BBC abandons 3D TV, cites 'disappointing' results The BBC will suspend its 3D TV transmissions indefinitely, citing poor demand among viewers – its last hurrah will be a Dr. Who anniversary special in November. "I have never seen a very big appetite for 3D television in the UK," said Kim Shillinglaw, the BBC's head of 3D. "After that we will see what happens when the …
"what the BBC has done for 3D is pretty inconsequential, and won't be missed."
I'd say what "3D" has done for 3D is pretty inconsequential, and won't be missed.
I've said all along that it's crap, and that it'll either be abandoned because people come to realise it's crap, or stats will show a huge take-up of "3D" TVs, media players and media being sold simply because of an increasing range of TVs that include it, so people buy a "3D" TV (etc) without having any interest in that aspect of it.
(For example, while I do not have a "3D" TV, I do have a number of "3D" DVDs and Blu-Rays - which include 2D versions of the movies - simply because I wanted those movies and couldn't see a 2D-only version.)
So if you don't have a 3D TV, how do you know it is crap?
There is a lot of crap 3D stuff out there, just as there is a lot of crap tv and film.
However, there is also some excellent 3D stuff, including features, documentaries and music video.
Plus at the end of the day, no-one is forcing anyone to have a 3D TV or watch TV content. It beats me why people who think 3D is crap (which they are perfectly entitled to think) seem to take a joy in pointing out anything that indicates that the market is less than that predicted by overenthusiastic marking types. It's this constant "see, we told you it was crap, and it is" that I find tiresome.
If someone wants to produce 3D content, let them. If someone wants to watch 3D content. let them.
"So if you don't have a 3D TV, how do you know it is crap?"
I know I'm the sort of person who posts to El Reg, which may run counter to the next bit... but I do actually leave the house occasionally. Just because I don't have a "3D" TV, that doesn't mean the same is true of friends or other members of my family - nor, of course, the local cinema.
"Plus at the end of the day, no-one is forcing anyone to have a 3D TV or watch TV content."
Where did I say anyone was trying to do so? I merely pointed out that one of the things I could see happening was skewed stats being used to declared "3D" a roaring success, based on sales of "3D" equipment and media, even if the purchasers aren't buying it for the "3D" - or may even have purchased it because they couldn't see a 2D alternative.
An example of the latter being given: I've purchased "3D" movies on Blu-Ray because I couldn't see a 2D-only version.
Another example can be found further down the page, where DeathSquid confesses to have "bought a 3D set because it was substantially cheaper than the 2D equivalent from the same manufacturer"
And to some extent, that counters your suggestion that no-one is forcing anyone. The choice was there... it would have just cost more money: The "3D" option was "substantially cheaper" than the 2D option.
I think the sporting 3D broadcasts have been an interesting experiment, but only that
Very early on, Sky pushed 3D sporting broadcasts very hard, going to the lengths of having interactive maps displaying where the nearest pub showing the game in 3D was. Now they don't seem to be making any noise about it, if they even are broadcasting any sport in 3D.
It's my experience only but I went to watch a game of Rugby in 3D, it was a big game and the pub was packed, so the atmosphere was good. Unfortunately, not only were there the usual problems with the glasses and viewing position. But the effect of the Stereoscopic medium was that the lines on the pitch didn't look straight, balls being thrown straight looked as if they were curving in the air, with something like rugby this was really off putting and spoilt, rather than enhanced, the game. I haven't had any interest with 3D sport coverage since.
I can understand the BBC putting effort into a new broadcast technology, I do believe it is part of what they are supposed to do but I'm also glad they are being proactive to pull out. Hollywood please follow suit.
"Very early on, Sky pushed 3D sporting broadcasts very hard, going to the lengths of having interactive maps displaying where the nearest pub showing the game in 3D was. Now they don't seem to be making any noise about it, if they even are broadcasting any sport in 3D."
They did that in order to advertise 3D. The idea obviously being thus:
1. People won't buy a 3D TV unless somebody broadcasts in 3D.
2. Therefore we need to broadcast in 3D in order that people will buy 3D TVs.
3. We need an audience to justify 3D broadcasting.
4. Get TV manufacturers to sponsor 3D TVs in pubs.
5. Once people have seen 3D down the pub (hopefully when drunk) they will love it and rush out and buy a 3D TV.
6. Then we have an audience to justify further 3D broadcasting.
Except of course 3D viewing in a busy pub doesn't really work for a number of reasons. So it was a dumb idea.
