Buy 3D TV

Coming at You! NFL Looks at 3-D

See the full article or read the clip below:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10106431-93.html

With sports fans still getting used to their high-definition television sets, the National Football League is already thinking ahead to the next potential upgrade: 3-D.

Next week, a game between the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders will be broadcast live in 3-D to theaters in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. It is a preliminary step on what is likely a long road to any regular 3-D broadcasts of football games.

The idea is a “proof of concept,” says Howard Katz, NFL senior vice president of broadcasting and media operations. “We want to demonstrate this and let people get excited about it and see what the future holds.”

The several hundred guests at the three participating theaters Dec. 4 will include representatives from the NFL’s broadcasting partners and from consumer-electronics companies. The event will be closed to the general public. Burbank, Calif.-based 3ality Digital LLC will shoot the game with special cameras and transmit it to a satellite. Thomson SA’s Technicolor Digital Cinema is providing the satellite services and digital downlink to each theater, and Real D 3D Inc. will power the display in the theaters.

Found a great article today about a 3-D TV survey.  People are definitely ready for 3D in the home!

Some of the key findings in the study include the following:

• 3-D product awareness: 75 percent of respondents have had a 3-D experience and 73 percent said that they would recommend 3-D to friends or family.

• 3-D interest/purchasing: Close to half of those surveyed are interested in watching 3-D at home, with younger respondents, as well as those who had seen a 3-D movie recently, even more interested than the overall sample.

• 3-D timing: More than one-third of those surveyed expect 3-D TV within one to two years. Almost half cited that they have a high preference to receive 3-D content via their cable/satellite provider while Blu-ray Disc was their most preferred method.

• 3-D opinions: 3-D is not a gimmick or fad for most surveyed. Both positive and negative opinions are provided; respondents describe 3-D as an image or experience with depth, which is realistic and lifelike. It is an immersive and improved way to experience a movie or game.

• 3-D glasses: While glasses are a distraction, it was not enough to hinder consumers’ interest in a purchase. Several sub groups will pay more for a 3-D TV without glasses, but even a 3-D experience with glasses is something consumers are interested in for the home.

• 3-D movies and games: More than half of respondents agreed that 3-D makes movies and games more enjoyable, with gamers finding the 3-D experience slightly more enjoyable than the overall sample.

Check out the whole article at:
http://www.twice.com/article/CA6616042.html

The BBC is reporting that 3-D TV is really about 3 years away.  I’ve always considered the BBC to be a reputable source for information.  They seem fairly unbiased - I like em.

Anyways, they posted this

And guess what?  This article is from 2006.  That means they predicted 3D TV and I quote:

After reading the article, it seems pretty fluffy.  However…

Holographic TV?

Check out this quote:
“However, Prof Onural said holographic television was at least 10 years away.”  I’ve heard rumors that there are already holographic displays and they are fairly commonplace.  I’ll post stuff that I find.

Holographic TV
The thought makes me holler — so so Beautiful!!!

Can you believe it?  What is it?

A hint: 19 entities

Yes, that’s right a 19 entity consortium for 3D-TV development.  At first, I was a skeptic.  Just because I’ve always loved the word - consortium.  Even as I’m righting this, I’m understanding the justification for it.  Guess what?  Europe is all over it.  This consortium is made up of top universities in Europe - all banded together for the third dimension in television.

Here’s a list of participants:
http://www.3dtv-research.org/participants.php

So, it’s actually pretty darn cool and they made a book about it.  You can find it here

How come they picked Beowulf as the big 3D release? Why wouldn’t they have gone with an old classic like Star Wars or King Kong? I’ll tell you why, because it doesn’t matter. That’s right, they made their money too. It’s too bad that everyone I know who saw it in 3D said “ehhh, the 3D was cool, but the movie wasn’t very good”.

Is there any doubt at all…

3D TV is the New Gold Rush?

Get with the program Hollywood. Make something good into 3D and you’ll get your turning point. You won’t be able to keep people away from the theatres. Okay, so the gold rush hasn’t started yet. And we know that the re-re-re-release of Star Wars in 3D will be massive. Who will win the 3D box office? Star Wars or Lord of the Rings? Shoot, it’d even be fun to see Rambo in 3D. Who wouldn’t watch all of their favorite movies all over again in 3D at the theatre? Jaws would sell out again!

So this 3D TV thing is not new. IBM was working with DLP technology back in 2005.  At the time, the IBM DLP 3D TV was the first of its kind.

Check it out - they had it then…it’s 2008, “I want my 3DTV”!!!!!

http://www.physorg.com/news8113.html

I started this blog for one reason - to buy a 3D TV.  Back in the early 90’s, I predicted the P2P revolution (as did many others) and soon after I said the music industry would be crushed by it (it was but you’ll have to read my music blog to hear the whole truth).  Later, after the “last mile” of fiber optics make it to the home you’ll see the complete convergence of internet and TV.  That of course is also happening - see the deal with BitTorrent and Comcast this last Friday.

After the convergence of internet and TV, you’ll see vast improvements in the overall compression of video data through the internet.  This will enable HD quality video to your computer (or TV soon enough).  Then, you’ll see the movie industry start to get crushed just like the music business by P2P as people will be able to download a 4GB compressed HD movie torrent delivered to your home in less than 10 minutes.  This forces the movie industry to provide value again.  They will start with 3D movies and with the advances in DVDs (Blu-ray, HD-DVD), these 3D transmissions will become commonplace.  Of course, there is a dependency on the tipping point of 3D televisions into the home (which of course depends on there being enough 3D content).  Since 3D content is currently more expensive to produce, replicate, and transmit, we’ll see a big CHICKEN AND THE EGG problem with 3D.

