The Future of Cinema - 'Real' 3D

GunSlinger writes "The IGN movies site is running a story on an old movie concept seeing a resurgence. 3D movies are making a cinematic comeback via new, more sophisticated techniques. Yes, you still wear glasses. No you don't get a headache. Yes, the effect is fantastic. This story looks at the technology, past and future projects, and why just about every major studio is now planning in three dimensions. 'There is indeed a revolution in cinema taking place. It's quietly slipped under the radar of most technophiles, beginning its assault on the way we consume media clothed in thoroughly unassuming garb -- the Disney Digital 3-D film, Meet the Robinsons ... no, we don't blame you for being skeptical. Most people in their mid-20s or later think of 3-D movies from the old school perspective -- goofy red and blue coloured glasses, strained eyes, possible migraines. And most importantly, a so-so 3-D effect. No more.'"

Re:Not really

[Solokron]

It appears someone did not RTFA. The new glasses are not paper nor do they look bad at all. They are also not colored like ones of old. Creating a film with a visual perspective with two cameras as eyes, and not just shifting an image an inch with different colors is really impressive and I do see a future in this, this time around!

3D sends the wrong visual cues.

[Rothron the Wise]

One of the problem with 3D cinema is that it sometimes provides counter-intuitive cues to the viewer. When you see a 2D film, there is nothing in the film telling you the size of the objects. Large objects may be large because they are close to you, and small objects may be small because they are far away. You don't break suspension of disbelief when an actors face covers half the screen, because it's similar to standing close to a person.

When 3D is added, all this breaks down. An actor in close up suddenly becomes a giant. Everything changes size radically from shot to shot.
3D might be great for large vistas, but if you just insert 3D into a normal film, then you detract much from the visual language of film that we've gotten used to, as many of the shots become so disturbing.

Another drawback with 3D is that your eyes will attempt to focus at out of focus areas because the depth cues are there, but of course the focus is fixed
and cannot be changed and fatigue is the result. In a 3D generated film, it's possible to keep everything in focus at the same time, but for live action this is simply not practical.

Yes

[SpeedyDX]

If it's the same technology as they used in Superman Returns during the IMAX showings (and according to the little featurette video in page 2 of TFA, it seems like it is), then yes. I wear glasses myself. When I went in to the IMAX theatre, the workers handed me a pair of plastic glasses that did not look very sanitary. I tried wiping them off, but the lenses were still kinda grimy. So what ended up happening was that I had to watch the movie with two pairs of glasses on, and since I wasn't sitting in the middle, the 3D effect was "off". Not to mention the disgusting crap on the glasses. And that talk about not having a headache? Well ... I guess so. But I felt like my eyes were starting to cross involuntarily, and they felt more strained when I watched a 20-second stretch of 3D than when I spend 3+ hours sitting in front of a monitor.

All in all, it was a terrible experience. The "3D" effect was marginally better than the old red/blue method at best, and completely ineffective at worst. My eyes felt like they were about to pop out. I'll never watch another movie with that technology again.

Re:Just keep your head perfectly still..

[JohnFluxx]

If you had enough money, you could make a true holographic screen. But for a high resolution (1280x1024) 1 square inch screen it costs about $1200. Times 3 of them to do RGB. Plus a computer to drive it. And that's just for 1 square inch.

But totally doable, if you had the money.

[ My PhD is in holography, and I work for a that prints digital holograms ]

Re:Not really

[SpeedyDX]

I mentioned this marginally in another thread, but it never hurts to clarify.

Those glasses are indeed plastic, and not paper. They seem like they're built to withstand a bit of punishment. However, that in itself presents several other problems. As more and more people wear those glasses, they get grimier and dirtier. When I went to the Superman Returns IMAX showing, they had some "3D" scenes that were based on this technology, as far as I can tell by RTFA. The glasses handed to me were full of crap, and I couldn't even wipe it off. Another problem is that for people who wear glasses (read: me), they have to wear the 3D glasses on top of their regular glasses, and it's extremely uncomfortable. Not to mention that you have to keep your finger pressed against the glasses so they don't slip.