... i was working for a large TV company with some of the guys who had been given the task of "Sky is pushing 3D and we need to sell them content"
When talking with one of the really smart guys one day, i voiced my scepticism .. "do people actually want 3D, did anyone ask them?" ...
"Yes of course they do, why wouldn't they.... asked them, no I doubt it... but they'll love it"....
Haha.
Well, people are always so blinded by the desperation of trying to push some new crap on consumers, they think they actually have a compelling product.
Here's a big hint to the BBC: economies are in the shitter, people already have HDTVs they bought a while back, no-one honestly wanted to wear 3D glasses (or sit in the right position) in their own home.
People aren't even hugely wowed by 3D in cinemas these days, and that's always going to be a grander proposition, with a much a larger screen. If that fails to impress, people are most likely not going to spend money in the home for it.
I said it would never be acceptable. Even without glasses, stereoscopic video can never really work properly. Even when it does work (and for nearly 20% of people it's poor to non-existent) it's exhausting as real distance (which you will focus on) doesn't match the stereoscopic clues that rely on near perfect binocular vision.
Only a Stereoscopic image processed locally into simulated 3D with real Z-axis for your eye to focus on will work. The Stereoscopic camera and transmission are feasible, 3D camera and transmission isn't.
Currently 3D displays of any decent contrast are like small fish tanks. A decent 3D display will be deeper than a CRT. Otherwise you'd get tired watching, A flat panel has only one focus distance,
Why did the BBC waste money on this. They of course obviously ignore their own R&D Dept as the recent 100M fiasco proves.
Seereal technologies has developed a pseudo holographic television system. It cuts down the incredibly high pixel density needed for a true holographic display via an eye tracking camera and only projecting an image onto your left and right eye. Although the resolution still needs to be about 10 times that of a standard 1080p display.
In order to control the direction of the light rays coming through the LCD cells, they've proposed putting a half oil filled half water filled cell in front of each pixel. Although no one has built a working prototype of this system. So that is the first stumbling block to this becoming a reality.
Microsoft is taking a different approach to controlling the direction of the light rays coming through the LCD cells by using an LED light source and bouncing those rays through a specially shaped wedge that would replace that standard backlight on an LCD screen. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/419342/3-d-without-the-glasses/page/2/?a=f
As someone noted in the comments above, you also need a large screen to avoid ruining any 3D effect, so until 80 inch screens become affordable, that is another stumbling block.
Looks like Holografica are trying to display true holograms (that is pump out the correct image in all directions at once) on there website they are bringing out a 91 megapixel screen (even 8k UHD screens will only be 31 megapixels).
I don't know how they are dealing with the computational requirements for generating such an image in real time.
I can't see any prices quoted on their site for the systems.
On a 120hz screen 60 frames are used to project the image to the right eye and the other 60 frames are used to project the image to the left eye.
For two views you need a 240hz screen to give each of the 4 eyes a 60hz image. 4 people requires a 480hz screen etc.
You've got to have some device that converts a regular LCD screen into a 'lightfield' screen for any form of holographic TV. The Seereal demo unit that BBC Click and Edge Magazine looked at was just a high res Visio medical monitor with a lenticular screen slapped on it. WIth a lenticular screen there is only a narrow 'viewing cone' or cones. So you could not really move your head from right to left to look around any displayed objects from different perspectives.
And how many people will shell out for that? It's a chicken and egg situation.
Smart TVs. Yet another PC with an endless boot sequence to go with my 30sec STB and its 5 sec channel change time. F**k off.
Sharper picture you say? Depends have the broadcaster pared the data rate to the bone?
Remember the days of push button tuners when you could wear out the locking pins if you switched often enough? The number of channels enabled by the technology is a benefit. Beyond that. Meh.
I only bought a 3D set because it was substantially cheaper than the 2D equivalent from the same manufacturer. Shows how desperate they must have been to seed the marketplace at the time...
