Reel Word

Disney’s G-Force for the X-Box and Playstation 3, and Disney/Pixar’s Toy Story Midway Mania for the Wii will both be released in 3D that uses red/green anaglyph glasses.  While the studios are releasing 3D games and the lesser 3D movie titles in anaglyph (Hannah Montana, Journey to the Center of the Earth), they have not released A-list animated films in 3D for the consumer market.  They are working with CE and media distribution companies to encourage the adoption of a better quality 3D stereoscopic viewing experience at a reasonable price point.   

 Ubisoft has developed a proprietary stereoscopic 3D technology for game platforms that “James Cameron’s Avatar” game will incorporate when it is released this Holiday season.   It reportedly relies on a polarizing display and polarized glasses.  Unlike anaglyph glasses, which strip out some of the red and green (or blue) spectrum in order to create the 3D effect, polarized glasses retain most of the original color.  It is a much higher quality viewing experience.  

James Cameron is quoted in this Reuter’s article as saying ”You just stick your head into the monitor and the world wraps around you. It’s the first time in a videogame that I was afraid…when the hammerhead enemies attack. It’s very frightening.”    

Gamers have an established record of buying peripherals that enhance the gaming experience and/or make new gaming experiences possible.  Both polarized glass and shutter-glass displays provide a far superior 3D viewing experience to anaglyph.  Both are available to consumers today (Japan is currently the main market).  As long as the consumer’s STB/console processor can handle the encoding format for the left-eye/right-eye data, the same content can be displayed on either the polarized or the shutter-glass display.

As I and many others have said before, it is quite possible that 3D movies and 3D televison programs will move into consumer’s homes and onto their devices by following a path blazed by gamers.