Is 3D dying?

[dfergie]

Again here the 3D theaters are full, glad I don't live where the haters do... and there have been some good 3D conversions, again 3D is dependent on the individual... I get most of you in this thread hate 3D, fine leave those of us that like it the freedom of choice to watch what we enjoy... when and if 4k comes around I hope like heck it doesn't get this treatment.

 

[Juan]

Again here the 3D theaters are full, glad I don't live where the haters do... and there have been some good 3D conversions, again 3D is dependent on the individual... I get most of you in this thread hate 3D, fine leave those of us that like it the freedom of choice to watch what we enjoy... when and if 4k comes around I hope like heck it doesn't get this treatment.

Did u have a quadraphonic stereo back in the 70's?

 

[jayn_j]

Again here the 3D theaters are full, glad I don't live where the haters do... and there have been some good 3D conversions, again 3D is dependent on the individual... I get most of you in this thread hate 3D, fine leave those of us that like it the freedom of choice to watch what we enjoy... when and if 4k comes around I hope like heck it doesn't get this treatment.

Don, I don't hate 3D. It is a tool like so many others that can be used to help tell a story. I do hate it when it is exploited to get a few extra bucks out of the audience. I hate it when bad 3D conversions surface, or when 3D is used as a marketing tool and is appled poorly to the product itself.

Some examples:
Remember those stereo and quad mixes, like the one Juan mentioned where the sound had to circle around the head of the user?
How about movies from the '50s where they put people on each edge of a cinemascope screen because they could?
Cinerama?
Going to 3D, how many times do I have to see someone poke a stick at the audience?
Colorized movies?
Pan and Scan?

When 3D gets over showing the audience how clever it is, I may very well give it another chance, but frankly it never seems to get enough traction to do that.

 

[navychop]

Seeing 3D as failing in the marketplace is not the same as "hating" it.

 

[danristheman]

To me in the movie theaters 3D looked blurry to me i thought 3d looks better in more light. I take 2D anytime over 3d any day. I like my HDTV its nice picture no sense in buying a 3Dtv. If i want to feel like I am in the game I would buy a ticket and go see it there at the stadium.

Dan Rose

 

[TheForce]

Scott you should stop with the lies about ESPN 3D. You discredit yourself. Your source is not just a 3D hater but also an ESPN hater. I think you are being used to promote his weak agenda.

Those of you who wish to deny those of us who enjoy 3D vision should stop being so selfish. If you hate 3D so much, why don't you prove it and poke one of your eyes out! God wanted you to have 2 eyes to see 3D, you know. Just kidding!

But seriously, I enjoy a good program in 3D but if you don't, I don't really care. But more importantly, I don't waste my time trying to deny you or spread silliness that 3D is dying. I'm too busy having fun watching 3D, and making 3D video.

3D is actually stereography and has been an evolving technology for over a hundred years. It's not going away. That is like saying you don't like Hybrid cars therefore the auto industry is dying. Stereography is just evolving with more programming methods and more presentation venues. For the first time in the history of stereography, amateur shooters can do home video in 3D and play them with like theater quality and in some cases better than theater quality in the home.

Whats in the works for 2013 and beyond?- At NAB in April I saw the new 4K 3D cameras and the new 2000 fps 3D cameras. If you hate 3D now, you're really going to hate 3D next year.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Don I have been down at ESPN a few times over the last few weeks. I have friends that work there.

I have been told many times that they are no longer sinking money in the channel and like I said back in January the word was ESPN was considering pulling the plug on ESPN-3D in July. When I was there just this past Saturday I asked someone else about it and was told that the channel does not have much more time left and they were not investing any more money into it.

I am just reporting what I am hearing from people at ESPN. As you know most of their distribution such as AT&T UVERSE and (I believe it was Time Warner) dropped ESPN 3D from their lineups, so I would not be surprised to see it go away or become part time again.

I have 3 3DTV's in the house, I am a fan of 3D I just dont want 3D that often... truth be told the last few 3D things I watched were things you shot in 3D. I seem to like things that were actually shot in 3D then things which were converted to 3D.

 

[dfergie]

Did u have a quadraphonic stereo back in the 70's?

I d*mn sure did, it was pretty good, too bad ostriches miss out on the good stuff...

 

[dfergie]

Scott you were telling us long before CES that ESPN3D was going, the only reason for it to die now is because they (ESPN) haven't put the effort out to keep people interested... sports is where 3D really shines imho.

