Fluff from the naval of my mind

What is with 3D? I can see that having 3D in cinemas makes it virtually impossible to pirate the film at the moment and that probably appeals to the moguls (although no doubt if 3D becomes the dominant form of entertainment 3D piracy will be hot on its heals). I can see the novelty value of 3D. But I cannot for the life of me see anything sufficiently compelling about 3d in its current form that I would rush out and replace all my high-definition, large screen, surround sound wizz-bangery.

3D in its current form is a bit shit. Here’s why.

First, it’s false 3D. Try looking around an object like you would in the real world. Doesn’t work. The 3D effect produced using parallax imaging (which all current 3D entertainment systems use) produces one viewing perspective no matter the position of the viewer. It’s a trick, and one that causes many people headaches. This is not really 3D, where, other than in the novelty, is the advantage of a programme being in 3D? You get to see no more of the scene. You cannot explore the scene any more than you can in 2D.

3D actually limits programme makers. Gone are fast cut scenes because fast cuts with current 3D technology just make people nauseous and the 3D effect quickly collapses. Every change in the depth of a scene (close-up to sudden panorama) causes a momentary loss of the 3D effect as the brain catches up (it just isn’t built to interpret these sorts of changes without an associated eye movement). Besides for large panoramas 3D is largely irrelevant as the parallax is so small the effect is negligible.

You have to wear those damned glasses. It should be evident that many people will find this uncomfortable and inconvenient. Suppose I have a family of four, how many pairs of glasses should I buy? Four? No. Suppose little Suzie wants her friend over for tea and we want to watch a movie. Five? No. Little Jonny wants his friend over too. Six? Ah, but what about Christmas when we have the whole family over. Twenty people sitting around to watch the Christmas movie. So, I either have to buy 20 pairs of glasses at £10 a pair (and have sixteen pair lay around unused most of the time) or ask everyone to bring their own from home (assuming all our systems use the same 3D standard). And of course glasses will be regularly broken or lost down the back of the sofa. I suppose the flip side of this is that fewer people will watch TV.

Focus. Animations work well in 3D because they tend to have an infinite depth of field, they seldom use focal depth to blur background of foreground elements. This may be because the language of animation has tended to be flat. In contrast to this, the language of live action uses depth of field to draw attention to, or from, elements in the scene and directors do not seem to be able to break this habit when making 3D programmes.

The problem with using depth of field like this (as I have pointed out in other posts) is that real world objects do not go in and out of focus by their own volition. In the real world we select which objects are in focus by placing them in the centre of our visual field and focusing on them. This is not a fault with 3D technology, more a fault with programme makers.

So, 3D TV? I just don’t see what the appeal will be, other than novelty or ‘bragging rights’.