We are going to be entering into an era, where the television manufactures are going to try to convince us that 3D is going to be the next big thing. At a recent electronics show held in Berlin, the largest televisions companies showed off their latest offerings of 3D devices. There were 3D games, 3D Blu-Ray players, 3D broadcasts, 3D LCD sets, 3D plasmas plus 3D projectors. But one reviewer from Technologizer made an interesting observation and in his review stated:
All the 3D at the show had one thing in common: It’s lousy.
But he went on to say that not all of what he say was equally lousy:
I’m not saying it’s all equally lousy: Some of it (especially at Panasonic’s booth) was at least somewhat better than I expected. Much of it was unusually blurry–some of the sets that required glasses looked only slightly better than Fraunhofer’s no-specs technology demo. None of it rose to the level of being good, and I came away thinking that the level of hoopla was bizarre given the lackluster products being hyped.
3D TV occupies so much IFA real estate because the electronics industry thinks that teeming masses of people are going to be willing to buy new TVs and don uncomfortable, expensive glasses in order to watch three-dimensional content. I think consumers are smarter than that. I think will prove to be a fad–or, at least, a mistake.
As a medium, 3D remains remarkably self-trivializing. Virtually nobody who works with it can resist thrusting stuff at the camera, just to make clear to viewers that they’re experiencing the miracle of the third dimension. When Lang Lang banged away at his piano during Sony’s event, a cameraman zoomed in and out on the musical instrument for no apparent reason, and one of the company’s representatives kept robotically shoving his hands forward. Hey, it’s 3D–watch this!
But there was this one statement that I personally believes says it all:
The more 3D TV I saw at the show, the more irritating it all got. I’ve been writing about technology for twenty years, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen an alleged Next Big Thing that’s left me so cold.
The one thing we all need to remember is that 3D has been around for some 60 years. It never really took off before. Why is it going to take off now? Next, it is going to come down to economics. I personally not going to throw out my 2D plasma HDTV’s to buy 3D, when these sets I bought are only about 3 years old. I don’t care if 3D HDTV sets serve me breakfast in bed. I just don’t have the interest. I am enjoying 2D HDTV very much and believe it puts SD to shame. Just my two cents.
Comments welcome.
