3D TV: Backers say it's the Next Big Thing, but challenges remain

3D movies may not be coming to your local multiplex as quickly as the Hollywood studios would like, but a number of companies are hoping to bring them into your home. The addition of 3D to HDTV will be a "hot topic" at this week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, according to a Wall Street Journal article. However, "the offerings face some big challenges -- including a grim economy and the difficulty of persuading users to wear special glasses."

There are technical challenges as well. Any 3D display requires sending a different image to each eye. Most past and current 3D video releases, such as the Blu-Ray release of Journey to the Center of the Earth, use the crude, color-based, anaglyph 3D (think red and green glasses). While Anaglyph 3D works on any color TV, it seriously disrupts the proper colors in the image. Contrary to popular myth, the Hollywood 3D films of the 1950s didn't use anaglyph, but the superior polarized 3D technology still used (in improved form) in many theatrical systems today.

In the hopes of offering something better, several electronic companies, including Samsung and Mitsubishi, are now selling "3D-ready" HDTVs. But all that description means is a refresh rate fast enough to flash two different frames in the time most TVs show you one. There still has to be some way to control which images go to which eye. LCD glasses, synced to an infrared source, can handle this job by shutting out the light in one lens, then the other.

But developing 3D content will be difficult. Videogames are often modeled in 3D and can be converted easily, and the number of 3D movies are growing. According to a MacUser article, Dolby is trying to sell content providers on a system which "would work on any 3D enabled TV...with a standard Blu-ray player." Dolby promises that its system, which it has submitted to SMTP, is fully backward compatible. The company has "declined to identify potential partners." Panasonic has reportedly propososed another standard.

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