Features - QOTW: Do you enjoy the 3D experience?

[brasco]

Got some bad news for folks who hate the post conversion technique, it's being pretty much pushed to the front in most vfx houses and productions because it's actually cheaper(!?) than shooting stereo and having to do all post work on the two plates.
Adds weight to it being seen as a gimmick by the Execs who see it as a good excuse to bloat prices... :\

I actually really enjoy 3D as a cinema/imax experience but until it's regained the framerate and colour it's almost like a beta to me
Still looking forward to The Hobbit, it's being shot in stereo RED 47.96 fps so we should get the real 24fps out of that.

cheers
brasc

[Hicks12]

well these issues (colour ghosting, never noticed ghosting on either active or passive mind!) will be resolved in a couple of years guaranteed as OLED is supporting active and passive and with the 1KHz refresh rate and 0.1ms response times it fixes everything oh and the colour!

Woo for OLED

[mrbios]

Is 3D in films the same kind of experience as you get from 3D on a 120hz TFT? or are there differences?

I haven't seen either for the record, and like others, don't really feel like i've missed out on anything.

[Saracen]

No.

The stereoscopy effect is distracting and leaves you with massive head and eye aches.

Pointless gimmicky crap being foisted upon consumers by Hollywood so they can justify charging more for movies.

That. Nuff said.

Well, maybe I'll say bit more.

A friend loves his 3D. He tells me it's wonderful, and I've got to try it. So I do. 15 minutes with a demo (a Sony set, IIRC) and I have a headache. So he tells me I need a "proper" demo from a specialist. So I visit a dealer I've bought hifi from for, oh, 20 years, and they are a high-end AV specialist. So .... 15 minutes in and I have a headache.

Unless something changes radically with the way the tech works, then not only am I not interested but I would refuse to pay so much as a 50p premium for a 3D-capable set, much less for a disk. And given a choice of a 3D-capable set and one that isn't, I'd go for (provided it's decent) the one that isn't.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a way for studios to jack up content pricing, and for TV manufacturers to try to upsell us to yet another technology, because so many of us has bought new TVs that the current stuff isn't selling in the quantity they want.

So, maybe I'm joining crossy in his application for "Grumpy Old Men", but I have zero interest in 3D, or less. Then again, I don't give a hoot for HD either, so I guess I'm not their target customer.

[Percy1983]

Personally I gotta say if you think the LG Passive sets are good you probably need an eye test and are basing you opinions on poorly implemented shop demos. The ghosting i've noticed is terrible and being passive is only 720p, not 1080p afaik.

The ative sets are a much clearer picture, but can often look dark at time, and if you think there are issues with light flicker, i've only ever seen that be an issue under shop / show lighting, not uder home lighting.

Either way I'd rather wait and see what the new OLED sets look like, or even wait it out for 4K sets...

Not quite correct, alternate lines are passive so each eye gets 1920x540, so not 720p.

I have seen no ghosting on a single set unlike active shutter displays which are trying to constantly change the pixels form dark to light 120 times a second in some scenes (hence ghosting).

The only problem I have seen with the LG is if you get too close or move up/down to far.

I will say I notice the flicker in home lighting at friends houses, maybe I am just more sensitive to it.

Either way passive is the way forward for me and I do like 3D.

[Jedibeeftrix]

3D still is a gimmick, that will never become mainstream as long as we are not watching holographic images.

[krazy_olie]

I don't like it, but some reason i still really want to see star wars at the imax!

[directhex]

The film industry are doing everything in their power to make 3D a failure.

First, let's look at the product. There are still lots of movies being released, with 3D on the box, which were filmed with a 2D camera, then layers added late in the production process via software - you can tell the difference between a 3D and 2D-upscale movie easily. Even the true 3D movies are often badly cut and gimicky - more the director saying "look at me, I can make bullets come out of the screen" than anything else

Next, there's the reality that many people can't watch 3D content like this. With a 3D film, you need to keep your eyes at a fixed focal point, then allow the director to shift your focus via the camera - some people can't watch like this without headaches, especially if their eyewear prescription needs checking

So you've got a product, often low quality, which many customers can't even use. What do you do? Make the pricing insane. HMV will gladly charge you £35 for a 3D movie which they sell in 2D for £11 - then wonder why nobody bites. Plenty of the big-name 3D movies are tied into obnoxious bundle tie-in deals (e.g. Avatar in 3D is a Panasonic exclusive for specific models of TV from specific months; Similar deal for many films and Samsung) so the biggest films in 3D can't even be purchased if you want to. Sky 3D is a joke - a "free" channel, free only with a £60 a month TV package - and there's **** all 3D on cable or VOD.

