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Monday, April 12, 2010

Filed under: *VIDEO* •3D •Cameras •Distribution •Editing •NAB 2010 •NAB 2010 Insight •NAB 2010 Production •NAB 2010 Real Time •NAB 2010 Video •Post Production •Production •

NAB2010:  The Story Of The Number “3” And The Letter “D”

Bruce A Johnson | 04/12

I would have posted this last night, before NAB2010 actually started, but I refuse to pay the extortionate $13/day that hotels here think is their God-given right to collect for the same (or worse) Internet access that is free virtually anywhere else.

In making the rounds of the Panasonic and Sony press conferences on Sunday, I was just dumbfounded to hear the breathless fawning over what is at best nascent 3-D television technology.  In a country (the US) where only about 40% of people have invested in HDTVs so far, the cravenness of manufacturers expecting people to rip it all up and buy new equipment already is breathtaking.  This is not to say that 3D can’t be compelling - in the right hands, and with the right content, the effect is impressive - but let’s not kid ourselves.  It is just an EFFECT, after all.  Have you have seen the recent Samsung 3-D TV ad where a dad cuts a block of water out of an aquarium, takes it home, pushes it into their HDTV and then the family is suddenly awash (ahem) in fully-immersive 3-D fish?  That spot verges on fraud, IMHO.  The 3-D effect is limited to the inside of the monitor’s bezel.  And lets face it, not all that much content out there deserves hi-def treatment, much less 3-D.

Here’s hoping that consumers recognize this latest gimmick as just that - a gimmick - and send the gear manufacturers (and their junkie enabler, the Consumer Electronics Association) the 2x4 to the head they so richly deserve.

So am I too much of a curmudgeon?  What do YOU think?

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Not at all - if 3D were that freaking revolutionary (like color! or sound! is what you usually hear), it would have taken over the still world. But it’s not really how our eyes see things and we don’t see depth that far anyway.

I think it’s literally eye candy - in other words, eye junk food. A little bit at certain times for certain things is great, but 24/7 everything in 3D and we’ll all be worse for it.

Posted by stephen v2  on  04/12  at  12:55 PM

I agree with you fully, Bruce.

3D doesn’t add anything useful. HDTV has a practical use. It allows larger televisions to be used and viewed closer, much more like the cinema.

3D on the other hand doesn’t add anything other than viewing obstacles. The glasses are impractical, viewing angles are restrictive, and actually shooting £D is a total pain in the backside.

It was an amusement for me when Jan Crittenden said, during a sales pitch for Panasonics new 3D camcorder, that she saw Avatar in 2D and 3D, and that the 2D version was dull.

I don’t think she realised that what she was really saying was that Avatar wasn’t really a very good film, and that the only thing it had going for it was a gimmicky effect!

A big, big issue I have with 3D is that it requires a different visual language. Deep depth of field, care over the distance of objects from the lens etc. Many of these requirements mean that the visual language of 3D doesn’t work well in 2D and vice versa.

So are we all to make productions that compromise all the time, neither fully taking advantage of 2D or 3D? Or are we going to be bullied by the manufacturers into making everything 3D?

Lastly, who exactly is paying for me to have to upgrade all my equipment, again?

There was a time when I liked being on the bleeding edge. Not any more. If they concentrated on increasing progressive framerates then I would be interested. Such a development, for example natively progressive 200fps cameras and televisions, would have a practical advantage. Less motion blur, and far, far more apparent detail in images.

3D is a waste of time and energy taking away development from aspects that would actually be useful.

Posted by Simon Wyndham  on  04/21  at  01:58 AM

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