3d movies on bluray at home vs. cinema theaters

[fenome]

So I was just curious what your guys preferences were since you've been doin this for a while now. I figured since 3d tvs and monitors use active shutter glasses as opposed to stationary polarized glasses the effect might come through better at home...

I watched Avatar and Alice in wonderland in 3D at the movies and while impressive, some parts just kinda seemed blurry and didn't really seem to come across as intended (to me anyways). For example, in Alice in wonderland when she first get to wonderland and it shows the flying rocking horse(?) and the dragon flitting around eachother didn't really pop out like I thought it was going to. And I've read on posts from people who've seen the 3d bluray say that the pop-out effect of that scene was really nice. I'm hoping it's better at home..

Just getting anxious to start in on this and wanna squeeze all the info I possibly can outta you guys

[cybereality]

The effect with either active or passive glasses is very similar. You should be able to get pop-out with either solutions. But there are a lot of variables involved: how big your TV is (or theater screen), how far away you sit from the screen, the distance between your eyes. It really depends. I know I have seen 3D HDTVs in the stores that looked better than the movie theaters (again with Alice in Wonderland). To make matters worse, Alice was a 2D conversion, so its not every real 3D. So who knows whats going on?

[fenome]

True, true...plus, when I went to go see it in the theater I didn't know much about the tech and I sat in the back row, so that probably didn't help matters either

[cybereality]

Well you don't want to sit too close either, or you will get a lesser 3D effect. Sitting in the middle seems to work best.

[mAchiNE]

I Agree with Cyber. In the cinema, depending on the screen size, somewhere in the middle is best, no further back than 2/3rds from the front to get the best effect.

As for TV vs Cinema, for ghosting/cross-talk in my experience LCD TVs with shutter glasses are worse than the cinema, Plasma TVs with shutter glasses are on par with the cinema.
As for the 3D 'Experience' I would say it depends on how big your TV is going to be (the bigger the better) and how close you plan to sit to it, I'd say its pretty hard to beat the big screen experience of the cinema on a TV.

If you want to try to recreate the big screen 3D experience at home then a 3D Ready DLP Projector and Nvidia 3D Vision Glasses on a 100"-120" screen would be ideal (and generally cheaper than a 3D TV at least for 720p anyway), I have read that DLP TVs and Projectors have little or no ghosting/cross-talk so could possibly even be better than the Cinema. The main downside to this setup is most of the 3D ready projectors do not support HDMI 1.4a so you would need to run this off a PC or Laptop, and are not compatible with Playstation 3 without an (costly) adaptor.
Although there might be some 3d DLP projectors with HDMI 1.4a around, you would need to use DP link glasses with them rather than Nvidia 3D Vision.

Personally I Plan to get a 3D DLP Projector sometime soon as I use a Hometheatre PC with a BluRay drive and already Have Nvidia 3D vision (and dont plan to get a playstation 3 anytime soon)

If you plan to buy a 3D TV I can say from what I have seen that I would not recommend getting an LCD based 3D TV that uses Stutter glasses, in my opinion the ghosting/cross-talk is unacceptable (even my Alienware LCD monitor has noticeable Ghosting), Plasma 3D TVs with shutter glasses are OK bus still have some cross-talk/ghosting but I think it is acceptable and are usually cheaper than LCD ones in the 50" upwards range. I have not personally seen how good (or bad) newer polarised 3D TVs are but if they are any good then they are probably the way to go if you plan to have more than 2 people watching in 3D at any one time (as the extra glasses should be MUCH cheaper than the shutter glasses).
I guess the best thing to do would be to go to a store that has a bunch of 3D TVs on display and try them for yourself to see which one you like best (ask if they can put the same 3D BluRay on each one so you get a fair comparision) try to look for cross-talk in high contrast scenes that is where it is most noticeable.

this post turned out to be a lot longer than I intended! well thats my 2c worth

[foulplay]

My cinema experience of 3D is limited only to Transformers 3 at the IMAX in Birmingham, it was the 1st 3D I saw and I thought it was amazing.

In March this year I purchased an Asus VG278H 27" nVidia 3D vision 2 monitor with active shutter glasses for my PC and play as much content in 3D as possible. PC games stretch 3D to its full potential, and games like Max Payne 3 look just amazing.

I have a denon 5.1 receiver with decent sub/sat Infinity speakers linked up to the PC and PS3, and for 2D films I have a Samsung 6 series 52" LCD. Watching 3D films on my PC screen isnt quite as immersive as watching on the TV for some reason (even thought the actual screen sizes at the different distances are just about equal), but the 3D is as good as I remember at the IMAX.