If the studios want 3D to be a success, they need to stop trying to make it a premium product when the market isn't interested in the premium pricing - they need market saturation first and foremost. Every movie filmed on a 3D camera should come with both 2D and 3D support out of the box - since 2D players can play 2D content from 3D discs, just don't make the 2D-only box at all, and price the 3D+2D product wherever you were going to price 2D-only. Make sure the world and his wife owns 3D media, so when they upgrade to a new TV, they already have some movies at home in 3D - opening the possibility for a 3D TV upgrade. Make every exclusivity deal 6 months max - and always make sure the movie becomes available at retail afterwards. Cinemas need to start stocking 2D Glasses so people with fixed focus headaches can enjoy the same screening as everyone else - also eliminating the need for both 2D and 3D screenings.

3D done well is an incredible experience. I'd single out WipEout HD for the PS3 as one of the best examples of 3D working exactly as it should, and I'd invite anyone skeptical of 3D (excluding the headache types) to give it a play for a while to see exactly what the medium is capable of. Sadly, what the idiot studios are doing with 3D is doing nobody any favours.

[aidanjt]

Then again, I don't give a hoot for HD either

At least with HD you have an appreciable quality increase. But, I'm more or less of the same mind as you, I watch movies for the story, acting, clever plots, beautiful music, and all that entails, more/sharper pixels or pixels which stab you in the eyeballs are completely incidental, certainly not worthy of grandiose markups.

so I guess I'm not their target customer.

But you do represent the mean consumer who don't take watching movies as an overly serious technical exercise, and are fine with their DVD player and low cost DVDs picked up in Tesco.

[abaxas]

People can still be totally immersed by using a black and white 12inch goldfish-o-matic TV.

Being larger or even colour just makes viewing easier not better.

[aidanjt]

People can still be totally immersed by using a black and white 12inch goldfish-o-matic TV.

Being larger or even colour just makes viewing easier not better.

True, but that certainly isn't an argument which can be made for stereoscopy. And DVDs scale up on 1080p displays just fine. That's not to say I can't spot the difference between a DVD and Bluray, but if you're just watching the movie for the movie, the extra pixels don't really add a great deal. HD should have been a natural technological progression rather than an overhyped WOW marketing gimmick designed to ramp up pricing of a dying distribution model.

[abaxas]

True, but that certainly isn't an argument which can be made for stereoscopy. And DVDs scale up on 1080p displays just fine. That's not to say I can't spot the difference between a DVD and Bluray, but if you're just watching the movie for the movie, the extra pixels don't really add a great deal. HD should have been a natural technological progression rather than an overhyped WOW marketing gimmick designed to ramp up pricing of a dying distribution model.

One thing to think about is that 2.35:1 films in HD have a lower vertical resolution than original 4:3 pal576.

So a DVD can actually be more high definition than 1080p!

[F1nn]

It's a gimmick. If it was true 3D of course I'd be interested, but atm it's just a toy

[crossy]

Wearing silly glasses in the home is really not going to catch on, and the "3D" programmes are really only the same films that have failed in the cinema. Look, 3D would be an image in the middle of the room that I could walk round and view from all angles. Till they can do that re-heating victorian gimmicks with two lenses is stupid.

I'm with you on this - 3D = meh, but SD (or HD) holography would be

Kids have banned me from looking at 3D TV's after some I got into an argument with some jobsworth in Currys. Bozo was pushing some LG box with those passive glasses (which seem like a heck of a lot better idea than something that has to be powered sitting on your face - especially as I already wear glasses), and on the verge of a trouser accident about how it was the latest thing. I then (politely but firmly) pointed out that I'd programmed for and used a similar system decades ago - at which point I was told that I was "mistaken" and it must have been those "old-fashioned" coloured glasses.

So when I got home I googled for it and found an article at http://www.gfai.de/3d_display_if/eng...kation_s2.html. Note the date quoted for the Tektronix 4126 with passive 3D - 1987!

So all this "latest thing" isn't that new after all. That said I seem to remember that the old Tek was (a) hideously expensive and (b) only 19" or maybe 20". So the effect of 20 years of progress has been to more than double the screen size and cut the cost by 90%.

[Blademrk]

Given the choice I'd prefer to watch a film in 2D, I've managed to avoid then majority of 3D releases so far (in fact I've only watched Cars 2 in 3D in the cinema) I do have a 3DS, but most of the time the 3D tab is switched off.

I get headaches when I look at 3D for too long, and having to wear 3D glasses over my normal glasses doesn't help either.

[mikerr]

Some people rave over 3D, but for me the effect seems to go away after 10 minutes - the trailers look great, but I often don't notice the 3D effect in the main film / bar the obvious "bullets out of the screen". Maybe my brain is adapting/phasing it out.

I certainly don't get the wow factor.

On cinema cost:
I go to the cinema a lot, as its "free" ( I have a cineworld unlimited card - £14.99/mo)
3d films cost me £1.50 though.