3-D – coming to a TV near you soon

Valerie | 21 Aug 2009, 08:00


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Much has been made of HD technologies in the film and gaming industries but as a recent article in the Wall Street Journal illustrates, the next big thing to hit our screens will be 3-D – but not as we know it.

This might conjure up images of watching blurry films through coloured spectacles but if the hype is to be believed, a spate of new films to be released in the format this year are heralding a new age of cinema and a rebirth of 3-D technology.

Led by the imminent release of James Cameron’s eagerly anticipated science fiction blockbuster Avatar, which was unveiled at the Comic-con International Convention in San Diego last month,  the surrounding hype has already been likened to that of the first Harry Potter film. Other films to be released this year in the 3-D format include Ice Age 3 and GForce. So is all the hype justified?

According to this BBC article, the technique has come a long way since the first experiments in 1915. Although, it was not until the 1950s that Hollywood tried it out on audiences threatening to be kept away by their televisions. The technique then made a comeback in the 70s and 80s, possibly as a reaction to falling audiences at the time when home video was becoming popular.

But it seems that the technology is much more sophisticated than in the past - the installation of digital projectors in cinemas means sharper and steadier images. And as the Times reports, ten British cinemas a week are upgrading to the digital projection systems necessary to show the 3-D films to their full effect.  Rupert Gavin, chief executive officer of Odeon cinemas, says the new 3-D technology is the breakthrough film fans have been waiting for.

And it seems that 3-D is reaching beyond the projectors to our TV screens, with the recent announcement from Sky that it is preparing to debut a 3-D television channel in the U.K. next year that will require specially-equipped TV sets. According to the Wall Street Journal, Sky plans to film and deliver its own exclusive 3-D content using existing HD set-top boxes used by more than 1.3 million of its pay-TV customers in the U.K in a venture that may be the most ambitious yet toward a large-scale 3-D television rollout, which remains absent from most big markets outside of Japan.

The 3-D onslaught won’t come without challenges – like the upgrade to 3-D cinema projectors, some programme including Sky’s will require expensive 3-D-ready television sets.

As this blog argues, it’s perhaps all too easy to believe that 3-D is being used more to hamper pirates than it is to thrill fans - few of the 3-D films of the recent era use the technology to enhance their storytelling power. 

Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of blockbuster hits from Bad Boys to Transformers who has been experimenting with 3-D echoes this point:
“You can have all the technology and special effects you can afford, but in the end it’s a story that captures the imagination and characters you love or hate that count.”