This week's poll question—Do You Suffer From 3D Sickness?—has yielded some interesting results. Of those who have voted so far, 38 percent say they never experience eye strain, headaches, nausea, etc. while watching stereoscopic content on 3D TVs or in 3D movie theaters, and 19 percent say they have never seen stereoscopic 3D. That leaves a whopping 43 percent who experience 3D sickness at least sometimes. Why?
LG will have some big announcements at CES next week—literally. Perhaps the biggest is the 72-inch LZ9700, which the company claims is the world's largest LED-backlit 3D LCD TV.
The first thing you’ll need to bring 3D home is a 3DTV. While they’re outwardly similar to any HDTV and fully capable of 2D playback, 3DTVs can decode and display 3D from one of several standard 3D formats. In general, 3D sets also offer separate setup menus for 2D and 3D material, plus additional 3D controls that can help you get the best out of 3D sources.
Some of these sets, like LCD models from Sony, Samsung, and Toshiba, and some new Panasonic plasmas, include special processing that converts 2D sources into a semblance of 3D. Our limited experience with this feature so far suggests that it can be effective with some material, but it’s no substitute for the real thing.
It's nice to have connected friends. Last night, I got to attend a SAG (Screen Actors Guild) screening of Tron: Legacy, which opens in theatrical release tomorrow, as a guest of member Nina Goldin, a talented voice actress and singer/songwriter. The screening was held at the Main Theater on Disney Studios' backlot in Burbank, CA, where security was pretty tight—metal-detector wands to prevent any cell phones or cameras (or sound-level meters) in the theater.
Sony, Imax, and the Discovery Channel have announced new 3D programming for 2011, with three new series, two specials, and the broadcast debut of Open Season in 3D, the first feature-length animated movie from Sony Pictures Animation. The specials include Imax's Space Station narrated by Tom Cruise and a 3D episode of Discovery's Ghost Lab.
Home theater using Force One by Sphere Custom Design, South Africa. Photo courtesy of Christaan Beukes.
Last April, I profiled the magnificent Force One 3-chip DLP projector from French maker Cineversum. Now, just in time for the holidays, the company has announced a new model, the Force Two, and 3D capabilities for both.
For those who think 3D on a flat screen is bogus, how about this? Swiss university École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) is working on a camera that captures images in all directions at once—well, to be precise, all directions within a hemispherical pattern—and processes the resulting data to calculate the distance from the camera to each object in its visual field.
Update: This story now includes video of the inventor explaining the technology!
Panasonic's 103-inch plasma is nothing new—we first saw it at the 2006 CES—and it's not even the largest plasma in production, an honor that goes to Panasonic's 152-inch behemoth. But last week, the company announced that it is taking pre-orders in Japan for an updated version of the 103-incher that now offers 3D capabilities.
On Tuesday evening, Tom Norton and I went to see Megamind in Imax 3D, and I have to say it's one of the best animated 3D movies I've seen to date. The delightful, touching, often hilarious story is an original and unexpected riff on good vs. evil—and how the boundary between them is often not so clear—and the voice acting by Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross, and Brad Pitt is superb.
One of the criticisms aimed at 3D in the home is the dearth of available titles. Then there's all the exclusive deals that make many titles available only in bundles with 3D TVs and Blu-ray players from one manufacturer or another. But according to the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), a trade association representing the home-entertainment industry, these limitations are starting to ease as more titles are being released for the holiday buying season. In fact, 10 titles are being released today—which is being called Blu-ray 3D Day—in anticipation of Black Friday (November 26 this year).
3D at home can be fun, but in my reviews of 3D displays from most major manufacturers (Sony, Samsung, LG, Toshiba, and Panasonic), I've come across a problem that has been little noted. This problem is not with the displays themselves, all of which do a good job with the 3D effect, apart from occasional ghosting or crosstalk (double images when one eye sees the image meant for the other eye).
Last week, I attended a meeting at Stewart Filmscreen, where I learned about a new screen material called Silver 5D. It's a clever name, since this material is designed to work well with both polarized 3D and 2D images (3D + 2D = 5D).
Once in a while, my job has some pretty nice perks. Last week, for example, I was invited to the Disney studios in Burbank, CA, for a preview screening of two movies coming out this holiday season—Tron: Legacy and Tangled, an animated telling of the Rapunzel fairy tale.
Among the myriad press releases I've received lately—no doubt in preparation for the upcoming CEDIA Expo—was one with a particularly audacious headline: "Mozaex Ships World's First 3D Blu-ray Multi-Room Media Server." Intrigued, I contacted Mozaex (pronounced like "mosaics") to learn more.
Anyone who knows high-end video knows Runco, which is now the high-end home-cinema division of Oregon-based Planar. Among Runco's many well-regarded projectors, the premier line is undoubtedly the Signature Cinema series, which now includes two brand new models.
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