3D TV

One of the most popular and indeed profitable movies in recent times has been Avatar. The vision that director James Cameron had with regard to his film translated into box office gold and a huge part of the movie’s success is that fact that it was shot in 3D. While 3D movies have been around for a long time, it is only in the past few years that the concept of technology has really caught serious momentum and the day is not too far where a 3D TV might be as common in our homes like the HDTV is today.

First let us understand what 3D as a technology is all about. When you see a regular picture of an object you see it in two dimensions. You will able to see its height and its width. What you will not be able to see in a regular picture is its depth. This is because of two reasons – one, the picture itself is two dimensional and two, the way our eyes perceive an object. Our left eye and right eye are like two camera lenses which look at the same object in slightly different ways. Eventually both these images come together and form the complete image with all possible or rather available dimensions. So merely being able to see 3D like we can is not enough. The image or object must also facilitate 3D view-ability as well. Hence the need for those over-sized glasses when you go watch a film in your local IMAX theatre.

A 3D television works on somewhat the same principles by employing 3D techniques like stereoscopic capture or multi-view capture to present an image with depth. The rise of 3D goes back about to a little over a decade when in the late 1990’s there was fair amount of programming on TV which was presented in 3D. The novelty of this technology was used to boost program ratings in many instances. As mentioned earlier there has been a significant increase of interest levels in 3D televisions from the consumer end after movies like Avatar. As a result of this broadcasters are now taking into account this requirement and either converting existing 2D content into 3D or shooting entirely new content exclusively for 3D enabled televisions.

There are several television brands which are dabbling within the 3D space and making 3D ready televisions. These 3D ready sets operate in 2D mode and can switch over to 3D as well should the content require it. Samsung for instance uses a technology called Digital Light Processing in order to provide 3D imaging on its televisions. It began selling its 3D ready television in late February 2010. In conjunction with consumer electronic manufacturers, broadcasters too are jumping onto the band wagon with competitors showcasing 3D programs and even entire channels which would cater to 3D programming exclusively.

It is no surprise that almost all the major brands are focusing heavily on developing such televisions as they believe that the 3D TV will become the next big thing!