The first one you can understand the reasons why. It costs money to provide content and you might actually have to do something new instead of remaking old material over and over. The second is hard to understand because the TV manufacturers are the one’s that started the new 3D craze.
I have been involved with 3D for over 60 years in front of the camera and now behind it which makes me somewhat of an expert on it. The same main problem that has faced 3D in the cinema in the 1920’s that it faced in the 50’s and is still being faced today, the glasses.
You can use passive or active shutter glasses to view the project. Passive being what you wear in a theater and active shutter in the home.
No matter which you wear they are pain to wear, They steam up on you and if you wear prescription glasses nearly impossible to deal with.
Two years ago while attending the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas all that was talked about was the introduction of 3D to TV. This has been something that has been played with since the 1950’s and has always failed for the same reason, glasses.
It was thought that the introduction of the 3D TV set would help to prop up a sagging market. Wrong in two cases, first being no product to show on the sets and second, once again the glasses.
Having attended many conferences on 3D in the last two years the battles has been, give us the shows in 3D and we will build the sets or give us the sets and we will make the 3D shows. Like in politics there has seems to be no middle ground.
Last year 3D was backed off on at CES in favor of net connected TV, unfortunately the genie had been let out of the bottle and 3D started to catch on in gaming and motion pictures and sporting events. Just enough to wet the appetite and no more.
Seems that the only thing that the set manufactures and the content providers can agree on is that the 3D experience is what’s most important not the amount of programming available to be seen. In other words if they had been here and in charge of TV manufacturing in the 40’s or in charge of production of content there would have been no TV till Masterpiece Theater had been created.
Just a few weeks ago while in an store I heard a potential buyer turn down the 3D set that was on display for two reasons. One he could not justify spending $3,000 for a set that there was virtually no programming for or with five kids spend the money for the glasses needed to watch the set.
Coming back to the glasses they were obviously designed by someone with no children for if they had had them they would know this is common in most homes in the world. You have two children watching TV, one a girl one a boy. The girl calls out to her brother Harvey and askes for the glasses so she can watch something in 3D. Harvey being ever much a brother then throws the glasses to her like he was throwing a fast ball to his catcher, hitting the wall and breaking them into million pieces.
One hundred dollars or more right out the window. Expensive, uncomfortable to wear and they don’t always work as I found out last week.
I attended the debut of a new large screen TV. I was halfway thru the demo before I got the active shutter glasses to work.
I asked about why not use passive glasses and the response was because the consumer wants the best experience they can get. Actually they just wants to be able to see what’s on the screen they paid to see.
What I really love the most about the current manufactures stance on 3D and the sets they are selling is that 2D is their fall back position because how many people really want to watch 3d all the time. Just those spending the money to buy the sets is all.
There are ways to get around the glasses and the content supply and well known. Problem being though that these solutions would only be popular with the consumers and not the content suppliers or the manufactures. Whom really cares what the consumers want.
The 3D genie is out of the bottle though and is not going back in this time.