 

[TheForce]

Let me put a name to the rumor- This was born as a prediction by Philip Swan, a recognized TV analyst, of PC Magazine about a year ago. ESPN officially says there is no truth to his prediction and they are increasing budgets for the channel for additional crews and events. I got that from the executive producer. And no, she is not a personal friend but just the person who responded to my inquiry about your spreading these rumors. ( Don't worry, I didn't tell her your name.) It is true that the advertisers are thin for this startup but ESPN understands this. While I will admit that no venture is guaranteed a winner in the first year, ESPN has a commitment to stay the course as long as even just 3D companies are the only advertising clients. After all, where else would a 3D producer best advertise his 3D TV's, 3D Blu Ray movies, new theatrical 3D releases, than a 3D TV channel? To claim that the only advertisers that ESPN can get for their 3D channel are those in 3D or making 3D as a cause for channel failure is stupid ( IMO ). But, that was the basis for PS's claim it will fail. In a few months, people went from quoting PS to making claims the channel failure was a fait accompli. As the year ended I thought most smart people realized this was just a false prediction made by another press guy with a title. But then you started with the "I know the date they will pull the plug!" Strange, that you seem to be the only one who knows that. Did you also know and learn from your friend at ESPN, that DirecTV is going full time with it's airing of ESPN 3D? Maybe not because I just learned that today. I find it strange that DirecTV is going full time with ESPN 3D at the same time ESPN is pulling the plug on the channel. Lets see who is lying to us!

I don't know what 3D conversion has to do with this thread but the systems I saw used at ESPN3D are twin cameras with variable IA. Their productions are pure stereographic cameras. But, I've seen some pretty good conversions of 2D motion pictures. This is not the 2D - 3D switch you have in your TV. While this technology doesn't create solids in stereo, it does create some nice depth enhancement as a look, I think best suited for surreal content, like animations. I appreciate some not liking the look of conversions and that is OK with me. I'm one of the few who doesn't like 3D IMAX look and that's my choice. Fortunately, here, I have a nice choice to see an IMAX 3D movie in IMAX, regular 3D or 2D. When I go to see an IMAX 3D movie, I sit all the way in the back!

 

[TheForce]

Did u have a quadraphonic stereo back in the 70's?

Same here! I had the Sony SQD2020 matrix preamp. Also had the Teac 10" r2r tape recorder that was quad, In fact I still have it! Quad was the father of modern DD5.1 I also have a collection of quad tapes and records. I was a member of the NY chapter of the AES back then. I think we were the only group who appreciated Quad.

 

[TheForce]

But there is some long term hope. Maybe the Olympics will pique interest. Maybe 4K TV will bring in glasses less 3D.

Navy- A brief primer on 3D for you-

The main advantage of 4K 3D TV's will be to have full HD resolution of 1080 24p x 1920 on a passive panel TV. As the 2K passive technology is today, we only get 540 x 1920 since the resolution in the vertical is cut in half by the film pattern retarder coating used. With 4K TV's the passive will be full resolution. The passive TV's are considered to be the best of all worlds for present day 3D as the glasses are very comfortable, similar to normal light weight sunglasses and what people are used to when they see a movie in the theater. The active TV's require expensive battery powered shutter glasses which also are known to cause eye fatigue and headaches but maintain the full resolution. Auto stereo or glasses free technology is still primarily for single viewer as the position of your head is critical and you must remain still or lose the 3D. It's fine for something like a camcorder or maybe even an ipad but not ready for multiviewer audience. R&D is being done in this but don't hold your breath for production models any time soon. 84" Passive 4K 3D TV's are expected to hit the market this Fall from LG. I've seen the 55" model and the picture is lifelike in 3D.

 

[mike123abc]

ESPN officially says there is no truth to his prediction and they are increasing budgets for the channel for additional crews and events. I got that from the executive producer. And no, she is not a personal friend but just the person who responded to my inquiry about your spreading these rumors.

I hate to say it but this sounds like a canned official response. Of course the official line from ESPN is going to be all sunshine and daisies on any thing they are producing. She could know they were cancelling everything an hour after she responded, but would have no choice to say what she said because it was official company policy.

