3D ready

When you say 3D, it’s hard not to think of those red-and-cyan glasses from the 1980s. The experience was so laughably bad that the memory has sustained for a generation. But today’s 3D – if done right – rocks. I’m talking about full colour, pin-sharp images. An experience so immersive that you feel the action really is happening in front of you.

And the man sitting in front of me could be the one to prove it. He’s the director of what could be the most expensive movie ever produced. He’s already made a few films, including Titanic, Aliens and the first two Terminator movies. But when James Cameron releases Avatar on 18 December, an entire technology may live or die by its reception. It’s as if the world will judge 3D’s third coming on this one film. All eyes are on Cameron. He seems to be holding up pretty well.

Every major Hollywood studio is releasing at least one 3D movie over the next 12 months, so we can see for ourselves. And then why not buy a 3D TV – they’re in the shops now. And while you’re waiting for the 3D channels and the 3D movies to come to Blu-ray, you can play one of the new 3D videogames. 3D is coming at you fast. Duck!

What’s 3D like?

When 3D is done properly, it can blow your socks off. Things appear in front of the screen. Things appear to be behind it. If the director gets it right, you really will believe the action is taking place in three dimensions.

Which particular type of shot you’ll prefer may depend on your tastes. For me, the best 3D experience is when everything appears to be behind the screen – those wide, scene-setting, audience-perspective shots that make you feel as if you’re watching the action through a glass window at the end of the cinema.

These are the shots that converted me from sneering skeptic to true believer. Out in Burbank, California, 3D specialists 3ality Digital had invited me to their private screening room to watch a show reel. My conversion took about two minutes. I saw footage of an American Football match and felt like I was really in the crowd. Then, watching U2 in concert, it was like the band were there, performing in front of me.

The problem comes when the 3D effect is abused – because sooner or later, something is going to fly out of the screen and into your face. No director can resist it. And that’s where the experience starts to break down.

If something appears too close, I just see double. As Adam Clayton poked his headstock into my face, my eyes crossed uncomfortably. As Bono reached out to stroke my hair with his enormous hand, part of his arm was cut off by the edge of the screen, shattering the illusion – this is called ‘edge violation’ (even though The Edge was strumming away in the background, ho ho).

It’s also important not to make people’s eyes jump around too much. When watching 3D, your peepers behave differently to the way they do in everyday life – the unnatural movements can lead to eyestrain if the director overcooks the 3D. It’s even more of an issue when playing a 3D videogame, where you’re constantly looking around the screen at different things at different ‘distances’.

The good news is that the studios are now being quite conservative with 3D, and that’s leading to some really enjoyable movies that are noticeably more immersive than their 2D counterparts. Oh, and the glasses? Reasonably comfortable, if not stylish.

How do I get it?

Your first dalliance with 3D will probably be at the cinema, and you should be able to find a 3D screening near you. It will cost extra, but it’s worth doing once to see if you like it.

What’s surprised me is how quickly the major manufacturers have started producing 3D TVs. The IFA technology show in Berlin was full of them, most of which will be on sale from next year. You’ll need to watch 3D content with 3D glasses, whether active or passive, but the good news is that a 3D TV is also a perfectly good 2D TV. So you won’t have wasted your money, should it all come to nothing.

Once you’ve got a TV, your first home 3D experience will most likely be a videogame, on either Xbox 360, PS3 or PC (not the Wii though – 3D only works through high-def HDMI cables, which the Wii doesn’t support). For the PC you’ll need a 3D-enabled graphics card, and patches to adapt existing games to 3D.

The Avatar game and Wipeout 3D are out soon, but Invincible Tiger: The Legend of Han Tao is already out for Xbox and PS3 – it’s a pretty simple old-style platform kung-fu game, and all the action happens at one depth. Although the 3D is really just there to make the animated backdrops feel like they’re way off in the distance, it really does work, without being offensive to the eyeballs.

I’ve even used a 3D compact camera (Fujifilm W1). Its twin lenses shoot two movies or two stills, which you can then view without glasses on a lenticular screen on the back. The images are saved in a format that can then be adapted to any proper 3D format, and shown on full-on 3D TVs.

Will it catch on?

Whenever Hollywood’s bank balance has looked a little shaky, it seems 3D has been used as a way to tempt audiences back into cinemas. In the 50s and 80s, the threat from the arrival of TV and VHS respectively led to a slew of 3D movie releases. But the vomit-inducing, wobbly pictures of the 50s’ twin projectors, and the poor colours of the 80s’ red-and-cyan anaglyph system killed the format both times.

Now, with widespread internet movie piracy threatening takings, Hollywood is once again giving 3D a massive push, and this time the technology seems to be right. Digital 3D really does look good, and the advantage for cinemas is that as soon as they upgrade an old film projector to a digital one, they automatically get 3D capabilities thrown in.

The extra costs of the new projectors and the glasses needs to be recouped, and that means we pay more for a 3D ticket. So far the figures for movies like Monsters vs Aliens show that we’re happy to do so, but for how long will we be blown away by the experience alone? We’ve already tired of films featuring excessive CGI and no story, and 3D filmmakers will soon face exactly the same challenge.

The chances of 3D sticking around are also greatly increased if you can sell the films to home audiences, in the same way that DVD sales already make up a serious part of a movie’s finances. The arrival of 3D TVs, Blu-ray and videogames can therefore only be good for the fledgling technology’s chances. It’s also unclear at the moment if the type of 3D TV you choose will matter – we may have an active/passive format war on our hands, but the developers may also make their content platform agnostic.

And then there are the glasses. The unusual way that 3D makes your eyes work means I always feel a tiny bit relieved when I take them off.

What’s next?

2010 will be a year of big 3D releases, kicking off with Cameron’s Avatar at the end of 2009. More big names will be getting involved in future releases too (Steven Spielberg for one – see ‘Coming soon’, p56). I’d be very surprised if every animated movie made from now doesn’t get a 3D release – it’s just too easy to switch on a second viewpoint when the computers are rendering the images. Live-action movies are more tricky, however, so expect just a handful for the time being. It’s those pesky, specially made, computer-controlled, dual-lens cameras that push up production costs, you see.

But sports, concerts and commercials are all experimenting with the kit too, so expect a reasonable amount of content in the next 12 months. Sky will be showing as much of it as they can on their new 3D channel, which will work with your existing Sky+ HD box (and a new 3D TV).

We’ll gradually see directors trying out new ways of using 3D in movies that haven’t even been thought of yet. Case in point: the stop-motion 3D animation Coraline features two parallel worlds, one of which director Henry Selick built six times deeper than the other, to convey a sense of space and freedom.

Then the future awaits. 3D computer operating systems, with windows hanging in the air? It’s in Avatar. 3D glasses that are aware of their location in the room, meaning you can walk around objects hanging in front of you? Sounds a lot like holographics to me...

Spencer Kelly is the presenter of the BBC’s technology show Click

Find out more

• Click episode on 3D technology
• The illustrated 3D movie list
• Map of cinemas screening 3D films
• Click visits the IFA tech show