Is this the 3D decade?
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 by Roberto SaraccoIn December last year the Blu-Ray Disc Association announced the specification for creating full 1080p 3D Blu-Ray content. Next week at CES we should be seeing the first 3D enabled Blu-Ray players.
Television manufacturers are hoping that 3D television will be the next wave, steering people to change those nice flat screens they bough in these last few years. Sony, optimistically in my opinion, predicts that by 2012 30% to 50% of the television they will be selling will be 3D enabled.
So far I have seen several television screen able to support 3D movies but none was really convincing to me. I am not talking about the 3D impression, that was good, actually I felt it too good. After a few minutes I got dizzy and with first signs of a growing headache. It might be just my poor eyesight, although I got very similar reactions from many of my friends. The 3D vision based on special glasses is still the best compromise today.
3D vision is very complex since it involves a lot of brain processing and our brain process information within a context. The television screen is part of a wider context, that of our living room, as an example, and it is difficult for the brain to switch context continuously to process different spaces, one provided by the television, the other by the living room.
May be in a very dark room and with a very large screen it may work, as it does in a cinema. One thing is to see Avatar, the new Jim Cameron movie now in many theatres, something else is seeing it in your living room. However, television manufacturers hope that this kind of movie will generate interest and demand in the consumer market.
