- ORLANDO, FL—Like it or loathe it, 3D video was hard to avoid at Info- Comm 09. Even before the show had begun, the prospects for 3D were among the topics under discussion at the curtain-raising Projection Summit, which included a comparison of approaches to stereoscopic imaging.
“It’s a common standard that’s missing,” commented Dermot Quinn, product development director for Digital Projection International (DPI). “If we had that, it would not matter what method of left-eye/righteye separation we used.”
Quinn went on to add that any standard “would have to be backwards compatible with Blu-ray, because of the investment that consumers have made in the technology.” This sentiment underlined the key role that 3D in the home is likely to play—indeed, is already playing—in driving the adoption of the technology by commercial cinemas, and by the movie industry generally.
This prompted a member of the Summit audience to ask if ‘3D TV’ in a domestic environment would be a threat to movie theaters, many of whom are investing in 3D projection as a key differentiator against ever more sophisticated home-cinema technologies. Quinn said that it would not, arguing that, “People go to the movie theater because it’s a shared experience, rather than the lonely experience of watching a movie in the home. I see 3D as high-end home theater, for movies and for gaming. But I struggle with the idea of ordinary families putting on glasses to watch regular 3D TV content.”
