Quote:
Originally Posted by Hale-Bopp
Yeah, when you get a chance, I'd be interested to know what it was your wife didn't like about the goggles. I kinda wonder if they're just cheesy prototypes or models of the versions being shipped this summer with their sets. The glasses on display on their website look really slick, but it's hard to say how comfortable they are without actually trying them of course.
I tend to have issues with filmed content in theaters, so I'd guess the experience at home won't be much different. There seems to be a lag as to when my brain catches up with my eyes in order to see the depth. Doesn't seem to happen with 3-D CG however for some reason.
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Over the weekend, I went to see Blu 3-D in action at the Woodland Hills, CA Sony Style store They have a 52" LCD display, and only set of shutter glasses, so I got maybe five minutes of viewing time, my wife about three. There was no audio going, but that didn't matter.
They were looping a lot of short examples of 3-D content. All were superb in definition; clarity was as expected for Blu, and I saw no dimming once I put on the glasses.
I began by watching a soccer game. I don't know if this was shot in 3-D; it said that it was, at the end of the loop, but it was absolutely terrible to watch. The field was huge - this was obviously a very large stadium. The players, both in near field view, and in long shots, appeared to be cardboard cutouts sliding past the background - as the background was in focus!
The illusion was that I could see details of the fans in the stands, and in the foreground, the players - wearing brilliant yellow jerseys, the color was perfect - were galloping around, kicking the ball, cheering each other, etc. But it was like two different images. The players appeared to be in two dimensions, not three, for some reason, and while there was a perception of depth to the stage, it didn't look realistic at all. It looked like a diorama. No way I could watch sports like that - the eye could not focus that way in real life, and it's far too demanding to keep track of motion.
Motion wasn't blurred - it was amazing to see - but it was absolutely lifeless and strange.
Then came some abstract exploding diagram, playing the 3-D trick of things coming at you and receding. Clearly pure CGI, it had terrific resolution, and the depth effect was clear and convincing. Nothing was going on, just this kaleidescope demo, but it was colorful and looked nice. Obviously, CGI and animated content would look good, but I then noted with interest that there was no background, just a neutral color for this kaleidescope to play against.
Next came some kind of pageant or awards program, perhaps a concert, I couldn't figure it out. There was a man and a woman on some kind of stage, and they were on a dais; the camera panned around them and the 3-D effect was pronounced and clear. By this time, I was wary; I looked at the background, which was bland to the point of seeing nothing. The backdrop was a neutral blue, nothing to see, so these two looked like a photo of a wedding cake with figurines on top, photographed against a blank wall, essentially, and this is where I figured out the problem with 3-D in live settings.
The human eye is a focusing lens, with the brain doing the seeing. When things move, we take the slightly dissimilar images from each eye, and perceive depth. This process is learned, over time, and the eye rapidly changes focus - seeing nearby objects, then those further away, at very high speed. No matter how fast that process is, it still takes time, so we may look away from a closer object to one further away, with a bit of delay while we bring the distant object into focus. In this way, we perceive distance, and relative size.
In a 2-D film, it's clear right away to the brain that we will not perceive distance, and that all images are fixed. There is no need to "range" with the eye - we are looking at a flat screen, that's how far away things are. In truly panoramic views on screen (think of IMAX's "Grand Canyon" for example), this process may disconcert us for a moment as we swoop from a closeup view of the edge of a cliff, and then over the side to a distant bottom - but there is no need to truly refocus, as we're looking at a 2-D screen. We're slaved to it.
In a 3-D film, the perception of depth is there, because we have dissimilar views to each eye. The problem is, we don't control it. With a dissimilar view, the brain instinctively begins "ranging" - investigating various items within the view and attempting to bring them into focus. But the brain can't focus on material on the screen - there's no way to electively bring anything into focus. That's controlled by the source material.
I saw two methods of doing this, in this demo. One way was to bring everything into focus, both in the foreground and the background, such as with the soccer game. The result is completely unrealistic - the brain sees everything in focus, unlike in real life, and objects that are closer lose the parallax view that allows us to determine real distance. It doesn't work.
This is not the fault of the process. It's a problem with the content. I have no idea how this will be solved, or even if it
can be solved.
It's pretty obvious that 3-D will be something that is better suited to animated or CGI-laden content, but these are intentionally artificial views. While Avatar or Monsters vs Aliens might be fine, I don't know how something like "300" would turn out - perhaps, very well. But it wouldn't look realistic. I think the more real the "world" in a film, the more the brain will try to treat it like the real world, and attempt to range different objects into focus. The brain will fail, and fatigue will be the result.