As for how it actually works ... well, I was sitting off-centre and the 3D effect wasn't that great. I could see two distinct set of outlines for the two projections. The strain on my eyes were ENORMOUS. Watching a 20-second stretch of a 3D scene made my eyes feel worse than spending 3+ hours in front of a monitor. I mean, I GUESS you don't get headaches, but this is just as bad.

In my admittedly limited experience, I still don't think this will fly. It will receive some hype because it's a "new" technology, but eventually, it will fall out of favour. If watching a 20-second clip makes my eyes feel so strained, I can't imagine what it would be like watching the entire movie with those glasses on.

Explanation

[spitzak]

The article is a little vague about how it works, trying to make it sound more magical.

What the system does is alternate projections of the left and right eye images using the same DLP projector. They said 144 frames per second, which I think means that each film frame (of which there are 24 per second) is projected 3 times for each eye, this means each eye sees the image flickering at 72 times a second, which is above the threshold for most people to see flickering. The real technology is a special lcd screen that is put in front of the lens of the projector that changes it's polarization 144 times per second so each image is polarized differently.

The real advantage of this is that the same DLP projector used for non-3D films can be reused, just put the lcd in front of the lens when showing 3D. Any other system would require a second projector, which not only adds the cost of the projector, but the cost to mount it and add another aperture in the theatre wall. (actually another system would be shutter glasses with lcd lenses that turn on/off so each eye sees one side, but handing each customer an item that costs 10 or more dollars is probably out of the question) Also this system allows perfect alignment so that things that should appear at the screen plane really appear there, and high-contrast things like the credits can be projected at that distance with no ghosting.

It does appear fortunate that they can run at 144 frames per second, though if they were like consumer ones with a maximum of 90 or 100 it would still be an acceptable flicker rate of 45 or 50 (classic film projectors flickered 48 times a second due to having 1 extra vane on the shutter).

Re:RTFA, they claim to solve that

[QuantumG]

That is *not* what I am talking about.

I'm talking about the fact that when I am in two different physical location, what I see is different. I'm talking about poking my head around a corner to see what is coming.

Copy protection through obscurity

[slaida1]

That's the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the headline.

They are hoping it will be somehow harder to copy 3D movies. It's not. So if that's the motivation behind this push then they can forget it.

Re:Parallax is NOT solved

[bodan]

You're mostly right about the LCD panels -- they can't fix this without head-tracking. Head-tracking would work very well, I think, with something like the Wii's sensor on the glasses, but only for a single viewer.

However, for cinema I think it's less important, as the scenes are generally "far away" and the viewers "not very mobile", thus the brain expects very little parallax change.

Re:Don't second guess if you haven't seen the movi

[Aladrin]

I'm going to assume you've never seen the non-red/blue glasses at work. While the very vocal people on here are complaining about how the polarized glasses gave them headaches, most people had no issue with them at all. I certainly never did, and I saw Captain EO, that stupid Kodak thing, and Honey I Shrunk the Audience dozens of times. (Gotta love living in Florida.)

Each eye sees a different image on the screen. If you close one eye, it's just like closing 1 eye in real life. You get that image only. The glasses themselves are like polarized sunshades. I doubt it's the actual polarization that bothers those that get headaches, but is instead the framerate of the picture since it's effectively cut in half. (15 fps per eye, instead of 30.) The strobe effect could be quite annoying.

If you take off the glasses, you end up with a watchable but odd-looking image where things that are supposed to be very close or very far are fuzzy. Since most action is in the middle anyhow, it's not that bad.

These new glasses won't work on exactly the same technique, so they'll look a little different, but the effect when you take off the glasses with probably be about the same. Same for the effect with 1 eye closed, also.

In the end, I think you'll find the glasses don't make it much different from a real scene.

If they start 'shooting in 3d only', you'll find that the effects in the scenes are boring to you and you'll wonder why people care, but other than that, I don't think it'll affect you adversely. (And they'll eventually get over the whole 3d thing and start actually producing good movies again eventually, too.)

Viewing side-by-side 3d images with bare eyes...

[Gen.Anti]

...is the real skill. See cross-viewing [vision3d.com] here. I'm afraid I have a bit of the binocular problem they describe there, but I hope to improve.

Disney? Should be porn

[vuo]

When there's porn in 3D, then it'll take off. Just look at VHS and the Internet. I mean, since when "Disney uses the technology" has been a reason to adopt a new technology?