Most of us spend a large portion of our free time glued to our couches watching TV. With this in mind, it is rather surprising to see that in the last several decades, the biggest advancements in television technology has been limited to bigger screens, thinner dimensions, and higher resolutions. LCD, Plasma, HDTV are common household names and appliances, but has it really changed the way we experience video content? Not really, and this is why the recent development of 3D TVs by major TV manufacturers has really drawn a lot of interest.
3D TV
3D TV
3D imaging technology in fact, has been around for quite a while. The stereoscope is deemed to be the birth of the 3D revolution and that was invented all the way back in 1844. The 1950s saw the rising popularity of 3D films in theathers, but that interested died off when home TVs were produced allowing people to enjoy movies in their own homes. For several decades 3D seemingly disappeared off of the face of pop culture. If it wasn’t for IMAX, it could have even been considered extinct.
2010 is the year when 3D TV is set to make a comeback. In fact, Sony has such high hopes for the format that it is predicting that more than half of its Sony 3D TV sales in 2012 will be 3D Ready. Of course, Sony’s interest in the field could be deemd biased – with their Blu-Ray players already in place to provide 3D movies and its Playstation 3 gaming console also positioned to deliver games in 3D.
There are still alot of hurdles ahead for the adoption of 3D TVs. The price is currently way above the mass market levels, so the technology will need to be made cheaper. This is a problem that most innovative products face in their early stages, so it’s not exactly the main problem at this point. The bigger hurdle currently is the requisite of 3D glasses. These bulky and hard to tolerate glasses have been improved to create a better picture quality over the previous polarized cardboard glasses, but they are still there. 3D TVs not requiring glasses of any form are being developed, but that is still some time away.
In the end, 3D TV is a welcomed arrival and despite early hurdles is bound to do well – the only question is when?