Will 3D Be Entertaining or Sickening?

[Erik Phairas]

When they can do it well without glasses. I'll care. I'm not really against glasses but they are just not right for every movie.

Video games for example should have gone full VR years ago, The number one problem with current games is how to control the camera. Many good games have been ruined by bad camera control. Well if you had proper VR your head would control the camera as you looked around the game world.( which would still work for people who only had one eye BTW, it just wouldn't be 3d)

In cockpit views for racing games. Right now they are annoying, if you could turn your head and check the mirror or look out the side widow it would make all the difference.

[Allan Black]

3d will be alright once it settles down and it's applications are *controlled* better.

Right now it's like the introduction of recorded stereo music where everything was recorded hard left and right.

Cheers.

[Marshall Levy]

It seems very similar to when HD first became known and more prominent in the (overall) industry, particularly for consumers. Everything was HD....HD window cleaner, HD printer ink, HD paper, HD sunglasses...it never ended, nor does it right now, several years later.

It's as if HD means what HD is supposed to stand for, which it does not. Somewhat similar to Xerox's name whereby it was branded so much to the point where instead of copying something, it's xeroxing something.

As for 3D, g-d help us with this one now. The consumer world is being thrown around with an endless array of 3D gotta-have-it-now devices, most notably tv sets. Yet, while it might be 'cool' to buy one for whatever reason, it's as if the purchaser doesn't understand that it won't do anything for what it's intended for, other than play a few current movies...other than that, it's somewhat useless. Think of a comparison to that of a $3 10-foot HDMI cable to the $250 1-meter HDMI Monster cable...same stuff, just different branding and perceived value.

Anyhow, if you look at the consumer market now - tv ads, magazines, and more, you'll see quite a bit of marketing gimmicks just as with HD. My favorite example is Jockey underwear for men. It's being branded as 3D underwear with multiple points of dimension. I'll leave that up to one's own imagination, but it's no different than HD Windex. Pointless as a product, brilliant as a marketing ploy.

If used correctly, I think 3D has great advantages but with so many studios still afraid of HD, how likely is that that 3D will really become stable within the next few years??? I don't see that happening anytime soon.

By the way, I loved this a while ago....someone down near FL or wherever is selling wedding video for just under $2K...not too bad with all inclusions being equal, but they also offer a 3D wedding video. The pricing starts at $80,000. Yeah, I have no comment.

[Marshall Levy]

Thought this was interesting...

===
Samsung's 3DTV Warnings:

Pregnant women, drunk people and "those who are sleep deprived" should not watch 3-D television because of potential health issues, electronics manufacturer Samsung says on its Web site.

The company also says people at risk for stroke or epileptic seizures should consult a medical professional before watching TV in three dimensions.

Samsung and Panasonic began selling the first 3-D TVs in the U.S. last month.

The warnings come as other TV manufacturers are set to debut 3-D home entertainment systems this year. When watching 3-D TV, users wear special glasses with lenses that open and close rapidly to produce an image that appears to leap off of the screen.

Some of Samsung's warnings apply to everyone:

"Viewing 3D television may also cause motion sickness, perceptual after effects, disorientation, eye strain and decreased postural stability," the Web site message says. "It is recommended that users take frequent breaks to lessen the potential of these effects. If your eyes show signs of fatigue or dryness or if you have any of the above symptoms, immediately discontinue use of this device and do not resume using it for at least thirty minutes after the symptoms have subsided."

The TV maker also says wearing its 3-D glasses in normal situations, when you're not watching 3-D TV, "may be physically harmful to you and may weaken your eyesight."

The warning suggests that some 3-D TV viewers could become so disoriented that they could fall and hurt themselves:

"Viewing in 3-D may cause disorientation for some viewers," the warning says. "Accordingly, DO NOT place your TV television near open stairwells, cables, balconies, or other objects that can be tripped over, run into, knocked down, broken or fallen over."

[Dave Allen]

I too just got back from NAB, and 3D seems to be the flavor of the year. I too hope it dies a quick death, but that is unlikely.

