Debunking 3D Myths

In the 1970s, an influential book entitled Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television provoked a lively debate amongst social critics about the negative influence that TV was having on the lives of its viewers. The title was a bit tongue in cheek; the author stated he knew that TV would never be eliminated, but he wanted a provocative title to stimulate discussion.

Now in a similar vein, a number of critics have come out with statements about how 3D will ultimately fail. For example, a few weeks ago Ecoustics.com posted 10 reasons why 3D may not work. I doubt that they expect that the technology will literally disappear, but their arguments are certainly worth a discussion, and a refutation. So here goes:

Nobody will wear 3D glasses-- Nobody will probably wear 3D glasses all day long, but the popularity of the 3D experience in theaters proves that they will wear them. 

TV viewing is a social experience. If you're wearing 3D glasses you can't converse. How hard is it to remove a pair of glasses to chat or get something to eat from the fridge? People who wear reading glasses do it all the time.

My kid's going to sit on the glasses and break them. And I'm not going to buy ten pairs of glasses so my friends can come over and watch the big game in 3D. It's most likely a very small minority of people whose children break things around the TV. Do your children sit on your remotes? While you might not want to buy 3D glasses for all your friends, this is only a temporary issue. As 3D TV becomes ubiquitous, eventually everyone will have their own pair.

3D technology is confusing; no one will be able to understand what they need to buy in order to see 3D TV. Think back ten years; how many people understood 720p, 1080i, 16:9, composite video and a slew of other terms? Now, everyone knows about 1080p, even if they don't really know what it is. In the same way, 3D terminology will enter everyday speech. Some people may not know what HDMI 1.4 is, but they'll know they'll need it to watch Full HD 3D TV. And that's fine.

Video discs are on the way out; so using Blu-ray to deliver Full HD 3D is a losing strategy. There's been a lot of hyperbolic talk about how streaming video will soon replace DVD and Blu-ray as a way for consumers to watch movies. While it may eventually happen, it won't replace video discs any time soon. Most people simply don't have the broadband speeds to make it practical. And in addition, people enjoy physical media; more than one analyst has pointed out that people like holding things in their hands, including books and Blu-ray discs.

It took a decade for HDTV to take off, and that was with a government mandate to convert to digital TV. So 3D will take even longer, if it ever happens. I don't think anyone in the consumer electronics industry expects 3D to be an overnight success. We've always known it will take several years. But during that time more and more people will purchase Full HD 3D TVs and more and more great 3D content will be available via Blu-ray and television. 

At the dawn of HDTV, many well-respected consumer electronics executives predicted its imminent demise, as there was simply no good business case to be made for its success. They were wrong then, and the naysayers are wrong now. In several years, I predict we'll be amused by the fact that we even had this discussion.

Behind the Scenes of the 3D Standards

One of the hottest exhibits at this year's CES were the 3D TVs; not just Panasonic's, but all of our competitors. If you were looking for the one place where you'd never be able to get down an aisle, all you had to do was make your way over to a 3D TV exhibit.

I'm really pleased with the way the industry came together to codify 3D packaged media standards. We did it in virtually record time. Starting work with the Blu-ray Disc Association in the spring, the Association was able to issue its final specs just a few months later, in December.

We all wanted to get this done so that the industry wouldn't get bogged down in a format war the way it did with the competition between the now-defunct HD DVD standard and Blu-ray. Everyone was determined not to have that happen again. Can you imagine if a breakaway group decided to set its own Blu-ray standards, and not all 3-D discs would work on all players?

So we looked at everything. The coalition even considered whether 3D films on Blu-ray should be full, 1080p resolution to each eye, or half resolution. Fortunately, we chose full resolution; given that the entire philosophy of Blu-ray is to give consumers the finest-possible picture, it would have been a huge disconnect to choose otherwise.

In a matter of weeks, the Association designed a 3D logo,which will appear on all Blu-ray packaging, and it's now in the process of designing another logo to show that a disc is backwards compatible with existing 2D Blu-ray players.

Speaking of compatibility, the spec says that 3D discs can be backwards compatible, but it doesn't mandate that they have to be. So theoretically, a studio could issue Blu-ray discs in two versions, one 2D and one 3D, but that's not likely to happen. Retailers are not going to want to carry two versions of each title, so I'm sure that virtually every title will be backwards compatible.

When inserting one of those discs in a 2D Blu-ray player, the viewer will see what the left eye would normally see in the 3D version, as the left eye has been designated as the "independent" eye for use in 2D presentations.

All 3D, All the Time?

"Eventually, everything on television will be in 3D."

Those are not my words; they're those of Jon Landau, producer of the hit new film, Avatar. He was speaking at a special gathering Panasonic held during this year's Consumer Electronics Show. For a party of invited guests, we showed a four-minute reel of some great-looking 3D material on one of our large Panasonic Full HD 3D plasma displays. Scenes included footage from the opening ceremonies of last year's Olympic Games in Beijing, plus a number of other sporting events and additional material. As a surprise, we placed a hidden 3D camera behind a curtain facing the audience, so even after the 3D reel was finished, everyone could look at themselves in 3D!

