Only Top Quality 3D Will Do

Augusst 02, 2010
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There are welcome signs that companies involved in 3D from content creation to the living room are waking up to the fact that stereoscopic TV is almost here. Particularly encouraging is the fact that some of the best brains in the business are studying the science behind the illusion to provide definitive answers to questions that were scarcely asked or even ignored in the past.

When 3D at home arrives later this year with shows such as “Ocean World” (pictured), it will benefit from an industry-wide education and training initiative that should give it an excellent chance of success with consumers. But its arrival comes with a warning supplied by Sony Pictures Senior VP and stereoscopic 3D producer Buzz Hays: “It’s easy to make 3D, but it’s hard to make it good.”

Delegates to the Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show in 2009 were told that a viable home 3D format would be three to five years away. Since then, well-known names such as DreamWorks, Sky, Sony, LG and Panasonic have worked alongside specialists including 3ality Digital, RealD and XpanD in order to deliver the complete 3D value chain from lens to living-room.

In one of the fastest ever development cycles for a CE product, the technology has gone from drawing board concept to retail showroom product in just 18 months. Although there have been moments when it seemed that some companies were making it up as they went along, impressive results have been seen recently from all the major suppliers.

Standards for hardware and digital distribution have been set and the work is almost complete. Now, all that remains is for the content creators to provide the package of sport, entertainment and features that will convince consumers to invest several thousands of pounds in advanced 3D technology. The challenge should not be taken lightly.

Education will be needed at every point in the supply chain before 3D home entertainment becomes mainstream. For instance, the image of red/blue glasses has become so pervasive that some media responded to the re-birth of 3D by photo-shopping pictures of the transparent (and expensive) “active glasses” supplied with 3DTVs, in order to give them the expected red/blue hues of their cardboard counterparts. We still have a lot to learn.

The Greek mathematician Euclid wrote about 3D (although he didn’t call it that) in his work “Optics”, which was first published in the third century BC and survives through an Arabic translation. He noticed that one eye sees a slightly different view from the other and from that observation he constructed a mathematical theory of “visual rays” to describe how objects appear in space, relative to the eyes of the viewer.

Despite attempts to recreate the illusion of depth in works of art, little was added to the store of knowledge about binocular vision over the next two millennia. Just 18 years after the arrival of photography in 1826, however, David Brewster built the first stereoscopic camera and viewer, using the same principle of separating the images seen by the left and right eye that makes 3D TV possible today.

This concise history of 3D is extracted from a far more accessible document, “An introduction to 3D solutions”. Published in 2010 by Sony Professional, the booklet is crammed with practical information about the format and written in straightforward and understandable language.

With the enthusiastic support of CEO Howard Stringer, Sony has taken a proactive stance on education and training for 3D starting with the establishment of the “3D Technology Center”. This hands-on facility was set up on the lot at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, CA, in January this year under the guidance of Buzz Hays.

Hays is in London at the moment running three-day 3D workshops at the TV Centre in West London that have attracted more than 250 professionals from the entertainment industry. There has been no shortage of demand: Hays says, “The waiting list is down from enormous to gigantic.”

The task he faces when he speaks to participants is to explain the reality that 3D production involves much more than topping up existing filmmaking skills with a few technical details. Hays says, “We have spent 100 years converting a 3D world to 2D. The ‘rules’ that filmmakers have come to take for granted are not actually true any more in 3D. Everyone from the director to the visual effects supervisor has to rethink the creative process. If you don’t know how to tell a story, 3D is not going to help.”

He warns against any producer who offers to complete a 3D project in three weeks: “Don’t do it!”

The early trials of 3D production have drawn attention to the dangers of “bad 3D” titles, particularly the 2D-to-3D conversions that have been bundled with some demonstration systems. Sony DADC 3D Product Manager Marcel Penning says “Consumers want to know about 3D TV and they will look closely at promotional titles. Poor content will set back public acceptance of the format. In Europe we have no plans to author Blu-ray discs that don’t meet the high public expectations.”

The reaction of the consumer panel at the Futuresource Entertainment Summit earlier this year illustrates the danger of demonstrating sub-standard material.

Commenting on a football show reel shot in 2008, soccer fan Rene said she had reservations about the 3D coverage. “We were assured that it was something that would be refined in time, and that advances are being made on a constant basis. I don’t know from what I saw whether I would be comfortable watching a whole game at that standard,” she told delegates. Since then, Sony has gained invaluable experience at the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa and the knowledge acquired should reassure potential customers like Rene. But it is important to get the message across that 3D can only get better.

There has been a very substantial investment in 3D so far and much more money will be required to roll out the hardware and software later this year. At its best, stereoscopic 3DTV provides an illusion of depth that is nearly as good as being there. At worst, it can look like a series of cardboard cut outs performing in an unfamiliar landscape and bringing a new dimension to the term “eye-strain”.

If the launch of 3D is not to be dogged by misinformation and poor reviews, the education and training offered by Buzz Hays and his team – as well as his equivalent in all the other participating companies – will have to reach everyone involved in the supply chain. When millions have been invested in overcoming the technical hurdles that the 3D industry has confronted in the past 18 months, it would be a pity for the format to fall at the point of sale. Consumers need to see how good 3DTV can be before they will buy.

QED, as Euclid might have said.