Chances are you’ve made the big leap to High Definition, and you might have even made the leap from DVD to Blu-ray. Well, here we go again. Early next year, stores will start selling an entirely new set of television components, all promising the wonders of 3D. This will include new 3D HDTVs, new 3D Blu-ray players, new 3D Blu-ray discs, and of course, 3D glasses. None of these will work with your existing components, except to play normal movies as usual. If you want 3D, and the home entertainment business is betting everything that you will, you’ll need to replace everything.
Everything.
Panasonic is one of the first major manufacturers to offer a public glimpse of what this new living room experience will be like. They will be setting up a special home theatre display at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. Not only will visitors be able to put on 3D glasses and watch sequences from popular 3D movies like A Christmas Carol, Avatar, and G-Force, but as the Olympic Games’s official broadcaster, CTV will be sending out experimental crews to shoot the Olympics with special 3D cameras. Their daily footage will be added to the mix, allowing visitors to watch the events in real life and then see them again in 3D.
Shooting in 3D, Panasonic's dual-lens P2HD camcorder
The use of live-action footage is very important for Panasonic as it helps them show the difference between their 3D technology and the 3D systems used in movie theatres today. Most of the 3D movies being shown in theatres feature computer-animated films and use low-cost glasses that can be recycled easily and won’t hurt the bottom line if they become damaged or stolen.
By contrast, 3D Blu-ray uses expensive, battery-operated active shutter glasses that contain LCD screens for lenses. Each lens delivers its own 1080p resolution High Definition image, creating a 3D image that is higher in resolution than most theatrical 3D systems.
The result is the best 3D experience I have ever seen. I say that without any sense of hyperbole, wishful thinking, or self-delusion. Not only is it smoother and more detailed than the other industry demonstrations that I have taken in, but it doesn’t suffer from any of the ill-effects of bad 3D, where things “jump out” at you or seem to be layered cut-outs. Yes, some elements seem to float in front of your face, but more importantly everything seems to fall deep into the screen, there is a true sense that you are looking into a window, that you are part of the experience itself.
Panasonic's traveling 3D Blu-ray home theatre truck.
I’ve now had the chance to see Panasonic’s demonstration twice, once in Los Angeles amongst a crowd of tech critics, and again here in Toronto this week amongst students from the Canadian Film Centre. Two different cities, two different countries, two different crowds, and the reactions are unanimous. This is the best 3D anyone has seen, and of the clips being shown, the test footage from early Olympic runs at Vancouver are the best sequences so far.
Inside the truck, visitors line-up in front of a 3D Plasma HDTV
Of course the industry will need to deliver the best possible version of 3D if they are to convince consumers to replace everything in their living room to get it. At this time there are no estimates as to how much these new TVs, players, discs, and glasses will cost. What is known is that, like the first Plasmas, LCD TVs, and Blu-ray layers, they will be very expensive and it will take a few years before the prices will go down to reach the average consumer. The first official details, from all the major TV brands, are expected to be released in early January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
The strong push for 3D isn’t just coming from the millions being made by 3D movies at the box office, but also from the disappointing performance of Blu-ray itself. Now entering its fourth year on the market, Blu-ray has only a 6% market share here in Canada (9% in the US) where it remains popular amongst young men, but not families. Most who own a Blu-ray player still buy many of their movies on DVD, partly because they are cheaper, but also because Blu-ray players upconvert them, making them look better than regular DVD. In order to recover their investment on Blu-ray, movie studios and electronics manufacturers are looking to 3D to help make Blu-ray more compelling to families.
To that effect, all of the major studios and all of the major electronics companies have agreed on a single standard, that there will be no format war as there was between HD-DVD and Blu-ray, Beta and VHS. Together they have agreed on the following:
- All 3D Blu-ray movies will deliver 1080p High Definition resolution to each eye.
- Every 3D Blu-ray disc will be able to play its movie both in 3D and in regular 2D.
- Every 3D Blu-ray player will be able to work with any 3D HDTV technology, including Plasma, LCD, and LED LCD (Panasonic uses Plasma televisions for their demo)
- Every 3D Blu-ray player and 3D HDTV will be able to work with different 3D glasses.
That last line refers to an ongoing debate amongst movie studios who are considering the idea that in order to get the prices down faster, it might be worth using less expensive glasses just to introduce the technology to consumers. How expensive might the glasses be? Dolby’s 3D Digital Glasses, which are used for industry theatrical screenings of 3D movies and use Interference Filter Technology, are estimated at $150 each. This means that some movies might work with one type of 3D glasses while others will work with another. That there might be different levels of 3D quality between studio releases.
Sony's 3D Blu-ray system
While Panasonic is using Plasma for their 3D HDTVs, other major brands will be delivering 3D HDTVs using LCD and LED LCDs, so that manufacturers and home theatre enthusiasts can still favour their preferred technology.
But before the industry can reach that point, that have to first make it to the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games where Panasonic will be using their display areas to open up a first conversation with consumers about 3D in their living room. Is it something you think you would want? How much are you willing to play for it?
Watch
RSS Feed