Posted By
Marshal Rosenthal
February 3, 2012 at 7:23am
The adoption of any new technology, large or small, often encounters resistance. This can be from companies opposed to the technology, for example, buggy whip makers aghast at the “horseless carriage” or consumers who finally got used to 8 track cartridges and are now being told that digital optical discs are the “cat’s meow” in the world of audio. Regardless of the era, this resistance occurs and sometimes is even justified.
3D is an example of such justified resistance. No one can deny that the movie studios constantly “return to the well” when it comes to recycling the sale of he content they offer: films like Star Trek and ET and others have been put out on video tape before making their appearance on DVD and now Blu-ray. And for sure having to buy another copy on Blu-ray, this time with 3D-enabled content, can gall anyone tired of replacing their home movie library over and over again.
That’s why the “Cloud” -- the fancy name for online servers delivering content to you on demand – has so much appeal. Even as consumers have become accustomed to buying digital content that they download and store on a hard drive (or the memory of a portable device like a smartphone or tablet), they’re now being encouraged to forget about this and just keep the contents in the “Cloud” and then stream to view.
While we could dedicate a whole column on just the problems associated with streaming, versus having the “hard” content on hand on a disc, it would be futile to argue against the popularity of the “Cloud,” so we won’t. But we will argue for the inclusion of 3D.
3D hasn’t been given the boost into the “Cloud” as has been the case with digital content in general. Because there haven’t been downloadable 3D films, at least in any real numbers that I can find, it’s evolving into the “Cloud” having no place in the 3D world. That is not a good thing.
Of course the need for two video streams for 3D requires a double-duty approach, whether as a digital file on hand or a streaming digital file commandeered for a specific length of time before no longer being available. But either way, the lack of 3D in the digital realm for home viewing is causing 3D to lag behind as a viable form of the home theater experience, even more so than the whole “lack of compelling content” argument that continues to be made. While not bogus, anyone with a fair memory of the past can remember that same argument used against DVDs over videotapes. Or HD discs over DVDs. Or HDTVs over tube-models, for that matter.
The purveyors of content for home viewing need to include 3D in their digital content equation. By doing so, they won’t necessarily kill the sale of “hard” copies of 3D discs; so much as promote the validity of 3D as a component of the whole home viewing experience. That would be good for everybody.