Fist of Doom

I think there's one reason why 3D won't be such a niche product: gaming. Video games are tailor-made for 3D, since the whole point is to immerse yourself in the game. Plus, I imagine it's a lot cheaper to film with multiple virtual cameras than real ones.

And gamers are already used to playing fake guitars, shooting fake guns and swinging little rackets at imaginary tennis balls. They won't be worried about looking silly in 3D glasses.

Travis McClain

At first, I was surprised that normally uptight golf would be so bold. Then I realized they're desperate to compensate for Tiger's falling star power (which, I suspect, is far less than their advertising sponsors tell them it is).

Aye. I've said elsewhere, and I'll repeat it here: I predict that 3D will be far more important to movies than movies will be to 3D. I expect that movies will draw a crowd in 3D at the theater, but will be very sluggish on home video (whatever format that may be in the future). Video games will be the most important, followed by sports--where there's a much greater capacity for trial-and-error mistakes early on, because you've got to capture and process something as it happens.

Spiky

The Masters controls what it wants. Like Wimbeldon. Not surprising they do moves like this. Just not sure of the value.

orangerunner

I'm surprised we haven't heard too much about 3D gaming as opposed to 3D movies. I would think games would be the first avenue to open up a HD 3D format.

Games are ideal because they are interactive and require the viewer's undivided attention unlike watching a movie or TV where you might be just casually watching while doing something else, talking with friends, having dinner etc. which would make the glasses rather awkward.

RocShemp

I believe this is the route I'll take as well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FdzeaFs464

I'm sure HDI is great but $15K for simply the 46" set will be way out of my price range.

pmreed

The $10K to $15K is for the 103" sometime next year. Here's a quote from the article
". Oh, and given that you're dying for a price right about now, we were able to confirm that the final 103-inch set -- complete with a soundbar and possibly with a 3D camcorder -- would cost between $10,000 and $15,000."
I'd hope that might drop a little in a year or two. Remember, this is basically a rear projection system.

RocShemp

Ah. Thanks for clearing that up.

That's what I get for reading an article when I'm half asleep.

Snowmaker

So is Monsters vs. Aliens the only 3-D material available at this time?

I just checked out the TV at Best Buy. Interesting technology, but nothing I'd want in my home anytime soon. It does seem like a gimmick at best right now.

orangerunner

I saw the Samsung 3D HDTV in Best Best and for $3999.00 you get a 55" 3D TV, 3D Blu-ray player, two pairs of 3D glasses and a copy of Monsters vs. Aliens.

Not bad I suppose, considering $4000 is what you would have paid for the TV alone just a couple of years ago. It's all backwards compatible with 2D Blu-ray and DVD.

Like anything else, it'll be a fraction of the price in a year or two.

van der graaf

The day 3D becomes the norm, is the day I stop watching movies and TV. If I want "more realistic," I will open the door and walk outside.

parrotheads4

Here's a list of upcoming movies in 3-d (spoilerized for size)

Rob V

Nobody is saying it has to be or will be the norm. It's a step in the direction of offering customers an innovative feature. I highly doubt every TV going forward will be 3D -- so you have a choice.
I liken 3D to having Twitter or Facebook on Wi-HDTV's ... I don't want or use those features but I'm not going to stomp away and go home simply because the feature is offered.

Jay G.

Way to spoil the ending for me!

There will likely always be an option to display everything in 2D mode, due to the requirement of glasses currently, and the possible eye strain associated with every known 3D method. Heck, you could still watch everything in B&W if you wanted (by turning down the color on your set).

van der graaf

And you could watch your TV in insane hues and glowing colors if you turn your color all the way up? What is your point, neither of those options have anything to do with 3-D.

Jay G.

My point was that at some poit color on TV was a new addition that may have been considered gimicky and unneccessary. However, decades after color TV is the norm, there's still a way to watch TV in B&W. The same will likely be true of 3D.

btbrossard

Sorry about that...