Jon Landau's a big fan of 3D, as you can imagine. He said that he's convinced that this is the way that we'll all be watching movies and TV. He also confirmed that the next picture that he and director James Cameron create will, again, be shot in 3D.

So is Landau right? Will everything on television eventually be in 3D? Of course, no one knows, but his enthusiasm for the technology, along with the enthusiasm from some other Hollywood heavy-hitters, such as DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg, gives one pause. These are people whose lives revolve around Hollywood and special effects. They have a good sense of what the audience likes, and what it doesn't.

Yet for all the 3D boosters, there are still 3D naysayers. So let's take a look at some of the arguments against 3D's ultimate success:

Nobody cares about 3D TV. Perhaps few do now; but few cared about HDTV when it first launched. It took years before customers saw its value, or even understood the whole idea. We've been asking consumers what they're looking for in the way of home entertainment. We've taken those broad-stroke desires and applied them to our development of Full HD 3D TV. Once consumers see the result, we believe they'll want these new products.

Nobody will wear 3D glasses. On the contrary, the enthusiasm that people have shown for the latest 3D theatrical releases shows that wearing glasses is no obstacle for most consumers.

Consumers won't like 3D glasses because their kids will break them, and they'll be too expensive. These are simply marketing issues, not substantive roadblocks. Our team and retailers will figure out how to promote and market the technology. And once people try it, I believe they'll quickly forget about any original logistical concerns.

Many consumers just bought their first HDTVs; they're not going to quickly replace them with 3D sets. We believe that Full HD 3D TV is such an extraordinary experience that, as soon as consumers see it, they're going to want one. At first, many will buy new Full HD 3D sets as replacements for their existing TVs. They won't throw the old TVs away--they'll move them somewhere else in the house. Those great 2D sets will go in the bedroom or the kid's room, while the new 3D HDTV will become the home's new entertainment centerpiece. 

When HDTV first became available, many in the industry said it wouldn't succeed. It took close to 10 years before enough consumers decided they wanted to purchase an HDTV; today virtually every TV sold is HD.

Now that virtually everyone understands the great experience that HDTVs provide, buying a 3D-capable Full HD 3D TV will be an easy move for many.

Some 3D Basics

An acquaintance of mine recently said to me that 3D is one thing that they can do in movie theaters that they can't do on TV. While I explained to him that that wasn't true, it made me realize that many consumers who are not close to the industry may have a number of misconceptions about 3D. So let's look at a few:

Will I need a new TV to see Full HD 3D?

Panasonic is launching a number of new Full HD 3D plasma models this year, as well as a Full HD 3D Blu-ray player. All of our products will of course work equally well with traditional, 2D content.

What is Full HD 3D?

Simply put, Panasonic has developed a technology that delivers the same high resolution of standard Blu-ray discs, with 3D content. Other systems actually cut the resolution in half when watching 3D. Since stunning picture quality is what high definition is all about, we wanted to make sure that we did nothing to compromise one's ability to view the best possible picture.

What is there to see in 3D?

We understand that in order to make Full HD 3D a business, we need to seed the market. That's why we've partnered with DirecTV to bring several channels of 3D content to consumers starting this year. Movies, sports, and special events will all be part of the mix. 

In addition, a growing number of movies will be released as 3-D Blu-ray discs this year. ESPN has announced that they'll be starting up a 3D channel; and Discovery Channel has partnered with Imax and Sony to create a 3D channel featuring the type of natural history programming sure to look great in 3D.

Will the new DirecTV and other channels be in Full HD 3D resolution?

Due to the extra bandwidth needed, the television services will not be Full HD 3D at first. But both Panasonic and DirecTV are working to insure that the picture is of the highest quality possible. We're not going to put anything out that would turn consumers off to the new technology. As the saying goes, we don't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Panasonic and 3-D

One year ago, Panasonic USA's CEO, Yoshi Yamada, pledged in front of a large audience at the Consumer Electronics Show that Panasonic was deeply committed to developing 3-D HDTV. And now, we're delivering.

It's always exciting to be able to publicly discuss what one's been fervently working on for months; and for 3-D, that time is now.

At Panasonic, we strongly believe that 3-D is the logical extension to HDTV, because it truly does provide the next best thing to being there. This is not the headache-inducing technology that came in vogue in the 1950s, with such films as Bwana Devil, and 3-D comic books that used cheap paper glasses. Rather, we've created what we call Full HD 3-D, pictures with stunning resolution, a rich color palette, and the overall 1080p picture quality that you've come to expect from Blu-ray discs.

What's really exciting about our work in 3-D is that Panasonic, and the industry as whole, is not just creating a new product; we're creating an entirely new infrastructure. Automobiles couldn't thrive until gas stations were built, and HDTV didn't take off until content became available. Not only are we developing new Full HD 3D HDTVs and Blu-ray players, but we're directly involved in offering 3D programming as well.

Over the next few days, I'll use this blog to answer some obvious questions that I'm sure many of you have about Full HD 3-D, and I'll give my thoughts about this emerging technology. While doing so, I'll be forthright in my answers, providing more information than can be found in press releases. 

If you're interested and intrigued by the potential for 3-D television, then I think you'll find this discussion useful. And if you know little about it, we'll be able to clear up some misconceptions and hopefully put you on the road to becoming a fan!