The Ebert Presents At The Movies slams 3D.

http://www.ebertpresents.com/episodes/2011-07
Episode 125, July 8, 2011
It just keeps playing over and over this week. It on one of the few channels I get over the air.  The whole show slams 3D.

I couldn't disagree more with most of their arguments.

Sure some movies use 3D as a gimmick, but with today's digital technology and Moore's law with performance doubling every 18 months.  The price of adding 3D is very small and dropping fast.

Seeing 3D games on the Nintendo 3DS really is mind blowing, the kids love it. It's glasses free and you have to hold it just right to get the full effect, but they adapted quickly and love it.
Now a few more years of this and these kids will not be happy watching 2D content.

3D games and 3D TV are comming to the home, and 3D computer displays are available.  True it's pricy, but I have been following 3D now for 30 years.
From the super expensive Silicon Graphics with Silicon Image 3D display solution.
It's different this time.  There is more they can do, with low cost HD 3D graphics rendering video cards from N-Vidia and there shutter glasses.
3D camera and camcorders, there is finally an ecosystem, and enough devices to reach a critical mass.

So as all these technologies hit, it will eventually make it so watching a 2D movie will be like watching a black and white, or silent movie. Ok maybe not that bad.
But there was a time when color was a novelty and not considered neccessary.
Even Talkies where viewed that way when they first came out.

I remember reading how they had photograph records and the projectionist had to try to keep the projector running at the same speed as the record.  A/V sync, back then was not even a concept.

So now it's 3D, 3D camera and imaging can add a whole new dimention to image analysis because we can extract a 3D depth map, and do the beginning of virtual view point video (free view point video), that will in 20 year be the Big hot technology.

But AR is happening fast, and 3D just plays in to that.

There is also a big push for 2D to 3D conversion also, but this is also in it's infancy and may never work better then colorization of black and white films.  It's hard to add data that doesn't exist. At best artists can try to infer what it should have been and I doubt if that will ever look anywhere's as good a properly shot 3D content.