Spiky

Actually, many people seem to do this. It's called Vivid or Dynamic mode on most TVs. Probably the same people that are drooling over 3D.

parrotheads4

A little more info on the HDI set:

http://www.gizmag.com/hdi-laser-3dtv/14725/

toddly6666

What do you all think about 3D being applied to catalog drama movies, such as Schindler's List, Irreversible, The Stoning of Soraya M, Seven, Raging Bull? Why is it that 3D only applies to gimmicky fantasty films? Does anyone think that if 3D Blu-ray does well, is it going to be applied to regular drama movies? And if so, is it even appropriate? Is there going to be a point where 3D is politically incorrect and the studios won't transfer the 3D technology to these drama films?

toddly6666

But what if they apply 3D to all the catalog fantasy/action films and then what - do you think consumers will really not think about how it is to watch Saving Private Ryan in 3D? Who says that it's okay to make an action film 3D but not a drama film? If the film is too reality-based, then they can't do it? But why? If 3D is applied to fantasy films then it has every right to be applied to dramatic films. I see no difference in a movie like Saving Private Ryan getting 3Dized if the movie is already getting surround sound soundtracks on their dvds. And furthermore, Saving Private Ryan is even used as a reference DVD for surround sound ("reference" = gimmicky). So if it's okay for Saving Private Ryan to get a DD 5.1/DTS soundtrack on its dvd/blu-ray, then it's just as okay for it to be 3Dized...

3D is just as gimmicky as surround sound.

Travis McClain

Toddly, you raise some interesting questions, and I'd like to toss in my two cents on several of them. I'm reminded of that round table discussion scene in Jurassic Park, when everyone is wondering what to make of cloned dinosaurs. Right now, I'm Alan Grant. I'm interested, but I'm very uncertain where this might be headed...and whether any of us will enjoy where this experiment takes us.

1) Because the gimmicky fantasy film audience is the same demographic that likes to be wowed by technology. I can't tell you how many times I've had to bail on a conversation about movies because someone only wanted to talk about special effects! It's the easiest genre to introduce the technology to the masses...much more convenient now, since these kinds of movies have gone mainstream thanks to Spider-Man, The Dark Knight, etc.

2) I think the studios are hoping it reaches the point where everything is in 3D, but I don't know that it'll happen. Which brings us to the third question:

3) It's appropriate if it works for the storytellers and their story. Despite being a concept decades old, 3D is still very much in its infancy in a lot of ways. Prominent filmmakers are still reticent to employ it, and so far only James Cameron's Avatar has been produced in a way that actually incorporated 3D into its storytelling. We shouldn't be so quick to write off the possibility that a decade from now we'll look back and think of the 3D haters as fearful, primitive old fogies who couldn't adapt with the times. And there's no shame in that, either. Jack Warner--a guy who knew a thing or two about movies--once asked, "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" when he was pitched the idea of talkies.

I think there's something to be said about retroactively re-issuing a catalog title--regardless of genre--in 3D vs. producing new films in 3D. I would be a very hard sale on, say, Casablanca in 3D because that's not how the film was made. I have no interest in seeing it colorized, nor do I wish to see it cropped from its 4:3 OAR to a more 16:9 friendlier ratio. It's "in the can," and I say let sleeping dogs lie.

Again, assuming we're discussing newly produced movies and not unearthing catalog titles, I see no reason why 3D couldn't work in a drama, or even a comedy. I'd be lying if I said it was something that got me excited to contemplate, but I agree that it's ridiculous to expect 3D to stay confined to CGI-animated features and comic book adaptations. The marketing department is ahead of the storytelling department on 3D right now. In time, who's to say how 3D might be skillfully used to present a movie?

A very interesting observation. I may not be in love with the term "gimmicky" here, but conceptually, I think you're absolutely right. 3D is an attempt to bring the visual part of the movie-going experience up to par with what surround sound has done for the auditory experience. When I watch Star Trek: First Contact, I don't need to hear the side conversation of some crewmen working on the Phoenix out of my rear channels...but it does make for a more immersing experience. I would think that, while I don't need to have objects "flying at me" throughout a movie, they also could make the viewing experience more dynamic.

toddly6666

That's why I enjoyed Avatar and so many people loved it because it had a good story. And also why it's better than all the other 3D movies because the other ones are more about the gimmick rather than the story.

I would be totally excited if Schindler's List was released on 3D Blu-ray. I'm Jewish and it's one of my most favorite films of all time. I remember being excited when the DVD was getting a DTS soundtrack. It may be a stronger movie in 3D, who knows? If people are so influenced from tv and film, maybe a 3D genocide movie would really kick in stronger than a regular 2D one. Like you said with your Jurrasic Park analogy, who knows. I don't know if I would buy into it, but I'm certainly curious about it.

Furthermore, besides the animated and comic book films getting 3Dizeed, it's the horror ones as well joining the club. If they are making silly gruesome violent horror films in 3D, there is no reason for real historical films which deal with violence and genocide to not get 3Dized. People will either think it's an awesome experience or maybe the 3D will make people realize that the glamourizing of violence in cinema is wrong...

