DIRECTV - First Television Provider to Launch 3D in the Home Will Soon Deliver Three Dedicated 3D Channels

[Shane]

DIRECTV, the world's most popular television service, and Panasonic, a world leader in HDTV and digital electronics, announced today a strategic relationship that, for the first time, will bring 3D TV, the next frontier of television entertainment, to the largest audience nationwide. Beginning in June 2010, millions of DIRECTV HD customers will receive a free software upgrade enabling them to have access to three dedicated 3D channels through their 3D television sets, such as Panasonic's VIERA Full HD 3D TVs.

Panasonic will be...

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[akirby]

I'd rather have free Tivo software.........

I just don't have any interest in 3d at home right now and I certainly wouldn't spend anything extra for it. But I can see how the techno-geeks will eat this up.

[Shane]

I'm one of those "techno-geeks", or at least I like to think so. But I will not be investing in 3D either.


- Shane

[stevekaden]

akirby - you haven't seen Avatar?

I have seen it in 3 3D technologies, Dolby 3D, IMAX 3D, and Real 3D. I have to say after the first 2, Real 3D was a disappointment, and I certainly hope that the new technologies will outperform it.

Real 3D, or the combo of how it was projected and filtered by the glasses all of: dim the image, color shifted it (making it dull), and the frame rate or ? made the action choppy and harder to watch.

If certain of the new projection technologies do the above, I think the industry will find it struggling. Sort of like the psychoacoutic effects of harmonic distortion, I think people will just naturally, even if unknowingly shy away from using it.

If not, count me in as soon as my wife lets me off the leash again! (having just bought 2 new 60" sets).

[Richard]

I have seen it in 3 3D technologies, Dolby 3D, IMAX 3D, and Real 3D.

I'm not up on my 3D...

Thanks for bringing this up which led to some research

http://3dvision-blog.com/what-to-choose ... 3d-movies/

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocom ... ld-2d.html

They think Real 3D is the better choice (provided it is delivered correctly).

[stevekaden]

In my reading of the first article, Dolby 3D was considered distinctly better. In the second article RealD 3D got the nod. I am suspect I saw RealD 3D on a normal screen - not the silver screen required. It was just too off to match the review that it was given. Being obsessed, I may try and see a different showing of it.

They mentioned the IMAX being more forward of the screen and in close ups, it was a bit overwhelming. But it was a bit more engaging and spacious, I do aggree the image is not as sharp.

I saw the Dolby 3D at the Arclight Hollywood, regular screen. Their quality is always top notch, and they are considered to be among the best in the world. And it was great - visually and of course audibly.

Mentioned in one of the articles was XpandD. I read up on the XpanD system, and I am going to try and see that this weekend. It is a shutter glass system that is also designed for home use. I would be curious to see how good it can look. The Arclight Dome where it is being used, is typically the best of the best. Though the Dome's audio has been critized for being too deep to keep the sound perfectly synced.

I have to mention that the articles beat on the comfort of the 3D glasses. I have not had a problem, I wear normal size glasses, have an average size head. I noticed that in the IMAX 3D they appeared to have at least 3 sizes of glasses for small, medium and large heads. I could imagine that a theater could put an idiot at the rack and they just start at one end, going to the other giving the glasses out at random. Then a large person could get the kid's size and have a real problem.

[akirby]

I like 3d, but I don't like it so much more than Blu-Ray that I would invest in a new TV set and worry about wearing glasses to watch a movie. If I had a really large screen then I might consider the trouble for a special movie like Avatar, but in general it just wouldn't be worth the effort and expense to me.

[stevekaden]

I have now seen 5 variants of Avatar 3D. On Saturday I saw the XpanD in the Arclight Dome, and I have to say, I was horribly disappointed. Except for a narrow zone where closeups came forward of the screen - the ENTIRE movie was out of alignment, and thus appeared to be out of focus. I almost walked out - but wanted to also see the motion flow - which was good. I tried to talk to staff there, but even the manager I talked to had not even seen their own regular-screen Dolby 3D - which I consider to be the reference - and had no clue what they should expect to see.

I was told to ask for the projection manager so if I can get through, I will let you know the results. I am suspect it is the Emperor's new clothes - that is they talk a big game with the Dome, but cannot compensate for the overly curved screen. I would think that a proper compensation would have the image appear flat on the screen but both the preview titles and textual-graphic imagery in Avatar were bent (and double imaged).

The XpandD glasses - thus color, motion flow and brightness seemed very good. If that is a sign of what we might see in the home, I am very impressed. They are substantial, nicely made, and look good enough to buy for home use.

The other variant I saw, was what I would call long throw IMAX. That is, a somewhat conventional theater with a larger screen. Short throw IMAX being a 'real' IMAX theater with the very steep stadium seating (~4x3 size?)

When I saw the Short throw variant, the frames were bigger, better vistas, color was good. But it was slightly over bright and slightly less crisp. Not quite out of focus, but not quite dead-on either. Glasses nice, comfortable and came in 3 sizes (at least).

When I saw the Long throw variant, the frames were tall and wide (closer to 16x9), but imagery truncated a bit left or right. It appeared to be a bit of a pan and scan. BUT, every other aspect was spectacularly dead on. Color bright and saturated, absolutely perfect alignment and focus, seemingly perfect brightness. In this case the glasses were very flimsy, and very basic, slightly uncomfortable, but in the end, worked beautifully and were easy to forget about.

In all cases, minor dirt and scratches seemed to be un-noticeable - a nice feature given they are handled fairly badly by at least the customers.

[ANonemoose]

DirecTv can't get their HD DVRs working correctly, now they're gonna try 3D? That should be interesting. You'd think they would concentrate on training their employees, getting what equipment they have at present into near perfect working condition, then expand to a new technology.

[Roger Halstead]

Maybe when the networks including satellite start broadcasting it AND IF it's compatible with both standard and HD without having to add hardware.