My first experience was to revisit Wonderland… er, “Underland”, to partake in a bit of the recent Alice in Wonderland adaptation. I have to admit that it looked fantastic, the television emulated cinematic 3D beautifully, giving me the sensation that I was in the room with a living pop-up book rather than a flat screened television.
Up next came some recapped footage from The World Cup, purposefully remade in post to support 3D. It did look great, but watching sports in 3D, for me personally, wasn’t really an experience I was looking for; I know there are many who are stoked at that possibility, but for me it didn’t seem necessary. I flipped through a few channels and found a baseball game happening in real time with 3D that wasn’t at all as impressive as the edited footage of The World Cup, it did still have some faint 3D aspect, but it felt like when you see a movie not made for 3D but pushed out as 3D anyways. Real time sports, again in my opinion, don’t need to be 3D, and if they are to be made in 3D, don’t tease your audience with carefully edited post-production and get their hopes up that live action events will have that same caliber.
Standard television was really no different from watching your regular HD television, some program will pump out cheap, last minute 3D-friendliness, but really this doesn’t need to be the case, just keep 2D as 2D and it will make the 3D experiences more satisfying rather than knocking it down to mere gimmickry.
3D World by Sony does require that you wear the glasses, and here’s where big problems start. When I watch a movie in theatres in 3D, after about two hours I’m taking the glasses off to rub my eyes and massage the bridge of my nose. Now, my demo with 3D World went nowhere near that long, but I’m sure that would still come in to play; no, my problem was with the glasses themselves.??
These are not the cheap, flimsy glasses you get in those plastic wrappers at the cinema, these suckers are built for every day use and abuse. They are durable no doubt, problem is that they are, as a tradeoff, weighty. Take a controller of a home gaming console like an XBox 360, hold that in your hand: imagine that weight on your nose for an extended period of time. These things are bricks, again they’re built tough and durable, but holy crap they’re weighty. Within two minutes I was feeling the strain on the back of my ears and the bridge of my nose. Now, I’m one of those posers who wears sunglasses rain or shine, indoors and out, so I’m more than used to things on my face; plus my schnoz is pretty huge, it’s more comparable to a beak than a human nose and I was feeling the strain, so anyone with a proportionally more human sized nose will definitely experience discomfort. I also was really starting to feel an ache in my neck from the pull and strain being put on the back of my ears.??
Another issue is that the fellow demoing it told me that each television comes with a pair of the glasses, A pair. So I asked, if I had friends and family who wanted to watch with me, I would obviously need to buy more pairs of glasses; how much would they run me? $50-$100 depending on make and model.??
Are you freaking kidding me???
The last time I had to spend $100 for immediate and long-running discomfort was on a really bad date, and I plan on leaving it that way.??
So, if I have family and friends over to watch a movie or the big game with me, I could be forking out anywhere from $250-$700 for enough glasses for everyone, make and model depending?
So after paying $6,000 for the television and then almost another grand to accommodate everyone with glasses so they can also watch, in discomfort may I add? $7,000 for a less than amazing viewing experience just doesn’t seem worth it to me. Plus if you have a friend or family member who has a history of seizures, which these glasses do trigger for some, what are you supposed to do? Tell them “sorry you can’t watch tv or play video games with us anymore”???
3D World is a very cool concept, but like anything in the early stages, it needs some fine-tuning. Sony has nailed beautiful 3D immersion as far as products made to be viewed in 3D, but there is still so little made for 3D that it’s, at this time, nothing more than cashing in early on a trendy marketing gimmick.??
My advice to Sony: Hold off a few years. Nintendo is working on glasses-free 3D and have been so far ahead of schedule on their plans of releasing it. Yes Nintendo is Sony’s competition, but Sony should just hold off and purchase rights and licenses from Nintendo to use the technology once it’s more enjoyable for their audience, this way they’re giving their market what they want, while financially contributing to the furthering of this technology so that everyone’s product can be better. Sony has some of the most ravenously loyal fanboys in entertainment today, they will remain loyal to the brand even if Sony is willing to work with this big competitor.
3D World is a good first start, on paper, but aesthetically it still has a lot of ground to cover. It’s a first attempt at something new here in North America, and it’s not a bad one, but right now there are too many shortcomings to justify a $6,000 and up price tag.
I suggest holding out and waiting a few more years when glasses-free 3D is out, by then it will likely have lowered in price a bit, plus it won’t have the physical discomforts or heavy plastic bricks on your nose, and loved ones who may be prone to seizures can also enjoy the experience.
Unless you happen to have $6,000 laying around and nothing to do with it… actually no, if you have $6,000 laying around then send me an Email, we need to talk.
written by Lee Clifford Depending who you ask, 3D can be either the most intriguing, or most annoying, gimmick in cinema.
When 3D was still shiny and new and you had to wear those cardboard glasses with one red lens and one blue lens, it was fascinating, but not really worth the headache.?? Then came the invention of 3D with dark lensed glasses instead of coloured lenses, and it became awesome! Seeing a movie every couple years in 3D was a rare treat and worth the extra bucks you would shell out for the experience.
