The 3D Experience in Your Living Room

Last year was a breakout year for 3D Movies. Movie titles like Disney Pixar’s “Up” and of course James Cameron’s “Avatar” set a new precedent for the movie viewing experience. Television manufacturers are now trying to re-create that 3D experience within the comforts of the living room with the launch of 3D TV.

About the Technology

Our eyes are spaced apart from each other, which means our left and right retinas see objects at slightly different angles. In real life, the brain merges these two images into a single three-dimensional image. 3D TV recreates this process by displaying two separate but overlapping scenes simultaneously, at slightly different angles. There is one image for the right eye and one for the left. A pair of Active Glasses helps viewers perceive the two 2D images as one 3D image. (Paraphrased from the Samsung 3D TV website)

Will it be successful?

Seeing Avatar rekindled my appreciation for this seemingly outdated technology. There was so much hype around Avatar, and specifically the 3D experience, that I wondered if it could live up to people’s expectations. To my surprise, it actually lived up to the hype – well from a 3D perspective anyway.

After reading many articles leading up to the launch of 3D TV, I wondered if this viewing experience would also live up to the hype. Last night I had the pleasure of experiencing 3D TV for the first time and I was pleasantly surprised. The images seemed to jump off the screen and there was an element of depth that was truly impressive.

Like any new technology, there will be some hurdles to adoption.

• Price Point – The average 3D TV currently costs between $2,500 and $3,700 CAD (not including the Active Glasses and 3D Blu-ray player).
• Lack of Content – Currently the list of titles available on this platform is quite limited.

Both of these obstacles will be overcome as competition enters the playing field and content producers start to embrace the new technology. With video gaining popularity on the web – I assume that we will see some version of this 3D technology trickle-down into the online world.

The real power of this technology will come to light when creative content producers start to push the boundaries and create 3D applications that we can’t even begin to imagine. I think that this technology will continue to grow, but the "ultra-stylish" glasses will never become an additional selling point.