But remember, you don’t have to pay the high price.  You don’t have to see every movie in 3D.  Enjoy the ones you want to see in 3D and check out the others in 2D.  It will be a while before everything is in stereoscopic 3D.  The people that are predicting that 2D will vanish in the next few years are the same people that thought we’d be in flying cars in the year 2000.

But this brings me to my second point. The number of 2D theaters will be shrinking. So what? Cinemablend’s article doesn’t seem to make any argument regarding why consumers should prefer 2D over the 3D other than price. If that is the only reason, it’s a non-issue. Because the more common the technology becomes, the more the price well regulate. Movie prices have been rising faster than inflation since the first “talkie” came out. There’s no stopping it.

In the end, it comes down to fear of change. I have a feeling that there was probably an outcry when color cinema started. There were probably people that were upset that all movies were making the transition to color. Well, entertainment changes as technology changes. I think this is a positive thing. Enjoy it.

The first step is to separate the shot into somewhere between two and eight layers of depth. Take, for example, an image of a man standing in front of a brick wall, with a blue sky behind the wall. The graphic artist might separate the shot into three layers: the man, the wall, and the sky. Then, he would take each layer and draw contour lines around any object that appeared there. He’d start by marking depth lines on the man using a computer, turning the image into a sort of topographical map. He’d repeat the process for any objects in the other layers.

Once this is done, the computer takes over. Software creates a new, offset image of the man by moving the various regions of the contour map to the left or right and smoothing everything out. The closer bits—the tip of the man’s nose, for example—would be moved the farthest, while the more distant parts—the back of his shoulder—would be displaced a bit less. Then the process would be repeated for the other two layers of the image: the wall and the sky.

There seems to be some petty arguments about converting 2D to 3D versus shooting stereoscopic.  James Cameron is on record criticizing Tim Burton for his choice of conversion.  I can’t help but snicker at the irony here.  Mr. Cameron, do you really have room to poke at someone for not using “true” 3D shooting when 90% of your film Avatar was CG anyway?  Is there really a difference?  All those characters had to be rendered and animated, so whether or not two cameras were used, the image is still “faked”.  I’ve personally had the opportunity to view 3D that was created both by a conversion process and by true stereoscopic dual cameras (4k Reds), and the difference is pretty much unnoticeable.  And it impossible to tell the difference when you factor in animation and lots of CG.  Dual camera options will become more common as the 3D process becomes more familiar with directors and shooters, until then, conversion looks pretty good in my opinion.

It looks like Spain is Xpand’s first step towards a major expansion into European 3D markets.  The Spanish outlet of Xpand will be controlled by SolotresD whose goal is to release six titles a year.  3D is catching on fast in spain with 3D capable theaters consisting of 5% of total theaters.  The market continues to grow.

- 3D films have taken 10% of box office receipts this year DESPITE being only 3% of the hundreds of films released.

-Where people have a choice between the 3D and 2D they opt for the new version by a ratio of 3 to 1.

-3D films much harder to pirate, causing more people to actually go to the theater to see the films.

There’s also a downside to the market.  Films have a bout a 3 year gestation period between funding and actually hitting the theaters.  So what we are seeing now is a result of the last of the credit boom when private equity and hedge funds were filtering into movie production.  This means there might be a lull in 2010 for power-house 3D films (although this excites me, as it opens the door for indies to make another surge to the top).

But, in general, things do look good  for the 3D market, especially the cinema market, for the future.

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 8 /PRNewswire/ — Theatres equipped with RealD’s market-leading 3D cinema technology brought in nearly $16 million of the total box office for “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” in Disney Digital 3D(tm), which earned an estimated $31 million during its opening weekend. The RealD box office total accounted for over 50% of the weekend’s receipts.

“3D is transforming today’s cinema and RealD’s delivering over half of the opening weekend total shows that moviegoers everywhere are truly embracing RealD’s next-generation of 3D technology,” said Michael V. Lewis, chairman and CEO of RealD.

“PLANO, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: CNK), a leading motion picture exhibitor, today announced that two more Cinemark XD auditoriums, the company’s new large format digital solution, are scheduled to open at the Century 16 theatre in Anchorage, AK and the Century Evanston 18 theatre in Evanston, IL (Chicago area). Both Cinemark XD auditoriums will open on November 6^th with the highly anticipated movie Disney’s A Christmas Carol in Real-D 3D.” Read the full press release here.