In the last year, however, it’s gone from a novel treat to, in the opinion of some, an overrated gimmick that movies companies have been cheaply cashing in on. Movies made to be in 3D, such as Alice in Wonderland or Avatar, were still magical to behold because the effort had been taken to make this an experience that fully immersed the viewers in a 3D experience.??
Movies like Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender, that weren’t made for 3D but just cheaply overhauled to support it at the last minute, not so much.
So, here we are now at the cusp of 3D becoming more commonplace, so what’s the next step? Putting it in homes, naturally.??
I had a foot on both sides of the line as I prepared to experience 3D World by Sony for the first time. I am one of those parties who still feels like its a magical experience when 3D is done well, but I have also been stung by many half-assed attempts at 3D in recent films and have been left with a cynical tinge in some regards.
So I put on the glasses and prepared for whatever Sony was ready to throw at me.
written by Lee Clifford Depending who you ask, 3D can be either the most intriguing, or most annoying, gimmick in cinema.
When 3D was still shiny and new and you had to wear those cardboard glasses with one red lens and one blue lens, it was fascinating, but not really worth the headache.?? Then came the invention of 3D with dark lensed glasses instead of coloured lenses, and it became awesome! Seeing a movie every couple years in 3D was a rare treat and worth the extra bucks you would shell out for the experience.
In the last year, however, it’s gone from a novel treat to, in the opinion of some, an overrated gimmick that movies companies have been cheaply cashing in on. Movies made to be in 3D, such as Alice in Wonderland or Avatar, were still magical to behold because the effort had been taken to make this an experience that fully immersed the viewers in a 3D experience.??
Movies like Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender, that weren’t made for 3D but just cheaply overhauled to support it at the last minute, not so much.
So, here we are now at the cusp of 3D becoming more commonplace, so what’s the next step? Putting it in homes, naturally.??
I had a foot on both sides of the line as I prepared to experience 3D World by Sony for the first time. I am one of those parties who still feels like its a magical experience when 3D is done well, but I have also been stung by many half-assed attempts at 3D in recent films and have been left with a cynical tinge in some regards.
So I put on the glasses and prepared for whatever Sony was ready to throw at me.
written by Lee Clifford Depending who you ask, 3D can be either the most intriguing, or most annoying, gimmick in cinema.
When 3D was still shiny and new and you had to wear those cardboard glasses with one red lens and one blue lens, it was fascinating, but not really worth the headache. Then came the invention of 3D with dark lensed glasses instead of coloured lenses, and it became awesome! Seeing a movie every couple years in 3D was a rare treat and worth the extra bucks you would shell out for the experience.
In the last year, however, it’s gone from a novel treat to, in the opinion of some, an overrated gimmick that movies companies have been cheaply cashing in on. Movies made to be in 3D, such as Alice in Wonderland or Avatar, were still magical to behold because the effort had been taken to make this an experience that fully immersed the viewers in a 3D experience.
Movies like Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender, that weren’t made for 3D but just cheaply overhauled to support it at the last minute, not so much.
So, here we are now at the cusp of 3D becoming more commonplace, so what’s the next step? Putting it in homes, naturally.
I had a foot on both sides of the line as I prepared to experience 3D World by Sony for the first time. I am one of those parties who still feels like its a magical experience when 3D is done well, but I have also been stung by many half-assed attempts at 3D in recent films and have been left with a cynical tinge in some regards.
So I put on the glasses and prepared for whatever Sony was ready to throw at me.
written by Lee Clifford Depending who you ask, 3D can be either the most intriguing, or most annoying, gimmick in cinema.
When 3D was still shiny and new and you had to wear those cardboard glasses with one red lens and one blue lens, it was fascinating, but not really worth the headache.?? Then came the invention of 3D with dark lensed glasses instead of coloured lenses, and it became awesome! Seeing a movie every couple years in 3D was a rare treat and worth the extra bucks you would shell out for the experience.
In the last year, however, it’s gone from a novel treat to, in the opinion of some, an overrated gimmick that movies companies have been cheaply cashing in on. Movies made to be in 3D, such as Alice in Wonderland or Avatar, were still magical to behold because the effort had been taken to make this an experience that fully immersed the viewers in a 3D experience.??
Movies like Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender, that weren’t made for 3D but just cheaply overhauled to support it at the last minute, not so much.
So, here we are now at the cusp of 3D becoming more commonplace, so what’s the next step? Putting it in homes, naturally.??
I had a foot on both sides of the line as I prepared to experience 3D World by Sony for the first time. I am one of those parties who still feels like its a magical experience when 3D is done well, but I have also been stung by many half-assed attempts at 3D in recent films and have been left with a cynical tinge in some regards.
So I put on the glasses and prepared for whatever Sony was ready to throw at me.
Depending who you ask, 3D can be either the most intriguing, or most annoying, gimmick in cinema.