There is a lot of 3D entertaiment related news swirling around the past 24 hours and little of it has anything to do with the format’s king promotional vehicle, James Cameron’s Avatar.
After The Final Destination easily won the horror weekend box office brawl with Halloween 2 thanks in large part to the up-charge on 3D tickets, news broke that Marvel is seriously considering creating digital 3D versions of Iron Man and Iron Man 2 for release theatrically next year. This is yet more evidence that 3D at your local cineplex is not going anywhere anytime soon no matter how big a hit or miss Avatar turns out to be.
The uncharted territory for 3D to conquer is in the home where various groups are scrambling to secure a piece of the pie. Per the Financial Times, Sony just today announced plans to roll out 3D equipped Bravia televisions, Vaio laptops, Playstation 3 consoles and Blu-ray Disc players in time for Christmas 2010.
Meanwhile, Panasonic’s PR arm sent out an email detailing the Full HD 3D Home Theater Truck Tour that will run through March 2010 and showcase full 1080p HD 3D via a prototype Blu-ray player and Plasma television. This comes on the heels of their recent partnership with Fox and Lightstorm on Avatar.
Both Panasonic and Sony are approaching 3D in the home with “active shutter” technology. The system uses glasses with embedded technology that make the lenses “shutter” at high speeds, separating 120 frames-per-second of alternating video into 60 frames-per-second per eye. The beauty of this approach is each eye is seeing full 1080p video thus doubling the amount of video being presented in full high definition.
The downside to Sony and Panasonic pushing to get their technology into the home as soon as possible is the Blu-ray Disc Association has yet to adopt a formal 3D approach. Or have they? Just last night the BDA issued a press release stating “plans for incorporating 3D into the widely successful Blu-ray Disc format” but stopped short of saying what those plans are.
Think about that. Three big 3D in the home announcements within a 12-hour period.
The way I see it, Sony and Panasonic are most of the muscle behind Blu-ray hardware innovation and their both pursuing “active shutter” technology, coupled with the BDA’s announcement, is a clear sign that a 3D in the home plan may already be set in motion and a dreaded “format war” between rival 3D technologies in the home will be avoided. If it is, upgrading our your current television / Blu-ray player / Playstation 3 console may become a warranted expense within the next 12-18 months.
Who knows? We could be talking about Avatar: 3D on Blu-ray or KillZone 3D by this time next year.