That being said, I quite enjoy watching the odd 3D bluray, especially if it is some kind of cheesy SF or horror flick. In fact, the stereoscopic effect enhances the cheese, as it were.
But regular television? First you have to find the glasses, then they are not charged, and then when you are channel flipping the transition from 2D to 3D to 2D is just bloody annoying. We don't watch the tele the same way that we do movies. The fact that it took the BBC so long to work this out is simply amazing.
Mine's the one with the 3D glasses in one of the pockets.
The morons ruIning the BBC, extracting a facist amount of my hard earned so their luvvies can fuck something else up. After all, the digital fuck up wasting £400M, the £200M golden parachute game, and now a fucked up 3-D (Duh, Dumbass, DIckhead) game is on hold.
Why?
Because:
First, the UK has just finished a 6 year march to all-Digital terrestrial TV. Everyone's had to either buy a new TV/LED/LCD/whatever, or a converter box at significant cost.
3-D still hasn't stabilised on a format and consumers figured that out early on.
They did't advertise the freaking 3-D so no one knew it was available.
The little grey media dwarf Murdoch's satellite company can't handle more capacity and neutered the BBC signal.
As a significant part of the country is the Little Grey Dwarf's Sky Satellite, or Beardie's Virgin Media you could only get 3-D for free on BBC for a few shows here and there.
Samsung and all the other major TV makers have decided to stop selling TV sets that are greater than 17in unless they are 3D in an effort to kickstart the market (yet again)
On Wall St today, it was Announced that Samsung had increased its investment in Disney Corp to 25%.
Just one view of the future.
"Avatar was breaking box office records, and the industry was all a-flutter about the possibilities for 3D's future."
Avatar had a good plot, good action scenes, and great scifi 'world' .. the 3D was only a bonus!
Its amazing how 'blind' some ad-men/ businessmen get when they do not see the whole thing, just look at the money it is making, and the 'special feature' that can be used elsewhere...
> Avatar had a good plot, good action scenes, and great scifi 'world' .. the 3D was only a bonus!
We can debate on the "good plot" part, but I really did enjoy the film.
The one standout thing with Avatar was the quality of the implementation of the 3D, and the maturity with which it was used. The filmed parts were filmed "properly" in 3D, not post-processed, and where used in the CGI parts it was done relatively subtly*. *Apart from the flying mountains, but they were cool =)
For most "other" content the 3D seems to be done on the cheap and it shows. But they still want to charge you an extra £1.50 (cinema), £5 (a "3D" blueray), £100s (TV + glasses) for the privilege of getting a headache. The only other good 3D film I have seen is Prometheus, and well, shame about the plot, action, and sci-fi world in that case =)
The TV industry saw dropping sales (everyone had upgraded to HD, freeview, digital) and we hit a recession. They saw a possible golden goose and all started running towards it so they could put another "tick box" on the boxoffice / tv schedule / TV item ticket in the shop, and then gouge all of the customers for a significant increase in content price. For many films on DVD / BlueRay the DVD was £4 and the re-release 3D BlueRay was £17. Were they surprised no-one buys them?
"everyone had upgraded to HD, freeview, digital"
And like the record companies with CD said Lets do that again!
Audio DVD and 3D TV? What? No one gives a crap.
Didn't buy Rumours on Audio DVD (I did have a DVD player that could play them), didn't pay the $5 extra for 3D bluray player, no chance I'm buying a new TV for 3D.
The maturity of handling was key to Avatar. Most of the 3D effects were understated with the action taking place inside the screen and only jungle insects fluttering over the audience. There should be a rule for making 3D films: make them just as you would for 2D. The added dimension is an enhancement, not a feature.
As for plot, meh; there are only a limited number of plots, and that one was pick-and-mixed enough to be satisfying. If you thought it wasn't then maybe you haven't read enough SF to see that everything is derivative of something. So Avatar is a remake of Princess of Mars. So What? At least it's better than John Carter.
It's also a remake of Dune... now that would have been good in 3D...
"The one standout thing with Avatar was the quality of the implementation of the 3D, and the maturity with which it was used. The filmed parts were filmed "properly" in 3D, not post-processed, and where used in the CGI parts it was done relatively subtly*. *Apart from the flying mountains, but they were cool =)
For most "other" content the 3D seems to be done on the cheap and it shows."
