3-D Technology in Entertainment

Introduction

3D movies have actually been around a lot longer than widescreen ones. Almost as soon as the early still cameras were invented, it was realised that they could easily be adapted to produce a stereoscopic image. Indeed, as early as 1856, J. C. d'Almeida gave a demonstration at the Academie des Sciences in which two stereoscopic images (that is to say two views of the same scene, photographed from slightly differing points of view - usually around two and a half inches - representing the distance between a pair of human eyes) were projected in rapid succession as lantern slides coloured red and green, with the audience viewing the screen through spectacles fitted with red and green lenses (This system of rapidly alternating left and right eye views would be used again - but not for more than a hundred years. We'll come to that later).

3D in Movie

3-D films have existed in some form since the 1950s, but had been largely relegated to a niche in the motion picture industry because of the costly hardware and processes required to produce and display a 3-D film, and the lack of a standardized format for all segments of the entertainment business. Nonetheless, 3-D films were prominently featured in the 1950s in American cinema, and later experienced a worldwide resurgence in the 1980s and '90s driven by IMAX high-end theaters and Disney themed-venues. 3-D films became more and more successful throughout the 2000s, culminating in the unprecedented success of 3-D presentations of Avatar in December 2009 and January 2010.

It's been almost a year since the first of the "new" 3D TVs hit the market, enabling their owners to watch 3D Blu-ray movies and 3D television programming as well as play 3D games. The technology behind these televisions is still relatively new, however, and still inspires plenty of questions. In this newly updated FAQ I'll attempt to answer those questions as well as possible, incorporating my first-hand knowledge in reviewing numerous 2010 3D TVs, conversations I've had with industry experts, and reactions from readers.

By the end of the century, moving pictures had arrived and 3D wasn't very far behind. In 1897 a Mr. C. Grivolas adapted the anaglyph technique to movies by using a specially constructed camera that would expose two reels of film simultaneously, through two lenses spaced as far apart as human eyes. The resulting prints were ...