This past weekend I went with family and friends to see Toy Story 3 in 3-D. At the theater that we went to, the 3-D glasses were shutter glasses. The movie was extremely well written, which is something that is lacking in Hollywood these days, and could easily stand on its own as a 2-D movie. That pretty much says it all. The 3-D effects in the movie were superb. They were not overdone, as has been the case in past movies. Instead, they added to the richness and the depth of the movie.
However, I am still a skeptic when it comes to 3-D in the home. We have covered some of the reasons for that in previous posts. One of the problems with 3-D in the homes is that people will need to buy a new TV just after they recently bought HD TVs. They will need to buy glasses for everyone in the family, and for any friends that might come over.
But there are other problems as well. In the movie theater the other night, any extra light in the room was distracting because it reflected off the inside of the 3-D glasses. The Exit sign, the lighting on the aisles, and overhead lighting all caused this trouble. How many distracting lights are in your house where you watch TV?
HDGuru has covered other problems with 3-D in the home. Do you think that you can buy Compatible 3D Glasses for your TV? It turns out that each brand of 3-D glasses has a different tint to it. So much for seeing the correct colors in the movie you bought. Furthermore, HDGuru points out that to even play the latest movie on your 3-D TV and using your 3-D Blu-Ray player, you may need to do a firmware update.
We are in the process of testing a number of 2010 model HDTVs and Blu-ray players. All to date have required firmware updates to enhance performance, add or correct a number of performance functions and in the case of Blu-ray players, allow the playing some newly released discs. Without a firmware update, early and current Blu-ray players can’t play all new discs because disc authoring continues to change.
I remember having to do this with my original Toshiba DVD player back in 1996. Forgive me for being a pessimist, but I think that I will sit on the sidelines until 3-D in the home stabilizes a bit. And that won’t occur in 2010.
via HDGURU.Com
Anyone who wears eyeglasses gets the same effect with reflections from other lights. I wear glasses and still watch TV at home. Heck, we watch 3D on the LaserVue TV with tons of lights in the room. It’s not ideal, but it’s no worse than watching monoscopic TV with a bunch of lights on. I suppose we’ll really know when stereoscopic projection has caught on when people start using polarized contact lenses.
As to the tinting, yes, that’s to be expected. The display device (or the source) must compensate for the loss of color induced by losing at LEAST half the light output from the TV. So long as all of the glasses match each other, there should be no issue. There’s no reason to expect that two different pairs of glasses would look exactly the same, just as two different pairs of sunglasses would be tinted differently. Passive polarized glasses would have the same issue.
Regarding the firmware updates, that’s an epidemic for Blu-ray in general, not just for stereoscopy. Blu-ray players routinely have to be updated to play new movies.