I'm not condemning the format. But I think that filming any live action in 3-D, especially outdoor scenes with huge ranges of distance, will give focus pullers on sets absolute fits. It may truly require four lenses, not two, one for background, and one for foreground, and this will not look right, no matter what is done to film this. I think this is why all of the announced titles we're hearing about are animated films, or CGI fests like the upcoming "Clash of the Titans" remake (beset with long delays, as they're refilming this in 3-D and, without a doubt, are going through hell getting it right).
My wife, who routinely upgrades my careful gear selections, was completely turned off. She didn't like the glasses - they are heavy (she wears contacts, and sometimes uses glasses with bulky frames, so her complaint carries weight - no pun intended.) The demo glasses has something on the side - maybe an anti-theft thing, maybe a battery, I don't know - but it didn't look heavy. It was the frames themselves that are bulky. I found them heavy, but not uncomfortable, but she truly loathed them. According to her, there was no way she wanted to sit through a movie, let alone a double feature, wearing those for two hours or more.
Her next objection was to the focusing problem. She found the soccer game to be a complete waste of time, saying that it was like being in a fish tank and looking out at the game. The kaleidescope she felt was a gimmick - stuff coming at her from the screen was a big so-what.
But this was the killer for her. When it came to the scene with the two people on stage, she didn't like it all for another reason - to get a sense of scale, she needed to see it on a bigger screen. She felt it was impossible to get a sense of size, once she saw it in 3-D, on "that itty bitty screen".
Now, this is a woman who agreed that I could buy a 60" Sony XBR projection set, until the guy said, "of course, we don't have a 70", and she said, "why not? That's what I would rather get,", then dragged me all over town until we found one in stock.
I wanted a Kuro, so we went to see our buddy at Magnolia, and saw the 50", and immediately said, "I like the way it's black, but does it come in a bigger size", and that's what we went home with. She also blew off Polk speakers for Sonus Faber and DefTech Mythos - she's a stickler, and no, I'm not giving her up, forget about it.
But she had a point. She watched this demo from about nine feet away, and said, that screen is just to small to get any idea of scale. For her, it was like watching a toy train set, and this was a 52" television (the same size and viewing distance of our broadcast viewing set at home - news and stuff) but it just didn't make it.
So we left, and went to Magnolia across the street, talked to the guys there. The Kuros are gone - they have one demo on the wall, another one with a huge scratch on the screen they're blowing out, and nothing but Pannys and Samsungs on display. They all looked terrible - the usual problem of crappy source material in a retail store. So I struck up a conversation with one of the guys, they know us well.
Panasonic had just brought in their 103" for a 3-D demo a couple of weeks back. I wish I had known, but I missed it. Off the record, the guy thought, as we did, that the source material wasn't all that, with one exception: they had a demo of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, and he was absolutely blown away. He compared to being in a skybox in Beijing, it was that realistic.
So I asked him the million dollar question: was it all panorama, or was there any closeup stuff? And his answer: both, and it was still a knockout, but the foreground stuff was the dancers - not much background. Then distant shots of the entire stadium. Both of those were just off the charts, they were so good.
But when you saw both together - back to diorama model, it had that Viewmaster thing going.
So we shrugged, and looked at a demo of the new Epson projector on a silverized Stewart screen, and it was nuts, really looked nice.
Bottom line: My feeling is that this iteration of 3-D will be a very slow adoption, not because of hardware pricing, but because of a dearth of content. Once people see it, I don't think they'll go ape over it, because it just doesn't work for live, filmed content that well.
If it's cartoons like Avatar, or CGI vehicles, maybe. And then, they won't have impact unless they are either on very large screens - think projector - or unless you have your nose pressed up against the glass of a smaller screen.
So it's games, cartoons, and CGI. It won't be situation comedies, action Westerns, or war films, unless all the scenes are of guys fighting in tunnels or guard shacks, or something.
To overcome the anticipated production problems, film makers are going to have to overcome very daunting technical questions, at considerable cost. I think it's doable - nothing is impossible - but if the beneficiaries are HDTV set makers, I can't see the studios going to hideous expense that won't support their own bottom line.
Personally, I'm going to wait. Not because of cost; because I'm going to wait until my wife decides on this. We'll need a huge viewing platform, and definitely a library of quality content, which may be several years away. No need to spend money to see the Jim Carrey "Christmas Carol" turkey in 3-D, or sit through another painful session of Monsters vs. Aliens, just to do a gee whiz.
If you haven't seen a demo, do so when you can. It may be several months, and many things may change.
A good spot to check for news and insight is
http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/author.p...d+Fisher&id=20
Richard Fisher is a pretty savvy fellow, check out some of his comments for stuff he saw at CES and observations on backwards compatibility, technical issues, questions about the Mitsubishi and Samsung "3D Ready" issues, and more. He seems to know when he doesn't have answers, and it's good to see somebody who is really doing his homework.
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