h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I try to watch 2d movies whenever possible (don't go to cinema *that* often) because my impression so far was that almost all 3d movies have a picture quality that is a good deal below 2d movies. Everything seems slightly blurred. I rather have a decent 2d picture than a blurred 3d. And as someone mentioned earlier it only seems to make a difference in a few scenes in most movies anyhow.

3D that doesn't need glasses still requires the eyes to function in ways they're not designed to, hence the headaches. Stereoscopic images are great for a minute or two, but for an extended period a significant minority of people either can't see them at all or get painful eye strain - and there's nothing the manufacturers can do to change that, glasses or no glasses, as long as they're expecting us to focus on an image projected on a flat surface and interpret it as being three dimensional.

The headache problem won't go away - can't go away, even in principle - until images are actually 3D, i.e. are projected into a space, like a theatre stage, instead of onto a flat screen.

"Not everyone gets headaches" isn't a good argument - if even one in ten people get headaches, they'll make sure their partners and children don't go to see the 3D versions of things.

Glasses with electronics in are the biggest dead-end this iteration of the technology has produced. I feel sorry for anyone who has been conned into buying them.

The future in displays is not 3D. It's in bigger, brighter, more contrasty, thinner, lighter, higher definition screens, made with OLEDs. The television of ten years from now will be sixty or more inch, greater than 1080p, and about 2 millimetres thick, will weigh about 20kg or less and will use less energy than an old standard lightbulb. Black on such a screen will be properly black, and colours will pop. It will be capable of displaying 3D content, but nobody will be interested in watching it, any more than anyone was watching 3D movies in 1999 or 1969. It's a strictly cyclic phenomenon, there's nothing the industry can do about it, /and they know it/.

I'll tell my boys then shall I? and all our competitors...

We'll be getting away from the "red green blue" three colour image, as well. RGB are capable of displaying a range of colours, but there are some colours they can't show. Already some manufacturers are producing televisions with four colours in them (I think yellow is the extra one), and eventually they'll make LEDs capabale of producing a decent violet. These will make the image look much more colourful and realistic.

@SoRB:

I'm not sure that technical excellence is the whole story. There's also commercial imperative. For many years consumers have been convinced to shell out for TV channels they will never watch.

Oh I agree there's a commercial imperative, I'm just saying the future of displays and the future of getting people to keep shelling out for them is NOT going to feature 3D as an important feature, if at all.

Ultimately, what we're talking about is the market for what is the biggest and most-used display screen in the house. For the mass market they can't physically get much bigger - few people I know have a room that would accommodate anything much more than an 80" screen - but they can get thinner and less energy-hungry. But the progress will come in the quality of the image - there's still plenty of scope for that to get better.

Stereoscopic 3D will never catch on because it's forcing our eyes to do something it's not adapted to do.

When you view the real world, your eyes do two things: the point of attention (the direction your individual eyes are pointing) moves closer or further away (i.e. your eyes get more crossed the closer the object is to your nose, and less so the further away), and the focal length of the lens in your eye changes to keep the object at the point of attention in focus.

So when you look at something close up, your eyes cross a bit, and the focal length of your lens goes short. When you look at something more distant, your eyes uncross and point more parallel, and the lens focal length gets much longer. This kind of movement happens automatically every second you're awake.

But when you watch a 3D film, the illusion of depth is created on a flat surface at a fixed distance. Your eyes cross and uncross to adjust to objects at different apparent distances, but at all times your lenses have to keep their focus on the screen on which the image is being projected. It's a deeply unnatural movement for your visual equipment to make, which is why it causes headaches - and there's no technological fix for it.

It's a nice gimmick, but even with a glasses-free way to give that illusion of depth, you're still asking the eyes to stay focussed while they cross and uncross... and it *hurts*. Not everyone, and not all the time, but enough.

You're right. And similarly 'cyber sickness' prevents about 2% from playing computer games.

And a 'Magic Eye' TV would be a non-starter.

So to the people in the 3D films looking out at us, we look like this:



My most recent experience of 3D was the last Harry Potter film. It was so dark, you could hardly see anything.

I've seen Tron in 3D...forgot it was in 3D after a bit - waste of time the 3D.

Seen Hugo in 3D...did notice the 3D but didn;t add that much - took the glasses off a few times and noticed the picture had 'depth' even in 2d.

Which brings me onto 'How To Train You Dragon' which I saw on DVD and thought it was a) an excellent film and b) the 'shooting' of it had 'depth' which I liked. It was only when I realised it had been made as a 3D movie that I realised that the depth was due to the makers making a 3D film.

Now if film makers could make 2D films as if they were 3D films...i.e. just give the shots more depth I think that would add to films without having to have 3D.

Painters are able to give depth to 2D paintings to make them look better so why not film makers.

I've not seen 'Hugo', but I'd imagined Scorsese, if anyone, would have been able to do something with the medium.

>I've seen Tron in 3D...forgot it was in 3D after a bit - waste of time the 3D.<

Must've been the captivating storyline, character acting and pathos that distracted

>Painters are able to give depth to 2D paintings to make them look better so why not film makers.>

I suspect they do, it's just we're so used to it, and it's so normal that we've forgotten they've done it.

I once watched a documentary on the making of Citizen Kane about _why_ it's such a good film (mostly lost on me to be honest - it's OK I suppose) and one of the things that made it so groundbreaking were the technical tricks used to make it. Things like moving a camera through a hotel sign that splits as the camera pans towards it - making it look much more like the viewer is swooping through a 3D space.

Such things are de rigeur now and are not longer noticed nor commented on much.

Can I offer this as a counter to all 3D being rubbish:

http://www.cracked.com/article_18877_4-reasons-3-d-movies-dont-have-to-suck.html

3D, when used well, can be a very useful tool for filmmakers and can really engage the audience. Avatar was visually incredible, to the point where I found myself trying to bat away a CGI bug, Thor used it to augment the visuals of Asgard and it was awesome and (amazingly) Legends of the Guardians used it to add a level of perspective you can't get any other way.

The problem is when directors don't know how to use it, use just to make more money on ticket sales, or do it as cheap as possible. Wrath of the Titans was an example of all three and was pilloried for it. I do think 3D is doomed for this generation but it's a bit of a shame given how good it can be when used well.

Actually...I've thought of some that might be worthwhile in 3D. When I saw Avatar, the had a trailer for Streetdance. The nightclub scenes especially looked...like being in a nightclub.

And in a similar vein, Wim Wenders; 'Pina' featuring the choreogaphy of Pina Bausch.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNuQVS7q7-A (nifty shot of the Wuppertal monorail at 0' 40")

And I'd dearly love to see Wernher Herzog's 'Cave of Forgotten Dreams' about the Lascaux paintings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZFP5HfJPTY

It was Thor I was talking about when I compared 3D to Captain Pugwash

(To be fair it was quite cool to augment Asgard as you say - but scenes of one on one dialogue look like cardboard cut out theater in 3D)

Who or what is Captain Pugwash? Is he the hero of a movie that will never be shown in the U.S., or won't arrive here for several months?

Disney has a great cash cow in that it can rerelease its classic animated films in 3D form. It recently released the 3D "Beauty and the Beast," and has announced the rerelease of another one this Autumn [can't remember which.] I respect Disney, though, because Walt Disney wanted 1940's "Pinocchio" to be 3D. Indeed, the first few minutes were filmed with 3D capability. It was too costly to do the whole film that. Then "Fantasia" came along. Disney hoped to make it stereophonic, long before stereo became the norm.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=who+is+captain+pugwash

and from that...

Great 3D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XIIO-fyUEw

My question seems to have been answered.