I've watched the 3D blu rays of Transformers 3, Avatar, How To Train Your Dragon, Despicable Me, Alince in Wonderland and Tron so far and there are no problems at all, other than the varying quality of the 3D in the films themselves. I've not seen any noticeable ghosting or cross talk on my setup other than on very high contrast scenes and the experience has been great.

I would say the 'worst' films I've seen so far in 3D are Tron and Alice in Wonderland, and I wasnt at all surprised to find out Alice was a 2D conversion. Avatar Transformers and How to train your dragon were fantastic though.

My mum watched HTTYD and bits of Transformers on my screen and loved it, watching a 3D film on her friends Sony TV she got a massive headache and hated it, so you sometimes have to experiment.

[Freke1]

I'm allways impressed by the Dolby 3D theater. I imagin sitting 3 meters from a 1080p 3D projector would come close if the surround soundsystem was good. Sitting 3 meters from a 50" 3D TV is not as impressive but all 3 are good solutions. Not like the old days with 19" monitors. It probably has to do with field of view and sharpness/number of pixels. Dolby uses 4k projectors.

[android78]

...
Watching 3D films on my PC screen isnt quite as immersive as watching on the TV for some reason (even thought the actual screen sizes at the different distances are just about equal), but the 3D is as good as I remember at the IMAX.
...

Even though the relationship between the size of your monitor and the distance from the screen may be the same as watching a TV, it doesn't counteract the fact that, if a spot is at an infinate distance on one 3D display, halving the size will mean that the same dot is now only the same distance behind the screen that you are in front.
This is why, in my opinion, they need to have a second rendering of the scene that takes this into consideration for 3D BD releases. You can't take into consideration all screen sizes, but this could help somewhat for smaller screens.

[skrubol]

I've found the effect quite good with a 70" projector screen at a pretty close viewing distance.
That's with an XGA projector as well, so resolution is is only 1024x430ish for 2.35:1 movies. DLP with good glasses (I'm using the 3d vision kit right now) gives zero ghosting, so it's superior to any theater I've been to in that respect.

[Freke1]

Even though the relationship between the size of your monitor and the distance from the screen may be the same as watching a TV, it doesn't counteract the fact that, if a spot is at an infinate distance on one 3D display, halving the size will mean that the same dot is now only the same distance behind the screen that you are in front.
This is why, in my opinion, they need to have a second rendering of the scene that takes this into consideration for 3D BD releases. You can't take into consideration all screen sizes, but this could help somewhat for smaller screens.

important point! I'm not sure a second rendering will do any good if we can re-adjusting the dot to infinity (possible with Stereoscopic player for non BlueRay 3D movies).

[android78]

important point! I'm not sure a second rendering will do any good if we can re-adjusting the dot to infinity (possible with Stereoscopic player for non BlueRay 3D movies).

You can push the infinity point to infinity by artificially increasing the separation (left eye image goes left and right eye image goes right), but that pushes the whole picture into the screen. So you end up with an uncomfortable viewing experience since even those objects of focus will be in the screen.

[Dilip]

I have seen many BR 3D movies on my LG D2342P and can safely say that it depends on movie. i enjoyed very much TRANSFORMERS DARK OF THE MOON on my monitor then in movie hall though it was just 24" where as theater it was 40 Feet.

But then Transformers look 'tiny toys' then 'macho machines' but yes as i seen in hall with ACTIVE GLASSES i much enjoyed Full colors & Bright visuals on my passive monitor which made me think active system along with cutting light to 1/2 also spoils image vibrancy.

i have also seen AVATAR BR both 3D and non 3D also non 3D converted to 3D with my DDD drivers and i can say converted is rather bad way to watch movie (READ FAKE!!)

i have also seen PIRANHA3D(old one) which i was thinking shot in 3D but come to know its converted one, but of course by producers so it was not that bad looking.

My findings are:

1) You will miss the size splendor as watching on 24" or 50" can not match joy of watching in
Normal Cinema Hall(Which is also quite BIG) or IMAX(No way!) as costliest setup cant match
size,picture quality or Sound of IMAX

2) You can get cosy at home but i being end-up in watching movie in multiple installments as being
home always make you vulnerable to your family's requirements & social life too.

3) Creature Feature Movies like JURASSIC PARK i think its pure injustice to watch Dinosaurs/Godzilla
in 24" or 50 or 105"( I have seen news of JURASSIC PARK REBOOT IN 3D wowww!)

4) Now good part you can watch movies when ever you want and even when its just gone from
movie halls as you missed to watch same as all other movies.

5) Quality wise it really depends on movie and your TV/MONITOR some have no ghosting others
have terrible i have tried multiple and noticed 3D LCD worst>3D Plasma Passive>3D Plasma
Active>3d LED ACTIVE/PASSIVE so best is 3D LED. again different result on different brand for
different movies.