I had the pleasure of attending The 2012 3D Entertainment Summit which concluded a couple of weeks ago. The two day event was attended by over 1100 people. Top executives from Dolby, Pixar, ESPN, The Walt Disney Company, Sony/ 3Net, Technicolor and Panavision were out in force to share their insights into the future of 3D entertainment.
2012 saw a slight dip in the number of 3D theatrical releases compared to 2011…but 2012 also saw a greater participation from “A” list filmmakers and the overall general consensus is that the quality of 3D filmmaking has gone up.
The 3D Entertainment Summit also included a panel outlining the growing number of opportunities for 3D in China including, Real D’s expansion in the China market which we covered in an earlier post as well as China’s decision to relax the film quota by allowing more 3D tentpole type movies into China.
Another hot button topic was the adoption of 3D at home. The question was raised, what is the state of 3D at home. It was agreed that the adoption of 3D in the home has been slower than expected. There was a general consensus that there needs to be more content and there seems to be a bit of confusion on the part of consumers with regards to 3D home entertainment systems.
There still seems to be a great divide between what is the best viewing format either with passive/glasses or with active/shutter type glasses . Each manufacture touting their benefits over the other lending to some of the confusion. If you’re in the market now for a 3D TV test them both out and just choose the type you feel the most comfortable with. Both will perform well. Many in attendance seemed to agree that autostereoscopic 3D viewing is the Holly Grail and would be the savior of the 3D home entertainment market and that 3D viewing with glasses is best suited for event type entertainment, meaning the theatrical movie-going experience.
More from the 3D Entertainment Summit…
Guys, you may have already read reports and have been lucky enough to have seen the live demo of Dolby’s new 3D technology.
Dolby and Phillips Electronics announced their plans to bring glasses free 3D televisions to market earlier this year in April.
Glimpses of a live product started making the rounds of electronics conferences a month ago. Dolby Laboratories a leader in sound, imaging and voice technology had a demo of their glasses-free 3D technology at the 3D Entertainment Summit in Hollywood California this year and I was blown away. It had that WOW factor! You know similar to when the first iphone hit the market…it’s a game changer! I don’t think I’m exagerating. The 3D image was incredible, sharp from multiple viewing angles. I tried to find a bad angle and I have to say I couldn’t. Dolby’s glasses free 3D TV was on display a few weeks before the 3D Entertainment Summit at the IBC electronics conference in Europe and I heard from the Dolby reps that the response was pretty much the same, overwhelmingly positive.
I spoke to a Dolby rep and asked about Dolby’s involvement in 3D, the rep said that Dolby has been focusing on both imaging and 3D imaging for most of the past decade. I tried to find out which of the major electronics manufactures were licenseing their technology, he said he could not talk about that. I asked for a rough estimate of licenses without disclosing the manufactures and agian the rep said he could not disclose that as well.
Oh well, look for a high end 3D glasses-free set sometime next year and a more price friendly model in 2014. The Dolby glasses-free 3D technology is applicable to TV’s, tablets, smartphones, computers and displays of any size. Nice!!! It will be a “must have” when it hits the market!
Stay tuned for more from the 2012 3D Entertainment Summit in my coming post.
By: Steven D. Ito