seems to have run alongside cinema for the last hundred years without ever making it into the mainstream. In the 50s there was a brief surge for family blockbusters, the seventies seems to have had a resurgence based largely around soft porn, and the eighties onwards have been a mixture of horror, IMAX-destined high-quality shorts, and family entertainment. As only an occasional cinema-goer, my impression is still that it has been at the gimmick end of the market. However, with some major 3D releases due out soon (AVATAR, Shrek, Toy Story etc) and the advent of 3D TV, it could start moving more into the mainstream.
The interesting thing here, I think, is not what happens in the cinema. People on a night out who are intending for 90 minutes to concentrate on nothing else except the film are probably quite happy to wear the silly glasses and enjoy the spectacle (excuse the pun). I would. The technology is clearly there to shoot 3D films and I would imagine the tricks involved with image processing will only get easier as the combination of computer power and software geniuses have their influences. For the big screen you have…well….a big screen, and therefore the facilitator to viewing in 3D becomes the silly glasses. All of the above will get better and the effects more mind-blowing.
But what about TV? - and this is what I think will be interesting. I am assuming in the short term that home viewing in 3D will involve having a 3D-ready TV, but that in terms of transmitting and receiving equipment the current infrastructure will be largely adequate. This leaves the way in which programmes are actually viewed. In the short term the silly glasses will probably be acceptable because it will only be used for specific films and maybe some wildlife programmes. With the same philosophy as the cinema-goer, people don’t mind that too much for a limited viewing period.
It is what happens at the next stage that will test the pioneers of consumer electronics. If we ever get to the stage when we expect all programmes to be in 3D, I am guessing that even stylish, customised eyewear will not be acceptable and so a 3D viewing experience will involve the image actually being 3D rather than appearing to be 3D on a flat screen. Perhaps that might involve projecting into a completely different material, or reverting to box-shaped TVs to enable that third dimension to be created.
I clearly don’t know the direction of 3D in the future, but I think that the current raft of 3D-ready TVs are merely a stop-gap until ‘proper’ 3D technology becomes a reality. As to if that technology will be ready in time for Final Destination 4 – well, we can only hope.
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