What impresses me is 2k and above flat panel OLED LCD TV's. I have seen 5K 3D footage of things I have shot the same specific object in 1080i, and I can see subtleties on the object better with my lowly 1080i footage than I can see on the 3D.

I personally find the whole thing a total and complete gimmick, right up there with "Live MegaDoppler HD", and advertisers announcing their paper towels and toilet bowl cleaners with Y2K compliant.

[Vito DeFilippo]

Originally Posted by Marshall Levy

Thought this was interesting...

===
Samsung's 3DTV Warnings:

Wow, Marshall. That sure makes me want to rush right out there and slap three grand on one of those puppies!

[Chris Hurd]

To answer the OP's question:

3D shot right will be entertaining.

3D shot wrong will be sickening.

[Vito DeFilippo]

I get what you're saying Chris, but I have to admit that as much as I enjoyed the 3D in Avatar, I did leave with a headache, and I thought the 3D was well shot and used to further the look and story, not as a gimmick.

It's not just if it's well shot, it's also the ability of the present technology to be able to deliver the experience in a convenient, unobtrusive and physically comfortable manner. It's just not there yet in my opinion..

[Marshall Levy]

True. I think that the studios who produce this need to understand more about the viewer, particularly those who do in fact get sick / light-headed after long periods of time with 3D. In addition, there are some folks who "see through" 3D and instead of actually seeing the dimensional aspects of the video, they see the separation of the dimensionalized spectrum, thus defeating the purpose of 3D in the first place. It can be compared to the stereogram images, in that while it takes some to visualize the hidden image, the latter of what I mentioned can often see the hidden image at the initial glance. Hope that makes at least a little sense!

[Dan Brockett]

That's the problem Chris. Based upon my extensive interviews (I have about 12 hours of interviews with a lot of the big players in the 3D world that I was not able to use) for the 3D cover story I wrote for this month's HD VIdeo Pro magazine, the general consensus amongst the experts is that producing, shooting and posting in 3D is a whole new ball game with all new rules. Problem is that we know from the recent past conversion to HD that 85% of our industry will not bother to learn about the skill set and special vision (no pun intended) needed to successfully utilize the 3D process.

It all goes back to the basics of camera movement, manipulating the convergence point, composition and utilizing the effect to enhance rather than detract from the story. It really is similar to back in the SD days, shakey-cam and pointless camera movement became the norm and we then ended up with the MTV and Bourne Identity aesthetic becoming popular, even on 50 foot theater screens and 70" HD screens in the living room. Now imagine the people who propagated that look turned loose with 3D gear. Scary. The difference is that in HD, that sort of unmotivated, excessive movement was mostly just irritating. In the 3D world, not using the effect correctly results in your audience becoming physically ill with nausea, headaches, vomiting and eye fatigue.

Every stereographer and DP who I spoke with agrees that considerable pre-production, pre-visualization and intelligent, tasteful utilization of the effect are the keys to successfully shooting in 3D. All of this costs time and money, regardless of the camera system used. With the current economic situation, the slashing of departments, budgets and functions that have become commonplace in all areas of production, not just in filmmaking, I don't foresee many producers doing 3D the right way, at least in the beginning. I think that 3D can be used subtly and intelligently but I don't see the majority of people doing that in the near future.

As for me, when I went to see Avatar, not only did I find the 3D effect mostly distracting to the story, my doctor and I agreed that the 3D glasses I wore to see the film were the likely cause of the worst case of Conjunctivitis that I have ever experienced. At least at my local theater, the 3D glasses are not in any way wiped down or disinfected in between patrons and shows and the glasses that are used with their Dolby system come very close to resting on the bridge of your nose just a few millimeters from your tear ducts. So I can definitely say that 3D is not my favorite way to see a movie.

But I am looking forward to at least trying the Panasonic 3D camera and posting in 3D when the gear is available. All signs point to 3D requiring huge PR and a lengthy propaganda campaign to convince the public that they should want it or care about it. It will be interesting to see if they are more successful than they have been with Blu Ray.

