Been past a couple of times, without much of a chance to hang around and watch at length, but my sketchy conclusions:

Works vividly for anything artificially generated, as you’d expect. For live action the effect seems much more subtle, to an extent where it’s almost pointless. You spend more energy figuring out whether you can see the effect than you do actually appreciating it (or the content). Extremely narrow viewing angle too, so I’m not sure how it’d work for anything other than solo viewing (maybe multiple viewers would all have to sit on each others’ knees?)

The notion of television in people’s homes has many ‘use cases’. Often it’s on in the background. Certain formats may suit 3D well and some less so. So long we have glasses based 3D it may reach a large audience but an audience of relatively few hours per week consuming the content in 3D mode. This factor affects the nature 3DTV may be introduced as I suspect it will be reached by a call to action to go from 2DTV to the 3D mode. The 3DTV option of auto-stereo may take some years to get the technology to an acceptable quality point but it looks possible. We need a roadmap from where we are today to that method more suited to home consumption yet one that at least can start.

Many shots can be creatively improved in 3D to convey the subject. Take a classic shot of horses racing. Front on you can you figure out who is in the lead by the size of the horse (closest should be one that appears largest) yet in 3D it would be far more apparent.

3DTV with the glasses is complicated by many issues – such as when in 3D mode all the viewers would have to wear glasses to view content without it looking blurred. At Christmas time I think this will be a challenge for many of us in the UK!

kybernetikos said “there are significant differences in making good 3d cinema, and if we want people to accept 3d cinema and tv, we’re going to have to get over the whizz bang popping out of the screen thing.” – I think the panel in the room would have agreed with you (in fact, a couple of them made the same point).

skink74 asked whether there was anything to refute Ronald Bergan’s the claim in the Guardian that 3D is a shortlived gimmick doomed to failure. Well, I haven’t seen Coraline or Monsters vs Aliens yet, but Andrew Oliver from Blitz mentioned both as examples of innovative 3D films which had both introduced new techniques. Going beyond finding reasons to point-things-at-your-eyes (which all the 3D short films I have seen, such as Shrek and the Terminator thing at Universal Studios when I was in LA) have all been about, is clearly where the fun is to be had. Andrew mentioned a technique of encouraging the eye to focus on a certain part of the scene, such as the hero, by making it particularly comfortable (or the rest of the scene particularly uncomfortable I suppose) to settle on. This idea really stayed with me afterwards, and I’m looking forward to watching Coraline, and Avatar of course, to see what works and what’s new.

Colin Smith (who was on the panel! Hello, Colin) points out that “In order for 3DTV to work it needs to be introduced as optional” and I was going to say that the panel would have agreed with him too, but the fact he was on the panel making that very point means I’ll just say that he *did* make that point on the night, and I forgot to write it down. As you say, “so long we have glasses based 3DTV we will have to have it in 2D mode”. This makes a lot of sense, and completely resonates with kyb’s addition that “We watch TV in many different modes. It’s often social, or semi social … Someone coming into the room without eyewear and not being able to work out what’s going on on the screen would defeat a whole bunch of that.”

Thanks, to all of you, for your other additions and insights too.

Someone coming into the room without eyewear and not being able to work out what’s going on on the screen would defeat a whole bunch of that.

Films have got a big advantage, because when people watch films, they are intentionally setting aside a significant piece of time to watch the film as their main activity, so it doesn’t matter if there is a small initial barrier to enjoyment. Some (but by no means all) games on a PC are the same.

So TV in general (in so far as that has a future at all), will always have broadcasts that do not require extra viewer worn equipment to appreciate. Perhaps a channel might occasionally broadcast a 3d film, but until there is technology to provide multiple different people in different places in the room with a 3d view without extra viewer worn equipment (which no current technology can do with remotely reasonable cost), then by far the majority of TV broadcast will remain 2d.

Computer games and Films have a much better chance of achieving 3d in the near term.

As to Blitz being the first full colour per eye game, I played a full colour per eye game on a 3d parallax barrier screen in ‘96. As skink says above, we’ve had a number of 3d displays for home computers that thanks to the magic of 3d accelerator cards can turn games intended for flat display into true 3d games, and yet even at the 250-300 quid price point they didn’t take off. And this is despite good reviews. Maybe if they get down below the 100 (additional if the tech is built into the screen) quid price point…

To be honest, I think the ‘colorization’ trap is a much less serious one than the ‘ooh, let’s use this new shiny technology regardless of its effect on the story’ trap.

I was on the panel and wanted to make a comment (alas not enough time) that in order for something to develop it needs alignment between the business model and technology. If you get the wrong formula you don’t have traction. If you get it right then things can snowball. Freeview is a good example of a great business model and we would not have digital switchover without it.

In order for 3DTV to work it needs to be introduced as optional. If you don’t want it or don’t like it then no problem as a 2D version will be there. That way you avoid the argument of “do people really want this” as nobody would force you to have it. Just like we had with the introduction of colour broadcasting. I recall we had the similar argument of “do people really want this” when Nokia introduced the concept of a camera in a mobile phone!

