I really think 3D is the blu-ray future. There is a financial crysis. People buy only if there is an actual improvement. 3D brings that. All 3D-ready tvs are hd-ready... once people buy them, blu-ray will only be one step away... it would be very good for this format.
So, what are we waiting for? Bring it on
"November 7, 2008
Future is 3D BD, If Analysts Stop Sniping
I have seen the future of home media more clearly than ever.
That’s because I was looking at the future not through rose-colored glasses but through a pair of 3-D glasses viewing stunning images coming from a Blu-ray Disc at a private demonstration at Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory.
Unfortunately, bull-headed Blu-ray bashers seem determined to diminish the viability of the only format capable of delivering this and other new technologies to homes in the most meaningful way in the very near future. Here’s hoping that consumers and the industry’s new $25 million marketing campaign push past all the recent negative noise and make Blu-ray here to stay.
If you thought the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing looked amazing on your high-definition TV, they are twice as astounding in 1080p 3-D Hi-Def. Suddenly, it seems as if there are even more drummers, flags, and performers, all of whom you can see so well that you could identify them in a police line-up, and as if the giant stadium is even bigger, or at least it seems that way because it feels as if you are standing at the center of it, experiencing it firsthand.
But even that does not prepare you for the spectacular sensation of standing on a rock jutting out from the walls of the Grand Canyon, or riding a raft down the river and seeing the water splash all around you.
The scenes of Hollywood movies utilizing this new process are equally spellbinding and even more enticing. Sitting in that room wearing comfortable black glasses with no mismatched color lenses, one’s mind begins to race with the potential of this medium: imagine effects-laden movies such as “Star Wars,” “Transformers,” “Dark Knight” and “Iron Man” in this format, computer-animated movies like “Wall-E” and “Kung-Fu Panda,” even sweeping epics of the past like “Out of Africa” and “Lawrence of Arabia.”
And then one’s pragmatic mind is quickly jolted with images of recent online postings of pessimism about the laggard sales of Blu-ray, the dire predictions of its future. The online blather is starting to eat at the perceptions of even the most ardent executive supporters at studios and electronics companies.
Why? Based on what information and data is there a cause for legitimate concern?
Blu-ray Disc hardware and software sales are up significantly this year over last year, and that is at a time when DVD sales are down even more significantly. Are these BD doomsayers suggesting that the industry bail out of Blu-ray and stick with the declining DVD for the near-term and long-term future?
Too many Wall Street and industry analysts focus on meeting expectations, especially when those expectations are based on nothing more than wild speculation and unrealistic comparisons. Does it matter whether Blu-ray matches year-to-year launch numbers of DVD? Does it matter if 2008 sales figures don’t reach lofty and overly optimistic projections? Does it matter whether consumers are watching Blu-ray Discs on stand-alone players or PlayStation 3?
It seems to me that the only thing that matters is whether Blu-ray hardware and software sales and home penetration levels continue to grow at several percentage points each year.
It is doing that. Blu-ray sales have grown to account for about 10% of many of the biggest new releases, according to DisplaySearch, which projects U.S. sales of 2.4 million stand-alone Blu-ray players this year as player prices drop below $200, more than three times the number sold in 2007, bringing the total installed base of Blu-ray devices in the U.S. to more than eight million.
More importantly, Blu-ray is the only format that offers the ability to continue to deliver the newest technologies, perhaps the most exciting and important of which is 3-D.
With many studios and filmmakers committing to make 3-D more than just a fast-growing IMAX giant-screen niche market, including Disney’s plans to rerelease the first two “Toy Story” films in 3-D in late 2009 and early 2010 in advance of the new “Toy Story 3” in 3-D, and James Cameron making his first return to fiction filmmaking in 13 years in late 2009 with the much-anticipated “Avatar” in 3-D, it is imperative that these films be available to consumers with the option of a comparable viewing experience at home in 2010 and beyond.
That isn’t going to happen via any form of TV or Internet for some time, at least not in full 1080p HD. The bandwidth requirements to deliver two simultaneous 1080p HD streams at the optimum speed are simply far too great.
So, that leaves only Blu-ray.
Multiple companies are working on this now, all of which will be for naught if Blu-ray is pushed over the precipice or not properly pushed by the industry or supported by the consumer.
Panasonic’s home 3-D technology is a system developed at PHL in Los Angeles that was first shown at the CEATAC show in Chiba, Japan, six weeks ago. It is designed primarily for slightly modified versions of existing big-screen plasma TVs and Blu-ray players and specially encoded Blu-ray Disc movies with two fields of left- and right-sided 1080p full HD images. The system utilizes special battery-operated active shutter glasses that work in synchronization with signals emitted from the plasma display, all of which is seamless to the user.
Those glasses more closely emulate the advanced system used with sophisticated 3-D systems in theaters. People prone to feelings of slight disorientation and nausea with more primitive 3-D systems say they do not experience those feelings with this system. And while existing Blu-ray Disc movies featuring the traditional cheesy cardboard glasses sporting red and blue lenses dull the colors and clarity of the movie, this new Panasonic system offers the same level of brilliant resolution and color that one expects from standard hi-def. That difference was particularly striking to me when comparing recent Blu-ray 3-D movie releases to the clips from some of the same movies at the PHL demo.
The new $25 million “Tru Blu” TV, online, and in-theater ad campaign announced this week by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), backed by Panasonic, Sony Electronics, and studios such as Lionsgate, Sony Pictures, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner, trumpets Blu-ray’s superior picture and sound quality to current and likely HDTV owners as well as the breadth of blockbuster titles available on the format (now more than 1,000 overall). The campaign, which also drives consumers to the informational site www.Watchblu.com, cannot include mention of any of the new 3-D technologies being prepared for Blu-ray, none of which has been approved for production as yet.
That’s quite understandable but too bad. Nonetheless, such a game-changing technology like home 3-D should not go unnoticed or without consideration by responsible analysts and bloggers who are far too quick to recklessly write-off Blu-ray."
Source: http://hollywoodinhidef.com/blog_detail.php?id=246