Travis McClain

I'm still not ready to condone retro-3D. If it wasn't part of the film when it was deemed completed, I'm against tinkering after the fact. Having recently re-visited Schindler's List, I think its strength (aside from the content itself) is its stark, bleak aesthetics. Everything from Liam Neeson's anti-heroic performance to the black & white cinematography, to John Williams's under-stated score; everything about the film is compelling because it's so...reserved. 3D, I would think, would run counter to that.

I was thisclose to mentioning horror, but I dropped it when I edited my post for length (surprising, right?).

Well, now you've gone and brought up an entirely separate topic that fascinates me, and that's the portrayal of historical events in film. I could go on for an entire thread about that subject, but it probably belongs in Otter.

Spiky

How would you make catalog films 3D? Private Ryan, Schindler, Freddy, Jason, whatever....where does the extra detail come from? It's not on the film, it wasn't recorded with 3D in mind. Do you physically redraw shapes and colors via cg? On every single frame? Possible, I guess. But I can just hear the criticism now.

Movies are about the immersion, to put yourself in a different world for a couple hours. That's what we are going for, isn't it?

If you want to be hyper-critical enough about semantics, everything about films is gimmicky. Lines are written at a desk somewhere, the classic lines weren't actually thought up by people on the fly. Compare to your favorite celebrity in a news conference and see how bad reality is when 6 people didn't have 3 weeks to write their lines for them. Why do you think Presidents don't generally give conferences that haven't already been drawn up and pre-written line for line? Sound is created out of various means. They used to use sheets of metal to simulate sounds of storms, and they piped water to create Singing in the Rain and others. Light is controlled completely. Either in studio artificially or even with "real" light, esp now when we have millions of critics on the internet, they wait for appropriate weather to shoot certain scenes and often really try to make sure little continuity slipups don't happen, like the sun being on the other side of the screen in alternate scenes. Effects are a lot more high tech (maybe not the piped water), but not different conceptually, today.

There's a reason we look for discs (check the Reviews section) that don't have EE, mosquito noise, DNR, and other artifacts. We are trying to get as realistic an experience as possible. Obviously, some care about certain things more than others. But any of these can take away from the enjoyment. I've watched movies where 1/4 through I completely lost track of the film and all I saw was bad effects or artifacts, completely ruining the experience. Because it felt wrong, and it distracted from the immersion.

Comparing talkies to 3D is silly, and so was Warner and other naysayers back then. Theater had been audible for thousands of years (not to mention "life"), why shouldn't film theater? "Who wants to hear actors talk"? Gee, maybe the millions of people who've made Shakespeare a household name for 400 years. I think those remarks were made by an industry insider who didn't want to spend the money to change. He woke up.

About surround sound...we hear in surround sound. We don't hear from 5 different directions, we just...hear. I can hear my family upstairs as I sit here typing, and I can hear the typing, even though those things aren't related. Putting that concept into film only makes sense, if it is technically possible. And as I said before, you can actually place 6 or more speakers in your home and they can actually send you different sounds to each one. That may be a gimmick on the same level as absolutely everything else in the movie, artificially created, but it's re-created in a real fashion in the theater/home. The idea is to make it sound real. If you were standing somewhere like in the Star Trek scene mentioned above, you would certainly hear other things around you, not just one thing. I'll bet if I went to most people's homes and listened to their surround system, I'd hear 5 different speakers when playing a circular sweep from a test disc. All you hear at my house is a circle of sound, because I've worked to make it sound real. Then, I just hope movie studios manage the same when making their films.

In the same fashion, I already see in 3D. That's how I manage to walk through my house without smacking into the side of doorways. Let me know when holographic exists to re-create 3D, I can't wait. Faking it on a flat screen is just dense. It feels like a gimmick when I watch it, even if it is put together well, whereas all the other gimmicks used to create the film are less so, if they are done well.

orangerunner

Clash of the Titans was filmed as a 2D film but the producers decided they could capture a larger audience if they release it in 3D. For about $4-$5 million dollars (peanuts, relatively speaking) they created a 3D film from its 2D source and it arguably opened to a lot more money than it would have in 2D.

Titanic and the Star Wars trilogy are in serious consideration of being re-released in 3D.

Realistically I only see a handful of films that will warrant a re-release in 3D, at least in the theatres. 3D Blu-ray will probably be another story. I'm sure it's seen by executives as the future for sagging home video sales and a much more compelling reason for people to upgrade their DVDs than the standard Blu-ray disc has been.

If you're not into watching 3D, I imagine they'll have the 2D version in the same package.