3D
Dear Gary:
I was reading the most recent issue today, specifically an item about the recent Technology Conference At Sea on the Home Theater Cruise.
You were expressing surprise that not one of the enthusiasts on the cruise owned a 3D system, and many were seeing it for the first time. You thought that perhaps the Marketing types were out-of-touch with the Early Adopter consumers on this one.
Is it really all that surprising? 3D has been around for many years, and for almost the entire time it has been Crap! It's a gimmick, an amusement park novelty joke that was good for a laugh, until the headache set-in and the realization that the picture was really bad.
When this last round started I remember my kids bringing home Coraline and Journey To The Centre Of The Earth. They looked awful, with washed-out color. The whole family agreed that we?d flip the disc and watch it in 2D. As usual, Hollywood had started throwing a format at us that was not ready for Prime Time!
WSR readers value quality, a best-it-can-be performance. We have thrown our money at LaserDisc, then DVD, LCD, plasma, front projectors, and Blu-ray as sound and picture made leaps in performance that made movie watching a satisfying experience.
3D is not perceived to be a natural upgrade to technologies that have come before it. There are different ways of employing the 3D technology, and not all of them work properly. The methods are not all compatible with all hardware components and this causes problems...and uncertainty. I may wander down to a store now and take a look at the newest 3D stuff, but given its history, I'm in no rush and I will have to be blown-away if I'm going to consider having to buy a new 3DTV and a new Blu-ray player. Is 3D up to the job?
Ken Wilson
Editor-In-Chief and Publisher Gary Reber Comments:
While I mentioned that no one at our conference besides industry people had previously experienced the new Blu-ray Disc 3D standard in 3D, I failed to mention everyone was blown away by the 3D experience! We are not talking about the previous Coraline or Journey To The Center Of The Earth viewed in 3D through red/green passive glasses, which, agreed, is very poor picture quality.
You owe it to yourself to experience a really good Blu-ray Disc 3D presentation viewed through active shutter glasses that allow even better viewing than you can get in theatres, especially when projected on a decent-sized wide screen.
You can E-mail Widescreen Review @ editorgary@widescreenreview.com