3-D for Blu-ray Is Just Around the Corner

Are we gonna need HDMI 1.4?!?

More importantly, will we need not only new TVs (or projectors) but new players?

Well, if we need HDMI 1.4 it goes without saying we are going to need new displays and players. I wish they would just forget about the 3D stuff- it just confuses an even confused consumer HD market even more.

Not interested. I wouldn't even remotely consider upgrading my very expensive components(60" KURO Elite and Oppo BDP-83) just for the gimmick of 3D. Sorry, Jim Cameron and whoever else is pushing this standard, but I won't be buying in.

I said the same thing until I saw Panasonics demo last year.  This ain't yo daddy's 3D!

I'm not a fan of 3D, I won't even bother much with it in theaters (I'll see 2D over 3D), just not that impressed with it and it's too straining on the eyes. So, no, I won't upgrade anything.

^ Have you seen a new movie in 3-D? I get a headache fairly quickly from older 3-D movies but I have yet to get even the slightest headache from current 3-D movies.

Yes, I have seen a new movie in 3D and I still get headaches from the ones that require you to wear the polarized glasses (especially the IMAX 3D showings). After a 2hr+ movie in 3D I have a raging headache.

Sounds great. I want it. It'll be a decade before it's reasonably available, affordable, and worthwhile.

You're the first person that I've read that has had a problem with it.

We have seen many 3D demonstrations over the years and
I will agree with Mr. Posten that the Panasonic technology by
far is the best of them all.

I can’t wait until the technology becomes mainstream. Some
of you have no idea how much more enjoyable it is to sit in
your home and watch a film in quality 3D.  This isn't that cheesy
stuff with the cardboard glasses.   

But it's stuff with bulky plastic glasses. It remains to be seen whether people will watch TV with the specialized, polarized-shutter glasses. I would for favorite shows e.g. BSG. But I'm a TV nut. I have a hard time envisioning the vast majority of my friends and family wearing these.

I doubt this will ever be more than a niche market for speciality programming.

But I still want it and hope for a quick and affordable marketing.

Better make that two. I saw "Coraline" and "Up" in 3D and have no desire to see another 3D presentation whatsoever. The picture was dim and washed out compared to standard film or digital projection, and it gave me a headache at about the one hour mark.

I was around for the second 3D wave in the 80s, and from what I remember, it's no better now than it was then.

 Dave,

To be honest, the glasses were never a distraction.  They
never felt heavy on the face.  And you know what?  If this
method right now produces the best 3D that I have seen
(and I have seen many demos from companies like Dalite
and Mitsubishi), then I welcome the glasses.

That's good to hear. Knowing the technology behind them, they have to be bulkier than the simple polarized glasses used at the movie theaters. But I haven't worn them.


But I look at the slow shift to HD, and glacial shift to Blu Ray, and think that significant home use of 3D is a long ways off. Even for myself, I bought a 50" plasma and 40" LCD this year, a large 3D-capable set is 5 years off.

But I love the recent crush of 3D movies at the theaters, and think it's not a passing fad, but the new normal. The prospect of 3D at home is very cool. And I would watch my favorite TV in 3D, like Lost, BSG, Heroes, etc.

3D in the 80s was analyglyph, right? Red / Blue paper / plastic throwaway glasses?

There's no comparison between "old" 3D and "new" 3D using polarized glasses. It's unfortunate that 3D gives you headaches. That's intrinsic to the mechanism, though I understand the filming process is better accounting for the physiology and decreasing the eyestrain for viewers.

Roger Ebert also has said he dislikes the 3D systems as it reduces the vibrancy of the image. I can't argue artistic taste there. But it's "simply" a technical problem requiring brighter projection to compensate.

I couldn't have said it better.  It was amazing.  After the glasses had been on your face for 10 seconds you forgot they were there.  I had always thought 3D was a gimmick until this demo.  Unlike the current 3D BD content the demo was vibrant, full of color and did not give me a headache.  Even clips that you wouldn't of though would benefit from 3D did, like the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.  

The Pansonic demo used their 103" Plasma TV with a custom modifed BD50 BD player using the technology they are hoping becomes the 3D BD standard.

3D in the 80s used polarized glasses, as did the majority of 3D presentations in the 1950s. The red and blue system was an alternative for small theaters that couldn't afford the polarized system. It was never the cutting edge. The polarized system has been around for quite a while.

Doug

I guessed I lived in a small town. I never saw polarized glasses in the theaters, except for Disney's "Captain Eo". Jaws 3D and such were all cheap anaglyph.

