Will 3D Be Entertaining or Sickening?
 

An interesting article from Broadcast Engineering about how 3D affects people physiologically.

"ABC News blogger Mike Pesce predicted that one of two things will happen with the recent interest in 3-D technology for the home: Either the fad will quickly disappear from the market, or we’ll soon see the biggest class-action lawsuit in history as millions realize that 3-D TV permanently ruined their depth perception."

?Not (3-D TV) tonight, dear; I have a headache? | BE on 3-D

Dan Brockett

I hope the 3D fad dies a quick death.

Hollywood is embracing 3D because it increases profit (higher ticket prices, less piracy). Electronics manufacturers like the thought of selling everyone more gear.

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.

It is amazing to me that they are trying this again as it has failed in the past. Like HD is the cure for everything.

I don't want to watch things in 3D. It just looks greedy to me as many people are finally getting around to or just upgraded to HD. I guess they are trying to get in on those who have not purchased yet thinking it will be the last TV upgrade for a long time in peoples' houses.

It would seem to me that 3D is best for theaters and not the in-home experience. But they don't ask me.

Personally I think it is okay for specialist programming. I don't wish it a total death, but God help us if it becomes an every day mainstream thing. I want video making to become more creative, not more technical.

I'm also puzzled, given that many clients are really trying to drive prices down, whether many will really pay more for 3D? Look at how the BBC has slashed funding even for their most popular (and profitable) TV shows such as Doctor Who and Top Gear.

Done in a subtle way, 3D can be interesting.
I was watching a programme recently on archaeological discoveries. In one sequence, the camera was shooting over the shoulder of an archaeologist who was clearing the dust and sand away from some dinosaur bones. I felt that I was there, taking part in the excitement of the moment.
I don't want to see knives or other objects being thrown out of the screen at me - that's such a banal use of the medium.
Another observation regarding screen size: watching 3D on a 36" domestic tv had me going up to the screen as if it was a window; I needed to see more through the window-frame as it were, so there's certainly a case for larger screens fora more immersive experience.

My experience with Avatar was not very positive. The first time, being short sighted and wearing glasses I couldn't focus with both my eye-wear and the 3D glasses on. I left and came at a later day with contact lenses. Even then, the experience wasn't much better. Sometimes I was distracted, some other times I had problems focusing, although nothing near to the first experience. And walking away, although enjoyed the movie, I had a small headache. Maybe, I'm not the average viewer, but unless they develop a stereoscopic medium without glasses, I don't find any merit in the proccess, apart from above mentioned financial reasons (higher ticket prices, inability to copy, unique experience compared to home viewing).

Reading the article in the BE, I was happy to found that I'm not alone.

As of 3D TV, apart from the smallness of the screen, which in my opinion nullifies the very core of the experience, I don't think that benefits in any way the majority of TV programming. I don't believe/hope it will catch on, unless of course there is a plan to turn us into hallucinating zombies (ok that's conspiracy theory but I can't help myself thinking in a dystopian way nowadays).

I think the gamers will be the real beneficiaries of the 3d thing. It will really enhance their virtual worlds. Certainly don't want it for the nightly news though.

It seems as if I'm one of the few that hopes everything goes 3D.

I haven't even switched to blu ray, or plan to any time soon. Now they want us to go 3d.

Not interested.

But then, can't that argument be also used for 2D?

3D isn't something that I want to spend more money on unless the film is epic (read Avatar class)

I'm happy though because 3D TV means that excellent quality 2D only TV will come down in price very quickly.

Just got back from Las Vegas and NAB, where 3D is making a big splash. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. First of all is the issue with having to wear glasses. The other part is that is makes everything you watch look like animation. There are some things that really look cool, but overall I find it nothing more than a (not so cheap) trick. And at times it does mess with your head and things seem to swim. Sony had a giant screen with 3d and there were moire type patterns everywhere and little dots of twitching, terrible looking video. I also hope it dies a quick death. Cool for some movie effects, an unwanted, unneeded, not-that-great-looking "feature" for TV. And let's not talk about the manufacturers wanting us to buy all new equipment, again...

Just my $.02.

Film makers are not usually the first to embrace new tech. But even the general public, since Vincent Price's 1953 3D horror classic "House of Wax" has there been one bit of interest in 3D until "Avatar." Will it be remembered as a great movie, or as a gimmick? I don't know except this, wearing 3D glasses or sitting at narrow angles to get the effect is not going to be acceptable in the long run. And no technology seems better than 3D at making a large screen television seem small and boxy. With content slow to arrive, I don't see it catching on. My $0.02

Interesting persepctive from Mark Kermode here titled "No, your eyes aren't deceiving you – 3D really is a con"

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you ? 3D really is a con | Mark Kermode | Comment is free | The Observer

That was an interesting perspective, agreed. I had no idea they could stereoscope 2d movies. First colorization, now this.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

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

To answer the OP's question:

3D shot right will be entertaining.

3D shot wrong will be sickening.

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..

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!

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

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.

Yup
 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

I watched Sony's 3D TV and was not so interested in the CGI movies with very exaggerated 3D and things flying at me but I was very impressed with a live action soccer game! It really brought it to life!

I definitely agree with Robin's comments regarding screen size, I felt the urge to get closer for the same reasons as him


I 100% agree with Erik's comments about games, I will be camping out all night the day before Gran Turismo 3D-VR is released

Dude 3d sucks BIG TIME!!! I cant stand it anymore, especially with the talk of 3d games; I love games and will sometimes play for 6 or 7 hours at a time i don't wanna wear some uncomfortable glasses for that long.
My personal opinion is that they are just putting the effect on movies that were meant to be 2d, i saw Avatar in 3d and nothing jumped out at me it was completely useless to me.

My idea for games instead of 3d is just have a monitor that curves around your head, i know that using mutiple monitors gives you the same effect but it bothers me to have the space between sets.

Highly Entertaining for Me
 

When they showed 3-D movies in theatres, I and almost everyone else was quite impressed and we even enjoyed what some might have considered to be otherwise bad movies. But, I recall that a couple of people were disoriented by the effect, to the point of nausea and barfing. Be careful about who's sitting behind you, when you watch them.

Ultra High-definition video should be implemented to go along with 3-D and why not include the Russian invention of Smell-O-Vision (a scent generator with its own coding section). An odor sensor could be built into the mikes and have a stereo capability. Like the bifurcated tongues of snakes, this could allow directional location of the scent origins by the viewers (sniffers, actually). Video jocks with B.O. might have a problem.

I don't think 3D TV will take off, sure some theater productions will have well done 3D effects, but there are too many variables for illness (both long and short term). I enjoyed avatar but came out a bit wobbly and could say that 2.5 hours of it was definitely pushing the breaking point - so I know I won't buy one, and likely never make a 3D film (even though I could).

For sure 3D will be very entertaining and very popular, but only after they get rid of the glasses