Blu-ray Disc Association (still) working on a 3D standard, promises 1080p & backwards compatible discs
By Richard Lawler 
posted September 2nd 2009 10:52AM
posted September 2nd 2009 10:52AM
posted September 2nd 2009 10:52AM
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All this goes back to 2007 or 2008 when james cameron and panasonic said they will bring 3d blu ray. The point is, he can not and will not release Avatar on blu ray with red and blue garbage 3D. He will wait untill 3D Blu ray is available and release it the way it is meant to be seen. This will be the highlight of 2010. Mark my words. Movie hits theaters on Dec 18 and he will release it in July or August of 2010. By then the new format Blu ray 3D will be available. I saw the 17 min preview and it is an insult to watch it any other way. Life changing. Go see it.
There are so many problems with bringing 3D to homes on Blu-ray. So many manufacturers have already released "3D Capable" televisions, but they've used different tech! You can bet they're all pounding their fists, saying that what ever comes out on Blu-ray has to be compatible with their "jump-the-gun" tech that they've already put out into the market!
Then there are all the people like me, who just recently bought a nice, big HDTV and have zero intent to buy a new television just for 3D.
And I'm sorry, but if Avatar is supposed to be the "killer app"? Ugly, blue, cartoon people acting out Dances With Wolves...in space? No thanks.
If you have not seen the 17 minute preview and only going from the trailer, then you can not judge the movie. I thought the same thing when I saw the trailer but I had no idea that after I saw the preview at the IMAX3D, it would change the way I watch movies forever. Give it a chance.
I agree - with two brand new 1080p LCDs and corresponding BluRays in my home, I have little interest in upgrading yet again. Not for a while yet. I think 3D on the level of the new theatrical experience is fascinating but come on, HDTV and BluRay are still new technology to MANY people. Upping the ante again is a bad mistake.
I really don't care about gimmicks like 3D.
Just give us the high quality transfers we were originally promised.
For instance, Gladiator is not my idea of best Blu-ray quality.
Sony has already made their decision on 3D tech (shutter-based), so I think it's a safe bet on what the BDA will officially adopt.
The BDA has many large technology companies within it. Its far from what Sony-says, goes. I'd argue that especially recently with the changes in Sony's strength as a company that applies more so than ever. I mean, its not like Sony is posting many *ahem* any profits recently.... .... ... like for two years straight now?
Other companies that have and are paying their membership fees from the BDA association will want their say and want their early-adopter technology to magically work from the get-go.
The Abyss and T2 were a couple of my first DVD's. James is king in my house. If Avatar requires a new bluray player and tv, then I'll make it happen.
And personally I consider 3d at home for full 3d movies to be the same as OAR.
Take Coraline for example. I saw it three times in the theatre, because I knew it would be a while before I could see it in proper 3d again, and this was the greatest 3d I had seen so far, it really drew me into the movie. And the 3d anaglyph version is just unwatchable. But I really feel like the 3d was like it's "proper" format, it's OAR if you will. In the future, there will be many others that are just made for 3d, like Avatar
What they need to do is something akin to YouTube's approach--give the manufacturers and consumers the power of choice. Just encode the two video streams (left and right) on the disc as-is, and let the player and/or the display do the crunching when it comes to the method of bringing the 3D to the viewer. If you've got a regular TV set, the player will generate an anaglyph image; if you've got a Sony with shutter glasses, it'll generate the appropriate signal; if you've got a polarized projection system, the player will do that, too. This means the companies won't have to standardize their tech and get into another format war, the consumer will choose the tech that's best for them (and upgrade if they want), and they'll all work with the same 3D-Blu disc.
I can't see upgrading my blu-ray player just for the sake up upgrading but the fact is blu-ray really hasn't caught on outside the videophiles and gaming community. The upgrade from DVD to Bluray is not "must have" - upscaled DVD is pretty damn good and can be hard for someone to justifiy when they have an upscaling DVD player.
If they pull off Bluray 3D and it is mind blowing then there is a chance for those without Bluray to buy because it also supports 3D.
This wont be overnight - it will most likely require a new TV as well...is it min 120Mhz to support bluray 3D or is this more stringent yet?
Yeah, it's not like Blu-ray/HDTV is 6x the resolution of DVD or anything.
Upscaled DVD, sheesh.
-Pie
I agree that Bluray is better than DVD but for most people they really don't care and feel DVD is "good enough" adding in 3D may push them to go Bluray
I'm glad the 2D requirment is there. All this 3D stuff is great, but there's a bunch of us with various vision related issues, whether through birth, or injury, who cant use 3D systems as we dont see with binocular vision.
