A personal note to all 3D TV pessimists

[Craig Seeman]

and the technology they’re using is alternating left and right frame, hence the duplicate image on left and right side of the screen.

This is the Samsung kit one needs for the Samsung 3D TV
https://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/tv-video/televisions/television-accessories/SSG-P2100T/ZA/index.idx?pagetype=acc_detail&subsubtype=3d-kit&returnurl=

Their 3D TVs are “LED” and 46″ model is about $2600 (that’s their low end model).

Basically this means the market penetration is very low and it may be a year or two until the price drops to something close to current TVs. Given current non 3D TVs are still being sold, it’s going to be VERY SLOW growth.

HDTV growth only began to accelerate when that was all you could get for the most part and even now market penetration in the USA is only around 60%. I ready that people tend to replace their TVs once every 5 years or so (wish I could find the report).

I apologize but I just don’t think it’s going to be that big for at least a few years. 3 years at the earliest by the time all the HDTVs on the market are 3D and a significant number of households have it.

I wish I could borrow a set of alternating shutter glasses to see how it looks on a standard HDTV to know for sure though.

[Craig Seeman]

BTW here’s the link
https://optimum.com/io/3d/index.jsp?s_cid=3dtv&referrer=http%3A%2F%2Foptimum.com%2F3dtv
and the link that says 3D TV needed.
https://optimum.com/details.jsp?note=3d

[Mike Cohen]

Like most new technology, there are the early adopters who buy the latest gizmos regardless of price. Leo Laporte and the Digg or Gizmodo folks fall into this category – they write about these wonderful devices but leave out the fact that only a fraction of 1% of people will own them in the near future. So the media hype makes it seem like we will all get our daily newspaper on an ipad and watch our local news in 3D any day now.

Seeing my local crusty news anchors in HD is bad enough – seeing their face wrinkles in 3D sounds nauseating. I think I know why the local NBC guy shaved his signature moustache.

Mike

[Craig Seeman]

[Mike Cohen] “they write about these wonderful devices but leave out the fact that only a fraction of 1% of people will own them in the near future. “
I agree. There were people in this thread who were insisting that a large number of the current TVs would be 3D compatible and the “hype” about 3D TV was just to sell new sets. They seemed to imply the “lazy” press was not reporting that many sets are already compatible. Again from everything I read that’s not the case. If that were, I’d imagine that Cablevision would be trying to sell me that $350 glasses kit for my HDTV at this point.

[Mike Cohen] “eeing my local crusty news anchors in HD is bad enough – seeing their face wrinkles in 3D sounds nauseating. I think I know why the local NBC guy shaved his signature moustache. “

It sure looks like a target market is sports so it’ll be your crusty sports anchors you’ll be seeing. Will this mean the rise of the cute curvy female sports announcers along with recently retired good looking athletes?

I hope those saying 3D is here now and massive would explain to me how I’m wrong again. I’d love to see how Cablevision (which owns MSG) saying I need a 3D TV shows that many HDTVs are compatible. I’d think they’d be selling the glasses if that were the case.

[Walter Biscardi]

I’m curious if there will be multiple flavors of 3D. A flavor that works with some of the current HDTVs out there, just like the 3D movies like Coraline works incredibly well on our Panasonic plasma screen.

I’m thinking the launch of ESPN 3D in June will probably tell us a lot about how the images will be broadcast to make the maximum benefit of all the HDTVs already out there.

I’m hoping there will be a demonstration of ESPN’s broadcast at NAB this year so we can see what they’re going to do.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media

“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.

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[Craig Seeman]

All we need is multiple competing formats.

Granted the simple “color” type 3D would be easiest but it seems the TV manufacturers are going with the left/right alternating frame method which apparently requires new hardware (both TV and glasses). I’d love to see how this looks on a typical non 3D HDTV but this can’t be viewed with the color separated 3D glasses one might have walked off with from Avatar.

You know there must have been some “back room” decision about MSG going with the frame alternating variant if it pushes new hardware. With so many manufacturers pushing 3D TVs I can’t help but think “the fix is in” on this.