Dan

[Michael Rosenberger]

Just some rambling as I get back to work after NAB (which was kind of a lack luster show IMHO)...

I remember back in late 80's and early 90's, checking out the promise of HDTV at NAB. Years came and went, and there was a lot of gear created and presented, but nothing was even considered consumer read until the late 90' because the back end of the industry wasn't ready to support it. We all know the story form there.

Now, a lot has changed in how quickly we adopt technology, but for 3D to be truly viable and realistic (no pun intended) it will take an industry wide shift and support from back to front. 3D only seemed to splash at NAB in the last few years and there are already consumer products out, which I think will have very little adoption for the time being. Film alone might be able to find a niche, but it won't be enough. BLU-Ray is still making its' way into homes (as mentioned by someone earlier).

Then, there are the glasses and other apparatus...not practical in the real world. In situations for kiosks, digital signage, bar TV's and other public venues, people aren't going to be carrying around glasses or borrowing glasses to view programming.

So while consumers are ready to switch cell phone and computer technology almost yearly, TV technology hasn't moved to such an iconic status yet.

That said, I kinda like some 3D for films. But they really need to tweak the brightness to compensate for the glasses.

End ramble.

[Dave Haynie]

Originally Posted by C.S. Michael

Hollywood is embracing 3D because it increases profit (higher ticket prices, less piracy).

The big thing right now: it's something you can't get at home. But it's going to die, again, if they don't maintain 3D film quality. Avatar pushed the button on this, but Cameron designed better 3D cameras to shoot the live action parts. Now, we're seeing released like "Clash of the Titans", conventional films given $5 million in additional processing to deliver something more or less 3D. People will get tired if the quality isn't there.

Originally Posted by C.S. Michael

I hope the 3D fad dies a quick death.

Not likely. The CE industry are like junkies now, after the HD switchover. They used to get incremental sales on new TVs, and occasionally, something new caught on: VHS, CD, DVD. But now they really want me to replace my terribly expensive 71" TV every five years? I don't think so.

Originally Posted by C.S. Michael

Electronics manufacturers like the thought of selling everyone more gear.

They're jumping into it like crazy.. I'm hearing all kinds of ads for 3D, talk of 3D channels, etc. And yet, nobody's really saying just how they're going to deliver it.

Minimally, you need a TV that'll take a 60p input and shutter glasses that fire in sync, via IR or Bluetooth or some other synchronization trigger. But even frame multiplexed 30p per eye may not be enough to recreate the theater experience.. some theaters are using dual projectors and very high refresh rates. There's some debate if anyone's even going to bother with today's TVs, or demand new models with HDMI 1.4, which will allow alternate 3D modes.

The one good thing... I really like my DLP rear projection TV. Everything's converging in LCD these days, which is not idea for shutter glasses (slowish) and impossible for something like passive polarization, since they're already using polarization in the LCD itself (look at your laptop or monitor with 3D glasses sometime). Using a DLP with polarizing wheel, it would be a piece of cake to support the same kind of circular polarized passive glasses (RealD) you see in the theater.

But I'm in no rush... no going to replace my TV, video cameras, software, etc. just for what might be a dubious thing.

But I don't think it's essential, or ofttimes even beneficial, to good storytelling. Sure, there are a handful of $300 million exceptions (Avatar), but for the most part 3D is a distraction.

[Mitja Popovski]

I don't see any 3D here. Untill i watch it on a flat 2D surface,it is just plain fake3d, not to mention diferences in spaceing between the human eyes, changes in angle of view, ( more on the bigger screen)...if i watch 3D i want to watch from everywere not only from the front seat. I know we want it to be 3d but it is not. Tell them please there is no santa.

[Andrew Smith]

For anyone who suffers from stereoblind viewing with their eyes and hence the 3D doesn't work for them at any time, this is for you:

NPR - Fixing My Gaze

More info at this web site: http://www.fixingmygaze.com/

Andrew

[Erik Phairas]

I hear Sony is really going to be pushing 3d for the Playstation3 and 4. Seems the PS4 might support 3d for every game.