3-D TV in 2010

Have you ever seen a movie in 3-D? Or put on those smexy cardboard glasses with red and blue plastic lenses just to sit back and watch the images jump out at you? It's a pretty memorable experience, watching a movie in 3-D, but that will all change once 2010 rolls around. According to CNN, both Panasonic and Sony recently held demonstrations of the TVs and say they will "release 3-D television systems in 2010."

3-D television is the next major technological jump of the 21st century. Television started off black and white before making the jump to color television. The next jump was standard definition images to high definition images, which most people are still adjusting too. For sports it's great, but when watching movies it's not always best to be able to be the pores on the face of an actor during a close-up shot. Sports are also the first area of television to test-record events in 3-D. They use cameras that have two sets of lenses, which will make the players appear to jump off the screen.

The downside? Everyone will be required to buy a new television, broadcasting content and 3-D glasses. The cost is not expected to be higher than the current running price for a high definition television either. The 3-D television broadcasts will also require twice the data and use a huge amount of bandwidth. Oh yeah, and the 3-D glasses have to work well.

So how exactly does this work? There are two images that alternate quickly on the television screen, one specifically for the right eye and one specifically for the left eye. The lenses on the 3-D glasses translate the viewer's vision from the right eye to the left eye at the same rate, so the images appear to jump off the screen. If the images appear any slower, then they are not shown in 3-D. The brain in tricked into thinking that the images connect to one another, so the perspective of a 3-D image comes across on the television screen. The TV connects with the glasses via a sensor that is located between the lenses on the glasses. "It's like a little Venetian blind: open, close, open, close, open, close," said John Wyckoff, a Sony content manager, of the glasses.

But let's be realistic for a minute. Can you really imagine watching all of your television programming in 3-D? ABC? The Food Network? Turner Classic Movies? Cartoon Network? In some cases, watching in 3-D would make the experience worse, or at best completely confusing. Sure it would be cool at first to see your favorite news anchor appear to be seating at a desk in your living room, but that would also be highly disturbing and I daresay, stalkerish in a way. Like I mentioned earlier though, sports is a whole different ball game. People would buy these 3-D televisions just for the amazing picture and the chance to potentially get even closer to the action.

2010 is still several months away and who knows when exactly in 2010 these will appear. But the competition for whose product is better is well under way. Other than Panasonic and Sony, Mitsubishi and JVC are both companies that are developing similar products. JVC is even said to be working on a better version of the 3-D glasses. Their version uses polarized glasses to separate the right eye image from the left eye image and would make the overall image more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. The Blu-ray Disc Association is also working on a product to play three-dimensional movies (but only for Blu-ray players of course). These televisions would also be able to play television shows in 2-D or 3-D and play video games in 3-D, which is a whole different story.

Then there is the issue of live television. In order for live broadcasts to be able to be shown in 3-D, all of the broadcast equipment would need to be upgraded or at least have major overhaul to accommodate it. Last year, during the presidential election, CNN introduced the use of holograms to show correspondents in the CNN studio. It was really cool to see, but also really sketchy to imagine that technology has come that far and it's being controlled by the elite. 3-D images could follow this trend. If everything is 3-D it could be very bad for television viewers. People need to have a choice. America is a democracy! Guess we will just have to wait and see what 2010 brings for us in the 3-D world.