Yes, I have, and after 2 hours my eyes are tired, I don't get headache's though. The only 3D film I really enjoyed was Nightmare Before Christmas.

When a film that was not intended to be in 3D is made into a 3D film, it works, so much better then these films that are intentionally made 3D where things jump out at the audience, that level of 3D is cheesy and campy and actually distracts from the enjoyment of a film.

Make 3D films without all the cheesy effects and I'm sold, otherwise I won't bother.

Your eyes getting tired is an understandable reaction. There's an intrinsic physiological problem with 3-D images that are not based on a holographic technique, and it's this:

When a picture element gets closer to you, you will need to cross your eyes to keep the images of it in your right and left eye at the same place. In fact that's how 3-D "works".

When you normally do this in the living world, you adjust your focussing to the closer object. Unfortunately however, in these 3-D images the actual image is still in the same plane (let's call it "the screen", not matter how they are produced), so your keys to adjust the position of your eyes and the strength of your lenses no longer match.

In other words: you look closely  to make it it one image, but you need to "stare" to keep it sharp. You're forced to do something unnatural with the muscles in your eyes.

It's also no surprise that the effect is less outspoken in films that were not meant to be 3-D originally because those films will normally not have many elements that are thought to be in front of the screen (where the image is).


Cees

I agree. I'm fairly certain that Up didn't start out as a 3-D movie but I thought adding 3-D to the movie was an enhancement and there was no goofy "Whoa, let me stick a pole out at the audience!!!!" shots. That being said, there are some movies (like My Bloody Valentine and probably The Final Destination) where a more tongue in cheek use of 3-D effects is the only possible reason to see the movie at all.

Just tell me what I'll need, when I can buy it and what it'll cost.

 This is very exciting news -- and make no mistake about it -- 
this technology from Panasonic is the real deal.  A group of
HTF members originally saw it demoed nearly a year ago and
Adam and I have had the chance to see it again recently.  When
you compare it to the stuff that is being offered up by other
companies, this is the technology to beat.

I am so happy to learn Panasonic has got their foot in the
door in a big way here.  For those of you out at Cedia next
month you will have the opportunity to see the technology
for yourself.  It is impressive to say the least.

Cees, that is the best explanation for 3D headaches I've ever seen.  Thank you.

I have a question for anyone who cares to respond.  Does all of this mean that those monitors that are being sold out there as "3D Ready" are really not going to be any good for this technology?

You know, it's a real shame to see so much misinformation being put out there on the Internet.

1. None (read: NONE) of the '50s or '80s 3D features were presented anaglyph.  If you thought you saw JAWS 3D in anaglyph, you remembered wrong.  Theaters running the film were obligated to run it in the Polaroid format (in other words, no anaglyph prints were made).

2. Re: headaches.  There have been many scientific studies about this.  Cees' explanation was well-meaning, but totally wrong.  3D films DO work the same way as your eyes do.  The point of convergence behind the screen (or stereo window) is the same as if there was a procenium with no screen 15 feet (or whatever) away from you.  Your eyes are converging the exact same way they do in real life.

Headaches and eye-strain are caused by bad photography-- things being poked out of the screen and forcing your eyes to converge unnaturally close (basically crossing your eyes).  Disrespect for the stereo window and quick cutting with very varied points of convergence cause the headaches.

 

Also, out of sync and out of phase presentations will cause eyestrain and headache.  This is what killed the 3D in the '50s.  Systems like RealD that use alternating frames are out of phase by design.  Those who are sensitive to this effect will be disturbed.

Sorry, Jack, but you're wrong.

Not about the converging - that's OK, indeed your eyes are converging exactly like they would do in real life. That's, as I said, how 3-D projection works for you.

But the plane where you need to focus (in order to get sharp images on your retina) is NOT at the same place where it should be. So your lenses have to be focussed on another plane (the one where the screen is - that's where sharp images of both the left and the right eye view are). Of course that's no problem if the images are supposed to be close to (or behind) the screen. The focussing sharpness is affected mostly for images that are (supposed to be) close to your head.

We can rather easily do that, but it's not what naturally happens. Fortunately, the problem is NOT that the images can't be put into focus: they already are when you adapted your eyes (+ glasses or lenses you might be wearing) to the screen already.


Cees

Cees is right. 3D movies are not the as real life binocular vision. The heart of this is the disparity is the difference between object distance and apparent distance, as Cees explains.