Agreed. Personally, I still found the 3D more a bonus than something I'd spend big bucks on. But it was properly done, and looked good. I saw one other movie where it was just obvious they artificially made random parts of the scene jut out of the screen rather than film in 3D, it looked fake as hell, and if even a significant fraction of 3D content is like this (it is....) then that makes it even less likely for people to want to buy a 3D set.
"Dances with Smurfs" is the thirteenth episode of the thirteenth season of the American animated television series South Park, and the 194th overall episode of the series. It originally aired on Comedy Central in the United States on November 11, 2009. In the episode, Cartman becomes the reader of the elementary school announcements, and starts making politically charged accusations against student body president Wendy.
"Dances with Smurfs" served as a parody of the political commentary style of Glenn Beck, a nationally syndicated radio show host and former Fox News Channel pundit. The episode also satirized the 2009 James Cameron film, Avatar, suggesting the plot of that film borrows heavily from the 1990 film Dances with Wolves, and comparing Avatar's blue aliens to the cartoon Smurfs. He appears on his show and spins a portrayal of himself in blue face-paint and suspenders, having somehow found Smurfland, becoming part of Smurf culture and eventually falling in love with Smurfette. Cartman then claims that Wendy bulldozed Smurfland and slaughtered the Smurfs to get their valuable Smurfberries, the complete story of which he has chronicled in his DVD, "Dances with Smurfs".
To Cartman's surprise, Wendy claims she indeed bulldozed Smurfland to get the valuable Smurfberries, but alludes that Cartman was involved with the plot, and that the Smurfs would have left Smurfland if Cartman had not integrated himself with them. Cartman is angry that she has turned the tables on him and stolen his Smurf idea, particularly when she announces she sold the movie rights to director James Cameron, who turned the book into his new film, Avatar.
Yesterday was the first time that I watched a lived broadcast in 3D and now you are telling me that it's being cancelled, typical. It looked quite good after I changed my settings to Sports Mode. The jitter wasn't too bad and my passive glasses are okay around the house. My TV is a smart TV and the 3D feature didn't cost extra so why not?
It seems like the BBC have a knack for being wrong about technology. They invest loads when it has not matured and then pull out just as people start to get interested, a bit like iPlayer. I hope they reverse their decision.
The only 3D that matters is fully immersive stereoscopic..
We were doing it commercially from 1990 in Virtual Studios in Barnes in London.. We waited for the technology to mature, saw the retinal imaging prototypes etc. But where is it?
This will be a real game changer when it finally appears. I remember that some of the big corporations were worried about potential lawsuits resulting from what we called "reality clash", the effect of disorientation when you come out of the virtual space. To me that just proves it works.
I spent thousands of hours in low res immersive spaces and I'm ok.. :-)
Roll on the revolution!
By 'fully immersible stereoscopic' are you refering to the isolation headset style viewers which block off external sounds, external light sources, and aim not only to give you an image in front of the eye (as most headsets currently do) but also an image around the eye to imitate peripheral vision, rather than just tunnel vision?
If so, I approve of this idea.
The problem that killed virtual reality helmets was the 'elf 'n' safety nannies who 1) complained about the possibility of users blundering into things, then when that didn't get them banned, complained about the helmets being a vector for germs and lice and whatnot from multiple people wearing them. That pretty much put paid to the whole VR helmet idea, and without funding from public use to further R&D, the entire concept stalled.
I still fondly remember the "pterodactyl-on-a-chessboard" VR battle powered by two Amiga 3000s that was in the local sci-and-tech fair back in the early 90s. I still wonder how far that could have gone and where it would be today but for the do-gooders who killed the entire concept in its infancy for fear of "catching something".
Ha, ha. The BBC thinks people still go to the cinema!
Trouble is the cinema has always been 3D - full of all those dreadful 3D people who talk through movies, text and eat loudly, endless ads, etc. The beauty of streaming movies to your HD set at home is there ain't none of those 3D distractions (and it costs a lot less). There are very few movies I'm so keen to see that I can't wait until they come out on DVD/Blu-ray/iTunes. I can wait Hollywood, I can wait...
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