An Interesting Thought-and Desire

[Karma16]

HI All,
Right now I have about 1000 DVD's and something like 20 3d Blue Rays.

I'm a movie collector and most of my DVD's are classics from 1930 through current. There are are many great movies in this collection. I'm enjoying my new BD 3d's so this leads to my question:

Do you think that the older great movies will ever be converted to 3d? Movies such as Bridge Over the River Kwai certainly deserve conversion. And there are many others, too many to list.

Right now I'm viewing them in simulated 3d on my Panasonic TC-P55VT50 which actually can be pretty effective but not as good as a quality 3d conversion. It makes my mouth water to imagine them with a good 3d conversion.

Do you think they will ever be converted?

Sparky

[Jsmith82]

No. (imo)

2 reasons why: Time and effort, and profitability.

I think we will see more back catalog titles as conversion techniques become faster and require less manpower, but even the best auto-conversion algorithms have tons of errors, and even a mediocre-accurate conversion will require time and energy from a team of artists to correct and make the GP feel like they weren't being "had" by Hollywood once again.

Irobot - took 3 people 3 months to convert. Now looking at the logistics behind that, it's pretty amazing they did what they did. However read the buzz on that flick around here, I didn't mind it, but boy a lot of people felt they were had on that conversion, that it was flat, a rip off, etc. Studios will not look at a classic movie as "boy, I'd like to have that in my collection, let's do it" - they are going to look at revenue. I always say that I think Reservoir Dogs would be awesome in 3D, for more reasons than one. But would that be very successful? Probably not, dialog based, mostly takes place in a single location, cult classic, no crazy CGI effects, etc.

I think as technology develops, like JVC's technique used for Irobot, and a good solid method for a quick conversion that produces good results spreads across the studios, we will see a lot more come out, as we're seeing right now from Lionsgate. If 3 people could convert a movie in 3 months, and it was overall dubbed a success - a team of 90 people could convert 30 movies in 3 months looking at the big picture, so I'd like to think and do hold out for a slough of 3d movies in our future but I think it's naive to think we'll get them all.

But even then, $$ will outweigh anything - after all it's a business.

[Operation Swordfish]

I think its hard to say right now. It will really come down to 3DTV sales in the upcoming years. And if 3D becomes a standard feature on TV's, it will come down to how many people are using the 3D feature on their TV's. It will also, I believe, come down to the age demographic that is watching 3D.

I have always believed that 3D will really take off when glasses-free 3D TV sets are perfected. Wearing glasses seems to be the number 1 problem that people have with 3D. If these are perfected and the sales take off then there will be a demand for new 3D content. If you have the demand across all age demographics then I can definitely see a lot of old classics getting converted. But if 3D stays a feature that only a small percentage of people use occasionally, then you won't see that many more conversions because there will be no profit in it.

[fitprod]

Originally Posted by Operation Swordfish

...if 3D stays a feature that only a small percentage of people use occasionally, then you won't see that many more conversions because there will be no profit in it.

If recent developments are any sign, the "postponing" of Little Mermaid, Independence Day and the Star Wars conversions, I would say we're already there.

If Disney is still going through the process of finishing The Little Mermaid conversion for it's pending BD release, it's probably a test to see if they justify going through the process for home video releases.

As with Avatar, The Lion King and Titanic's successes were an aberration. The Lion King is one of the move beloved animated films ever released, and people still want to see it. Titanic is also beloved (why I don't know), but most of it's re-release success came from one territory, China. ($145 of $285 million...)

fitprod

[BigNickUK]

Originally Posted by Karma16

Do you think that the older great movies will ever be converted to 3d? Movies such as Bridge Over the River Kwai certainly deserve conversion. And there are many others, too many to list.

Do not touch Mr Lean!!! Blasphemy!! this has all started because they converted the Lawrence scene for Prometheus

[Paul H]

Originally Posted by BigNickUK

Do not touch Mr Lean!!! Blasphemy!! this has all started because they converted the Lawrence scene for Prometheus

Have to acknowledge that they did a great job converting that scene to 3D.