3D TV

Samsung 3D TV a sight to behold but where's the content?

I watch my television programs on a Commodore 1084 CRT-monitor of 1988 vintage. It has a crisp, high-contrast coloured picture which suits my small lounge-room. (It is attached to a 1980s vintage Yamaha AV-amplifier - which is also connected to an LG VCR, a Sharp VCR/DVD-player, a second el-cheapo DSE DVD player, a National radio-cassette player, this PC, a Sanyo HD digital set-top box, and 4 hi-fi speakers.) I like to tell people I don't own a television set!

This doesn't mean though that I don't have a keen interest in the evolution of television technology.

From a very early age I have enjoyed wandering into the TV departments of large stores and gazing critically at the screens around me. (When I was tiny this consisted of wandering into Kelly Brothers in Morwell and looking at the grand new colour tellys.) Nowadays I look critically at all sizes of LCD and plasma televisions - being critical of blurry pictures or digital artefacts or poor contrast - well aware of course that all these TVs are connected to one DVD or Blu-Ray player or television aerial and that their screens are adjusted for the harsh light of the store rather than the more subtle light of home.

For many years the TVs have been too large to be practical for me (a 28-32in widescreen is the largest size suitable for my room) - and the prices have been laughable!

"$4000 for a TV when most of the shows are crap? Get bloody real!"

But now the prices are getting low enough that I might be tempted in a year or two.

So last week I was reading about Samsung's new 3D televisions. They were described by one journalist as "surprisingly affordable" but at $2899 for a 40in TV I beg to differ.

Truth-be-told I love  3D imagery! I have some cyan-red anaglyph glasses and have downloaded images from the internet, I have experimented with 3D photography, I have sat in darkened theatres and thrilled to "The Creature from the Black Lagoon," "It Came From Outer Space," "Dial M for Murder", "House of Wax" and more recently "Avatar" and the new "Alice in Wonderland." At other times I have gazed in silent awe at laser-lit holograms.

Would I want a 3D television? Yes-and-no. 3D images on TV would be really cool - but I don't think any of the 3D TVs which are likely to appear in the near future are good enough.

Their screens are too big for my small room, their prices are absurdly high, and I don't think the technology is good enough yet.

I read about the glasses you have to wear with their active shutters, which need recharging, and which cost $120 each! This is a joke! Such glasses, USB-powered, would work fine for PC-gamers sitting close to a 28in screen - but for a family sofa-experience they are ridiculous. Too expensive. Too easy to break by accidently sitting on. Bound to need recharging at the most inconvenient times. They strike me as an immature technology.

In a few years they might develop a version of the 3D TV which will work with the passive circularly-polarized glasses we use for Real3D movies. This would be an improvement.

(Ideally I'd like something holographic, or something with computer-synthesized-holography - but I suspect that is some decades away.)

Would I get a 3D TV? If I'm looking for a TV in a few years and a 3D model with a 32in screen which works with my Real3D glasses and costs less than $800 is available - then yes. Until then - nope!