It Gets Better and Better: Your Television, now in 3-D

Facebook is mostly a way to pass the time between idyll moments of thought. It serves as a distraction, mostly, but on occasion, you come across some tiny morsel of information that really gets your gears moving.

Recently I was on vacation in El Salvador with my father, where I watched Avatar in 3-d (with subtitles, of course) with him and some of his friends. After the movie, my father and I lingered outside waiting for the group to rejoin and discussed the awesome that was that movie presented in 3-d.

Today, rummaging around facebook, I across this heading: "ESPN to launch 3D network in June"

Okay, welcome to the future. Starting in June ESPN is going to be bringing 3-d into your home. How? Well, simple. Remember those nifty 3d glasses that you wore to watch Chicken Little and Avatar? You're gonna need to bust those out. And you know that huge plasma tv you just bought yourself for Christmas? Well you re gonna need to toss that, and buy yourself a better one.

That's a fairly large investment for a recession ridden country, not including the cost of programming, additional hardware and replacement glasses over the months. The challenge to broadcasters will be cost effectiveness. Paul Liao, CEO of the CableLabs consortium of cable operators, says that while 3D movies are paramount to the success of 3D in the home, live sports "will engage the consumer to a degree that has been unprecedented." But the channel plans on being "off-air" when one of the 81 3-d events for 2010 aren't on the air, which doesn't exactly scream 'value-added'.

The rest of the above-mentioned facebook article goes on to say:

Broadcasting live events in 3D comes at an extra cost. Locations where cameras are placed to capture a regular high-definition sporting event don't necessarily translate to a 3D broadcast. If simultaneously broadcasting in regular HD, ESPN needs to employ a second production crew, and different announcers, for the 3D telecast.

ESPN, which is part of Disney, has been testing 3D for more than two years.

In September, it produced the University of Southern California vs. Ohio State football game in 3D, shown on the USC campus and in theaters in Ohio, Texas and Connecticut. In surveys afterward, most viewers said they were "wowed." But some said quick camera changes "were a little hard on the eyes." And the research suggested that willingness to pay for 3D was "extremely dependent on (the) matchup."

"We don't have all the answers," says Chuck Pagano, ESPN's executive vice president for technology. "We asked the same questions back in the HD days. Is this going to be better? Is this going to be worse?"

ESPN likely won't have the 3D stage to itself. The HD Guru3D website reports that DirecTV will launch a 3D channel at CES. Robert Mercer, a spokesman for the satellite provider, wouldn't confirm that. But he says "3D is something we are very interested in."

All in all its forward movement. Although I'm saving my money for hologram TV