History is full of great lessons. Take for example, Andreas Pavel inventor of the personal cassette player. He went to consumer electronics manufactures with his great idea only to be told that the companies felt the public would never wear headphones in public for listening to music. How wrong they where.

Certainly you can show new things with stereoscopic 3D that you could not in 2D. Shots with clutter can appear clearer. Methods of drawing your focus are widened beyond the use of focus and lighting. This does not preclude the notion that we all will want 3D. Many of us cannot view this new generation of 3D for many reasons. RNIB have recently made a statement they want 3DTV to be standardised so the needs of the few are not dominated by underlying commercial motivations of pay television platforms. Simply put between 5 and 10% of us will have various issues in viewing stereoscopic 3DTV. Weather that’s at all or for sustained viewing.

BSkyB has done a great job in showing the production potential yet they have a commercial dilemma that it has to work with their existing HD infrastructure (yes that includes all the boxes they have in the field they have subsidised). Traditionally every time we have had a great evolution in broadcasting it has required a new signal of some type. Often this has been delivered with technical grace. Colour broadcasting was backwards compatible with B&W for example and we had a gradual introduction. Technology options are possible in the very short term (i.e. months not years) to permit something similar with 3DTV. This way 3DTV will be a minor, yet for the viewer optional, extension to 2DTV.

Many of us in the industry want an auto-stereo option to provide the viewers with the ideal method of viewing 3DTV yet we know that this is not possible today. Accordingly we want a considered evolution from glasses based 3DTV to the type that we think would be the ideal method.

Any commercial broadcaster has to consider its business model with any new proposition to the consumer. Content matters considerably. The recent viewing figures for a 2D SD program from ITV recently gives a hint that 2DSD television is dead. Of course it would look better in HD and you could argue the winning act would have looked stunning in 3D. Yet this has to be commercially viable.

At the BAFTA event last night we had two types of 3DTV. One that could take in a format known as side-by-side or line-by-line and the other in a format known as checkerboard. The latter has some 2+ million displays in people’s homes around the world. Many product launches of 3D capable projectors are being introduced that would only support either checkerboard or full resolution per eye time sequential modes. The only way you can deliver a signal to both those types of displays/projectors is to abstract the signal from the display. This seems to indicate we will need a new generation of 3D ready receivers and this is the crux of the issue. BSkyB has some 1 million HD set top boxes and naturally would wish them to be in your homes for a period of time. A notion of a new 3D set top box may generate early churn. Accordingly it is natural for Sky to wish for a standard to let them deliver to consumers using what they have.

This will not be decided by Sky, ITV or Blitz. It will be decided by the shared view between SMPTE, Hollywood, Blu Ray Association and all the consumer electronics companies. They will go to market for physical media before broadcasting standards are made by DVB or ITU. Commercial logic will then apply how to deliver any 3DTV content to those consumers. If we have many defacto methods of driving a display then we will have fragmented displays and generate consumer confusion. Abstracting the signal from the display may be the only way to unite this discord between physical media, games platforms and broadcasting.

Blitz demonstrated the first full colour per eye (i.e. non colour filtered based) stereoscopic platform game. They are able to abstract the games stereoscopic visual rendering from what the display requires as its input. Accordingly it is able to generate checkerboard as well as the modes required by the JVC display. It is also able to drive all the various 3D consumer projectors that have recently been announced. This seems considered and reaches the widest consumer audience of 3D displays/projectors.

Many in the industry know that both active and passive 3DTV methods will be delivered to the market. Panasonic has put the gauntlet down with its full resolution per eye message and the 2D+Delta (also know as MPEG MVC) is able to deliver this at approximately 35% greater than an existing 2D HDTV signal. Critically it then provides backwards compatibility to legacy HDTV receivers and provides standards based HDTV 2D version of all 3D content. This way 3DTV would be optional to the viewer and all display types can be reached. It also means Freeview are not out the frame as 35% extra is considerably easier to achieve than 100% extra. We are talking months not years for this and you will see demonstrations by the end of this year for that format. HDMI 1.4 could not have come along at a more appropriate time.

ITV have no plans to broadcast 3DTV yet we have an interest in insuring the interests of a commercial free to air broadcaster are representing in trade and standards bodies so we have a viable option to consider in the future. We also have a desire to reach all social groups and don’t believe long term that we will have separate live productions events from the 2DHD and 3DHD production. So long we have glasses based 3DTV we will have to have it in 2D mode. Often I am on my laptop with the TV on in the background. I that mode I would never want to wear glasses to view the content. So pause, think, the issues of 3DTV fall far beyond to you wanting it or not. Separate your personal view from what you think might be the view of your child or a friend that has raved about a 3D film they have seen. If people want to view 3DTV with glasses then fine. It affects all of us in the coming years and just like Pavel’s Stereobelt or Nokia’s camera phone – we don’t truly know if the public will embrace it.