Scott's friends may or may not be in the official "know" of what is going to happen at ESPN. But, given the unofficial contact methods they are probably giving a more honest assessment. But, unless they are really "in the know" they may not be aware of factors that could keep it going full time 24x7 (like some sponsor group of advertisers insisting on the channel and are willing to pay for it), all they know is that their budgets were being cut, not a good sign.

Insisting that people that are not 3D evangelists are 3D haters is going a bit far. It is possible to like 3D but not believe everything in 3D is worth it. There is plenty of 2D content not worth the film/video/memory used to produce it...

 

[televisionarchives]

I don't hate 3-d either but it's not what I put on the list of what has to be in a movie. And It's not being pushed much as stores now.

 

[navychop]

Navy- A brief primer on 3D for you-

The main advantage of 4K 3D TV's will be to have full HD resolution of 1080 24p x 1920 on a passive panel TV. As the 2K passive technology is today, we only get 540 x 1920 since the resolution in the vertical is cut in half by the film pattern retarder coating used. With 4K TV's the passive will be full resolution. The passive TV's are considered to be the best of all worlds for present day 3D as the glasses are very comfortable, similar to normal light weight sunglasses and what people are used to when they see a movie in the theater. The active TV's require expensive battery powered shutter glasses which also are known to cause eye fatigue and headaches but maintain the full resolution. Auto stereo or glasses free technology is still primarily for single viewer as the position of your head is critical and you must remain still or lose the 3D. It's fine for something like a camcorder or maybe even an ipad but not ready for multiviewer audience. R&D is being done in this but don't hold your breath for production models any time soon. 84" Passive 4K 3D TV's are expected to hit the market this Fall from LG. I've seen the 55" model and the picture is lifelike in 3D.

Thank you.

Is there a standard in Blu-ray for 4K, or 4K 3D yet? Is there a way to transmit 4K/4K 3D signals via satellite to current late model STBs from E* & D*? Any other delivery mechanism? I assume OTA is out, as there is no 4K in ATSC.

 

[tnsprin]

I believe some draft proposals for a consumer standard exist. Obviously some pro 4k already in use, not sure they are unified as one standard.

You really don't need a 4k standard for full HD resolution on a 3d screen even for passive tv's. That's actually a different issue.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

We saw a 4K demo last year at CES and I was very impressed! Never seen anything quite like that before!

 

[dfergie]

We saw a 4K demo last year at CES and I was very impressed! Never seen anything quite like that before!

That was awesome, even the upconverts to 4k looked very good.

 

[dangue]

I think the problem with 3D is that so much of it is poorly done via conversion. Good 3D enhances the experience, bad 3D gives all 3D a bad name because it only increases the ticket cost. I have a 3D tv, but don't watch too much content in 3D because Dish doesn't offer anything other than pricey PPV stuff. So I limit myself to 3D Blu-rays (and since those are almost impossible to rent- I'm limited to what I'm compelled to buy).

I will definitely be watching Avengers in 3D they day I receive that pre-ordered movie from Amazon.

As for people talking about how dark and blurry 3D can be in theaters, I've found that it completely depends on the theater. I watched the last Harry Potter at a local non chain theater that had it in 3D and the viewing experience was miserably dark. But others who watched it in 3D elsewhere didn't have that problem. Needless to say, I've never gone back to that theater for 3D movies.

 

[TheForce]

Thank you.

Is there a standard in Blu-ray for 4K, or 4K 3D yet? Is there a way to transmit 4K/4K 3D signals via satellite to current late model STBs from E* & D*? Any other delivery mechanism? I assume OTA is out, as there is no 4K in ATSC.

HDMI 1.4 is 4K ready so this will not need to be upgraded. However, your TV and media will need to be upgraded as the Blu Ray standard has not been modified to permit this higher resolution. But the new 4K will be backward compatible all the way to DVD. Broadcast is another issue and for compatability reasons it uses a SideBySide or Top/Bottom half resolution format that is squeezed into a standard HD frame size. It is unlikely that broadcast will change since the game plan for Broadcast is backward compatibility and channel bandwidth constrained. Internet streaming is a different game and here we could see 4K programming streamed over the internet when the backbone and downloads reach a level that people can access it. Personally, I look forward to 4K just because having a passive monitor TV in that resolution will permit me to see video in full HD. There is some debate today that passive does support full HD but their math and testing is not scientific, really based on opinions of lay people and tabulated by money motivated pHD's.