What's it like to see in real 3D btw? ;)
@ca1vin_hobb3s, I agree with the 2D compatibility requirement. I think it is important both for people such as yourself, and for early-adopters (or even normal people, these days, with HDTV's that won't be able to display 3D HDTV or with Blu-Ray players that can't adapt). Luckily, I have a PS3 that gets upgraded all the time via firmware, although most Blu-Ray players (if not all) in my experience can receive firmware upgrades, so... most modern Blu-Ray players should be fine, IMHO. The biggest problem is the TV, which shouldn't be a problem for DLP owners, since it is inherently built-in in their TV display technology. If those TV's don't work, then 3D (or the 3D forum, at least) has a problem.
I think the comment above made by @mikejonas is especially cogent; if the 3D Blu-Rays contain both the right and left video signals for the 3D format, and combine the two on-the-fly for non 3D capable displays, the industry would still have a universal format for ALL future movies to utilize. The only problem is that of whether, or not, older BD players would actually be able to combine the signals- who knows? It's possible that it could be a firmware issue, or (less appealing) a new hardware standards issue (i.e. Blu-Ray 2.0 standards). Also possible with the disc itself is perhaps adding another layer, which current players are/might be incapable of reading, and adding the 3D information to that, while the 2D information is on the first two layers. This would/could be like the same thing as joint stereo on MP3 files, where one track contains the entire song, and the other contains only the stereo deviancy, in order to minimize file size and still (theoretically, at least) provide full stereo. Only problem I see with that is that a 3D movie seems like the whole left/right tracks would be entirely different during the course of the whole movie. If that's true, then maybe the third layer could contain only the deviance for both the right and left tracks needed to generate 3D (i.e., shift of: -20° at pixel LY/left and +20° at pixel LY/right; information for all pixels would be included, of course). But, I'll be the first to admit that I know very little about 3D video formats, so I may be drawing conclusions from faulty assumptions.
As far as the gimmicky-ness of 3D, I think that 3D video is something that humans have dreamt of for a really long time, basically since the birth of the television on a farm in Idaho. Now, I had never really cared about, or wanted, 3DTV ever, which is to say, that, I thought it might be cool, but it never really appealed to me in a personal way, until, one day, when I took my kids to go see a movie, which happened to be in 3D. The movie was Monsters vs. Aliens, which was a bit childish, but nevertheless a completely entertaining movie. The 3D effects in that movie did not distract from the movie in any way, but however, it added immensely to the enjoyment that my kids and I had during the movie. Still, the movie was quite enjoyable otherwise, as attested to by my wife who couldn't wear the 3D glasses during the movie, due to her eyeglasses. During that experience, I realized that 3D has a great deal of potential, and can add a lot to a movie, but it can't be used as a distraction from a lack of a real plot or storyline that people can enjoy. I would relate it to the way critics used to view CGI or special effects as being cheesy, or automatically leading to crappy movies. Today CGI is used in great movies, but it also is used in crappy movies. That is niether a fault, nor a condemnation of CGI, but rather, the movie which is employing the technique competently, or incompetently. So, I believe, to the fullest, that 3D can be used to improve the movie being viewed (i.e., possibly Avatar, Monsters vs. Aliens, possibly Cloudy with a Chace of Meatballs) or to hinder it, by its being used as a substitute for actual substance, plot, story, and/or acting.
Floyd
You probably don't even need to combine the two for 2D. Just show the left eye version for 2D users and augment the 3D version with a right eye version. Also the difference between left and right images would be slight so it is likely that it would be done using deltas and probably wouldn't demand more than 20% extra space to do.
3D in general will be a gimmick for quite some time. I don't believe for a second that Avatar (an outrageously expensive, potentially studio killing movie) represents the turning point. Maybe it will look great in 3D, maybe it will be as gratuitous and optional as it is in most other movies that tout it. For the format to succeed it needs to become available through as many formats as possible - broadcast, internet, movies. Even then 3D is likely to bump along the bottom of public perception until Sony, Samsung, Toshiba or whoever turns up with a TV which doesn't cost a fortune and doesn't require people to wear glasses, sit dead center a certain distance from the screen or any other contrivance.
Are those authentic Horace Grant glasses that he actually wore in a NBA game?
http://hoopedia.nba.com/index.php?title=Image:Horace_grant.jpg