Third Magazine

VizWorld Predicts Home 3D a Flop for 2010

Posted on 30. Dec, 2009 by The James in Blu-ray, Televisions

Over at Vizworld, they’ve made a few predictions for technology in 2010.  One of these is the success of theater 3D and the failure of home 3D.  The reasons given are pretty basic; existing blu-ray players may not support 3D, it requires high refresh rate televisions and the cost associated with shutter glasses may be a factor.  I have to agree that 2010 won’t be a huge success for the general consumer when it comes to home theater 3D, but I think these reasons will quickly become obsolete.  There hasn’t been a whole lot of discussion regarding 3D blu-ray firmware updates for current players.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of major players, especially Sony, pushing firmware updates to allow for 3D blu-ray with existing players.  They are doing it with the PS3, so it won’t hurt them to push it to regular blu-ray players.  This can help sales of higher refresh rate televisions.  At the moment, that’s the only hindering factor.  But as technology tends to flow, it won’t be long before all LCD televisions have high refresh rates.  It was the same with 720p versus 1080i versus 1080p.  It didn’t take long before most HD televisions supported 1080p for less cost that the original 720 televisions.  So although it might stop the average consumer from jumping in right away, that barrier will melt away quickly.  The last point is the shutter glasses.  It’s hardly a costly peripheral compared to everything else consumers buy for their home theater.  It’s about the cost of a PS3 or Xbox game.  I really don’t see this stopping the market cold.  In fact, I think you will see it become common place among console gamers as soon as the PS3 firmware update is available.