Anybody older than forty will remember the 3-D productions that were screened in movie theaters through the 1960s, with the whole movie industry believing 3-D was the ultimate weapon to beat TV. The 3-D tradition continued at some theme parks - and presumably still does - with productions that have objects and fists apparently tearing off the stage and terrifying the audience.
The 3-D effects, with the cheap and nasty red/green polarized plastic glasses that were supplied, were cheesy and, for the most part, lost on me. Since I had an eye damaged on a school field trip when I was thirteen or fourteen – when
liquid naphthalene was sprayed into it at a coal gas plant at Blackwall Point (the location where the
Millennium Dome was built in London to celebrate the dawn of the year 2000, supposedly on the Prime Meridian but actually a few minutes East) – the inability to see the same thing through both eyes kind of hindered the intended 3-D effects. Of the other people who could see the effects, some complained about motion sickness in those presentations when slight time differences between channels caused problems.
Now 3-D is being touted all over again with LCD and plasma display technology – plus computing power – making it possible, and faster, to implement.
It is rumored that Hollywood has already been producing 3-D versions of some movies for release at a later date, it being relatively easy to double film (or record) a scene with the separation equivalent to a head’s width. But the only two confirmed 3-D productions seem to be from James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, both with expected
releases in 2009, although many animation and game productions already have 3-D databases.
There are competing display technologies (when could we expect anything less?) and holographic techniques are likely to be the long term winners (all praise to the minds that created the
Star Trek Holodeck) but Philips seems to be leading the present field with what they are calling WOWvx – a name that is supposed to indicate the visual Wow! factor with vx being a sort of acronym for “viewing experience.” A community has been developed with its own
forum to bring the creators, producers, tools, system integrators, and manufacturers together.
The display technology from Philips, which they acknowledge is not truly 3-D but a 2-D-plus-Depth experience, is based on lenticular lenses on a LCD panel that send different images to each eye. There are, in fact, now eight images displayed after early
testing had people reporting nausea and dizziness with only two images. The viewing angle of the displays is very reasonable, although, again, it will not be as wide as when holographic displays catch up in resolution and there is a reduction in the current phenomenal amount of processing power that is required.
Consumer displays should be
available in the Q4 of 2008, with pricing for the 22-inch display rumored at about $10,000.
WOWvx and Philips – as well as providers such as the Orange Network (France Telecom) in Paris, developing a 100 Mbit/s fibre network – are, of course, certain that 3-D will be the next killer application for consumers. They seem to forget that 3-D photography was invented during Victoria’s reign and the only real commercial success was by Viewmaster, from the 1950s through the early 1980s.
(That little plastic box with its 3-D reels is still alive and well to many enthusiasts such as the
New York Stereoscopic Society, whose members continue to make their own reels, even without a Viewmaster camera. Viewmaster, unfortunately may have produced a lot of pretty pictures but, for twenty years, they
contaminated their own drinking water well with TCE at the factory in Beaverton, OR, with confirmed subsequent major health problems for any number of former, and many deceased, employees)
But could this be the same old story? Radio didn’t kill live theater; television didn’t kill radio; the move to colorize old films didn’t kill people’s desire to continue watching them in black-and-white; HDTV hasn’t killed SDTV (and it is requiring government intervention to kill analog television); and 3-D television probably won’t kill any of the aforementioned.
Perhaps the best/worst thing going for 3-D television will be the way that advertisers will employ it to push those cars, trucks, Babybels, and Wheat Thins. There will be new techniques and the creative end of the business will have incredible fun, even if the consumer doesn’t necessarily share that enthusiasm. Ah, well, it won’t be my problem; whatever they push at me my viewing will remain firmly in 2-D, because my eyes simply cannot be fooled…
