@gerrrg It plays DVDs you know, and there are plenty of Blu Ray bargains around to start building up a collection.

@Q3Km518 Well they could sell cheap glasses for starts... The components to make a pair of active shutter glasses probably doesn't amount to more than $20. A couple of LCD lenses, a polarizing filter, some simple circuitry hooked up to an IR receiver and a small battery. Certainly cheap enough to pack 1 pair into the box.

I wonder if there will be a standard for shutter glasses or if people are expected to buy pairs for every tv they might own. I sure hope so, because it would be stupid if every TV and every device like NVidia's nvision thing uses a different protocol or refresh rate.

Anyway, $150 for a pair of glasses, so $600 for a family is simply an outrage. Some day I expect TVs to pack at least one pair into the box and for them to cost $20-30 bought separately. When that day comes we might see 3D actually getting close to being mainstream.

At the moment its strictly for early adopters who want to buy half-implemented and expensive 3D kit to play a measly selection of content.

@Popeye9000 Paid off to not print a one off for a dead format? That's somewhat paranoid speculation.

More likely their HD DVD replication facilities can't get AACS keys, or the right media, or HD DVD licensing has been wound up, or their machines have been repurposed for DVD or CBHD production, or the machines were on lease and have been returned or the guy wouldn't pay the money they're asking or raft of other mundane technical / financial / licensing / legal reasons.

Do you think the BDA really gives a rat's ass? The format has been dead for 2 years and some limited run of a straight to video movie that nobody has ever heard of is not going to change anything.

Doesn't HD DVD support a 3xDVD format. Why doesn't he just stick it out in that? 9Gb is probably more than adequate for a movie of this calibre and would still allow him to justify calling it a HD DVD.

@Tes bragging rights. Basic HD boxes will probably be £75 before the year is out. A couple years after HD rolls out the SD only boxes will disappear entirely.

@Pocker09 Enabling the PS3 to support 3D output is an immediate way to get 3D into the home. I bet Sony will see 3D specs + dongle to get people up and running with 100/120Mz sets but their ultimate goal is to sell 3D TVs. It is also another distinguishing factor between the PS3 and 360 which can't hurt either.

@catdogburger 3D is backwards compatible. Basically the format encodes a 2D image that older players can play but uses the same image + some deltas in another stream to form left & right eye views for 3D.

The main way that owners of older kit may suffer is if the additional bandwidth needed for 3D means less is available for video or audio. Not many discs max out the 50Gb so it may or may not be an issue, especially since most 3D movies are CG which is more compressable anyway.

@ipxnsv 3D is pretty ambiguous and I am not convinced that the PS3 can provide the best presentation. For example HDMI 1.3 puts bandwidth limitations on the screen output and the PS3 has processor limitations that it is already hitting. It may well be that it can only do 3D in 720p, or has to use side by side 3D mode which affects the horizontal resolution.

Still, it's a nice freebie to have, assuming it is free and Sony doesn't bundle it with their rumoured 3D glasses kit they intend releasing so that existing 2D TVs can view 3D content.

I hope these pubs are using the cheap polarized glasses like in the cinemas because I can see on any given night 30% of them going missing or getting broken. Anyway 3D is just another excuse to slap a huge premium on Sky customers.

Just watch when cable providers try to slap an extra $10 for this crap. Same bandwidth, lower resolution but $10 more because its 3D.