In the mean time, studios will keep rolling out 3D movies and IMAX is already proving that short run/pay a premium movie like Happy Feet 3D will make just as much cash as the regular movie.  Someone will release a 3D movie on DVD (as soon as there are enough 3D TVs).  Unfortunately, in the 3D industry for the home, it will be quite expensive.  It will take someone like Samsung, TI, or Sony to make that first move and set the standard.  The second-mover market will be massive and then the Satellite/Cable companies will have to adjust as well.  Unfortunately, they will be dealing with the entertainment industry’s growing reliance on internet television and the increased competition will force them into providing the bandwidth for these transmissions (or they’ll have to become an even stronger clearinghouse for television entertainment).

The adult entertainment industry historically forges the way regarding internet technology.  They have single-handedly driven the online video evolution and YouTube was the tipping point where people began to really watch Internet television.  In fact, YouTube didn’t even provide high-quality content, but rather focused on the longtail of user produced videos (see “cottage industry”).

Back to the point…I want a 3D TV.  Yes, I did call out the proliferation of 3D into the homes quite some time ago and yes, I did say that 3D would save Hollywood.  Of course, I wasn’t the only one.  The movement of 3D into the home is much like the auto industry and their calling to produce clean energy vehicles.  Hollywood and the auto industry both have to deal with the impending dangers of scarce resources and massive technology shifts.  A good comparision is comparing these similar issues:

Oil companies:  in order to shift to clean energy, they will have to retrofit gas stations across the country with new energy receptacles (gas pumps)

Hollywood: in order to shift to 3D (and save their revenue), they will have to retrofit all of their movie theatres with 3D capability.

Back to my point again - I want 3D TV and unfortunately it’s going to be awhile.  My current prediction is that I will get my first 3D TV in 2013.  That’s too long to wait!!!

I can’t wait for the day when someone says to me “I got one of those new 3D TVs”. What’s crazy is that they “supposedly already exist”. In fact, I’ve seen about 10 different companies claiming that they’ve already manufactured a 3D TV. I’ve talked with a few businesses that also have full 3D holographic displays like you’d see in Star Wars. However, it seems perfectly possible that you’d see one of these TVs at a trade show, but until they have at least one 3D TV Channel, you won’t be seeing these TVs at Best Buy.

Check out this quote from the Texas Instruments DLP 3D TV site:

Turn on your new 3-D DLP® HDTV, slide on your active 3-D glasses, and watch the images jump off the high definition screen and into your home theatre. The extreme speed of the DLP® chip, combined with 3-D technology, makes it all possible.

–

Again, I can’t stress enough how the glasses are going to HAVE TO GO AWAY for these TVs to proliferate into the home. However, those who have a home theatre setup with the full surround sound may dig into the early “3D glasses” model.

Anyways, DLP is a fantastic technology and will probably be at the forefront of this consumer 3D technology. We’ll keep an eye on it. At least their website is dope and gives us hope it will arrive sooner than later - check it out:

http://www.dlp.com/hdtv/3-d_dlp_hdtv.aspx

This is definitely the future of 3D. Remember when the first big screen TVs came out? You had to sit directly in front of them to get a good picture. Well, we’re getting back to that again with the new 3D TVs. Since they project two sets of images, the angle is important — however it won’t be long before they fix that. This article is awesome and talks about the capabilities that already exist. Samsung and others are going down the 3D glasses path and I just don’t see how 3D will move into homes if you need glasses. Wired magazine reports:

I entered a conference room in Manhattan and a woman on the TV tossed a handful of rose petals out of the screen, where they floated in the air before my eyes.

At least, that’s what I saw. In truth, the image resided on a perfectly flat, 42-inch LCD screen. But the 3-D illusion was fully believable, and I didn’t have to wear a dorky set of polarizing glasses.

A new line of 3-D televisions by Philips uses the familiar trick of sending slightly different images to the left and right eyes — mimicking our stereoscopic view of the real world. But where old-fashioned 3-D movies rely on the special glasses to block images meant for the other eye, Philips’ WOWvx technology places tiny lenses over each of the millions of red, green and blue sub pixels that make up an LCD or plasma screen. The lenses cause each sub pixel to project light at one of nine angles fanning out in front of the display.

A processor in the TV generates nine slightly different views corresponding to the different angles. From almost any location, a viewer catches a different image in each eye.

Read more here:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2006/08/71627

It seems many people are getting quite used to seeing 3D in the mainstream.  What cracks me up is that this younger generation of kids are not completely amazed by the 3D movement as I am — seems that because they grew up with xbox360’s and Wii’s and the like, they’re already fully prepared for this advance in entertainment television.  Check out this article about the proliferation of 3D into the mainstream…

The 3D phenomenon isn’t just something being discussed in theory at trade shows like ShoWest, since its practical uses have already had an impact with moviegoers. Last year, Robert Zemeckis’ animated epic Beowulf made much from its money from the theaters that were able to screen it in 3D, because there were a lot of moviegoers who wanted to see the adventure in that format and were ready to pay more money to do so. This year, there have already been 3D concert films from two of the biggest touring acts, with Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: The Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour setting a new per-theater average record when it opened in early February. James Cameron’s next movie Avatar, his first dramatic feature since Titanic over ten years ago scheduled for release in December 2009, is being filmed entirely using similar 3D technology as “Journey.”

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=43367