3D television: a new device, a new language

NEW YORK —

Let’s say you’ve started lusting for a 3D television.

Never mind that when you get to the store to sample 3D TV, you discover that World Cup soccer in 3D may not grab you like a scene from the 3D animated film “Monsters vs. Aliens.” The soccer match seems disappointingly flat in its wide shots. “Monsters vs. Aliens” immerses you in its animated antics.

You’ve just learned a basic lesson of 3D: It isn’t all the same.

But when it’s good, it’s very good. It sucks you in. It’s in your face, you’re in its face. Or so it seems. No wonder you’re picturing one of these sleek, wide-screen beauties in your own living room.

That’s what visitors to the Sony 3D Experience at CBS’ consumer research center in Las Vegas are saying, according to preliminary polling results. Two-thirds of the visitors to this exhibition at the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino say their next TV will be 3D-capable, reported David Poltrack, president of CBS Vision.

Maybe much of the public is pre-sold by now.

“3D is a form of content that people not only like, but are willing to pay a significant premium at the box office for,” Poltrack said.

“We’ve very fortunate that ‘Avatar’ was done so well and was such a big hit,” said Dan Schinasi, senior marketing manager for HDTV product planning in Samsung’s Visual Display Product Group.

“That 3D theater experience captivated millions of people and made them realize, ‘There’s a new dimension that I’ve been missing,’” Schinasi said. “The result is, they’re saying, ‘I want to experience that at home.’”

In these early months of 3D-mania, jolted by the December release of “Avatar,” a growing number of manufacturers (including Samsung, Panasonic and Sony) are wooing you with mirror-thin 3D models whose screens stretch 40 inches and beyond, and whose price tags start at about $1700.

Granted, you can’t yet frolic with the Na’vi in your home in 3D; only a 2D edition of “Avatar” is currently for sale. But ESPN is airing 3D sports events (including World Cup soccer). DirecTV has just flipped the switch on a trio of 3D channels. And Discovery says its 3-D channel, in partnership with Sony and IMAX, will debut early next year.

Headed to the marketplace by year-end will be dozens of 3D movies, games and other home videos viewable with 3D-ready Blu-ray and PlayStation players.

Meanwhile, some 3D TVs boast an additional feature that converts any 2D show to 3D, at least in a limited version that offers a measure of interior depth, although nothing will leap out at you into the foreground.

For now, “true 3D” on-air content will mostly be sports, nature programming, concerts and other special events.

Where it goes after that will depend on several as-yet-unanswerable questions.

For starters, will 3D prove to be more than a passing fancy?

Already, 3D is encountering skeptics and outright detractors. Prominent in the latter camp is veteran film reviewer Roger Ebert, who in a recent column listed numerous reasons why he “hates” 3D, blasting it as “a waste of a perfectly good dimension.”

He and other 3D detractors insist its illusion of depth — the result of paired images of the same scene, one directed to each eye — only undermines the 3D effect that conventional TV and cinema have always conveyed.

And then there’s that issue of the glasses, which, until further notice, are a necessary part of the deal. So-called “active shutter” eye wear is costly (about $150 per unit) and incompatible from one brand of 3D TV to another.

It’s also isolating: Isn’t there something ironic about a dandy new 3D set that reunites the family for group viewing, yet separates Mom, Dad and the kids from one another by their need to wear those specs?

“My first reaction to 3D was, ‘Who’s going to wear those glasses?’” said veteran producer and network boss Garth Ancier. “I multitask when I watch TV. I sometimes use TV like radio, almost.

“But 3D is such an engaging experience that when you put on the glasses and see something well shot in 3D, it’s quite different from anything you’ve ever seen before on TV. It’s like looking into another world, as opposed to a flat world.”

Of course, this new world doesn’t just create itself. It calls for innovative filmmaking techniques to make viewing effective and comfortable to the eye.

“It’s easy to make 3D, but hard to make good 3D,” said Chris Cookson, president of technologies for Sony Pictures Entertainment. “You can’t just lash two cameras together, run out and shoot things.”

With that in mind, earlier this year Sony opened its 3D Technology Center, aimed at giving cinematographers and directors instruction in adapting their well-honed 2D skills to 3D’s possibilities.

Tip: Rapid cuts, a staple of 2D cinematography, can be dizzying to watch in 3D — not to mention superfluous.

“So much of what we do in 2D with multiple angles and cutaways is helping the brain build a model of what’s actually going on in space,” Cookson explained. “But you can find ways to create that same understanding by using the depth of 3D, and you might choose not to make all those cuts.”

Cookson said 3D might find applications in filmmaking that don’t necessarily tap action or visual splendor.

“People laugh and say, ‘I certainly want to see “Spider-Man” in 3D, but I don’t want to see “My Dinner With Andre” in 3D,’” Cookson said. “But I’m not so sure. I think a kind of intimate dialogue between two people in 3D might seem like it was really happening there on the screen. I think that might be interesting.”

Ancier agrees. The arrival of high-def TV a few years ago opened up the world to panoramic vistas of eye-popping sharpness. But now 3D invites involvement, even intimacy with the viewer, he proposed. Little, not big, might work best in 3D.

“The things that play better in 3D aren’t faraway and spectacular and grand, but closer and smaller,” said Ancier, noting, “That’s what you notice in your own world as being three-dimensional. When something is close up, you really do see the depth of it. So 3D television may end up being a close-up medium as opposed to a big, spectacular medium.”

In any case, it’s handing filmmakers new opportunities and rules after a century of 2D moviemaking.

“It’s a new language, a process of framing and editing in a different way,” said Dean Devlin, who heads Electric Entertainment, a studio and production company, and who serves as executive producer of the TNT drama series “Leverage.”

“It’s going to change the way in which we tell our stories,” Devlin said. “What we learned from ‘Avatar’ is, you can use 3D so it’s not just a gimmick. With 3D, you really feel you’re in the room with these people and your response level changes in a way that it couldn’t before.”

A fascinating work-in-progress, no doubt. But how often, and for how long, will viewers want to hunker down for 3D in their homes?

No one knows how much immersion 3D’s couch potatoes will embrace. Nor can anyone anticipate the audience’s tolerance for those newfangled glasses, but without hard answers, Sony’s Cookson is philosophical.

“I find that in my everyday life,” he says, “if I don’t have my glasses on, the real world doesn’t look very 3D either.”

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