I’ve been getting ready to begin producing new video podcasts for The Digital Edge again, and that has made me start paying a bit more attention to what is currently going in the video production space. While not immediately applicable to what I plan on shooting, one of the most interesting new areas in video now is the production of 3D ready content.
3D has become a key draw for many new movies and big budget productions, most notably James Cameron’s recent movie Avatar. The basic premise of 3D filming is to record two distinct image streams simultaneously from lenses that are spaced apart by the same distance as a normal person’s two eyes. This spacing is known as the inter-ocular distance. When played back on the correct viewing equipment, these two streams combine to produce images that appear to be three dimensional. The best 3D playback systems being produced today are based on a display that is synced up with a special pair of glasses. These glasses alternately block the image for one eye or the other, with each eye only seeing one of the image streams recorded on the 3D camera. Our native “persistence of vision” (the time the retina holds on to an image after it is gone) lets the system impress a unique image on both eyes while our mind ends up processing it as a single complex image. The “stereo imaging” this creates provides a person with a perception of depth equivalent to what they would see in real life.
But 3D is more than just a technology for movie theaters. 3D televisions with alternating shutter glasses have just started to become available in consumer channels, with top CE firms like Sony actively supporting it. Content providers are also moving into this space with major producers like ESPN and Discovery committing to creating channels carrying nothing but 3D programming. While adoption may start off slowly, 3D has made a good start in establishing itself as a viable delivery model for high value productions both big and small. I expect it to start moving mainstream over the next three years.
The place where I do expect 3D delivery to really take off very quickly is in video games. The detailed environments developed for most video games today can easily be repackaged for 3D delivery, allowing game producers to come to market with a substantial back catalog of 3D material without a significant ramp up delay. A strong selection of 3D games would likely accelerate adoption, and make the purchase of any new equipment required for 3D playback an easier decision to make. Gamers also tend to be experience junkies and would naturally be drawn to something that offered the kind of truly immersive experience that 3D can.
I’d like to get the chance to see more 3D programming first hand – especially 3D sports – before committing the money needed to buy a system like this for myself. But from what I see of it so far, I do expect that 3D television will become a part of my home technology arsenal at some point in the foreseeable future.
It just won’t be coming to my Digital Edge productions quite yet…
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