3D DVD: Not Ready for Prime Time

I have a passion for 3D movies -- no mere like or love, but a real passion. Last year’s Beowulf 3D still burns in my memory as one of the most enjoyable entertainments I have experienced in the past four or five years. U2 3D wasn’t nearly as good, but it showed tremendous potential for the medium. This summer I’ve seen Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, and it, too, showed more promise than fulfillment. The story was lame (I definitely do not recommend that you watch the 2D version), and the overall appearance was a bit dark and murky. Still, there were plenty of good thrill effects, with things thrown right in your face, and rocks hovering in space over the audience.

Many more 3D movies are in the works, all using one of the new digital formats. My money is on those being directed by James Cameron, who is such a big fan that he’s said he’ll shoot all his current and future projects in 3D. Cameron’s Titanic was the most financially successful film of all time, and the director has always been interested in technical development. If anyone can make 3D sing with a title that fully realizes its potential, it’s this forward-thinking artist.

While it seems inevitable that 3D will eventually come to DVD, there are some serious technical hurdles to jump first. For one, few monitors have the ultrasharp convergence that any 3D process would require. So far, 3D films have been transferred to DVD using the cyan/red-lens method, which distorts colors and renders every scene in something close to midnight, as far as light goes. The latest Robert Rodriguez movie, Spy Kids 3D, wasn’t all that successful in the theater, and was a disaster on 3D DVD. Last month, Disney released the concert film Hannah Montana: Best of Both Worlds on 3D DVD. It played in theaters in February in excellent digital 3D, and that might be what viewers buying the DVD will expect. Instead, they’ll get the cyan/red-lens treatment. This does everyone a disservice. Viewers won’t be happy with it, and in the long run, such low quality gives 3D a bad name.

One reason 3D movies aren’t drawing capacity crowds is that, for many moviegoers, 3D is a bad memory. All they’ve seen are the two-color disasters -- or, going further back, the original two-projector films merged onto a single strip of film and shown in a process so dark that everything seemed to happen after 8 p.m. Moreover, these processes gave everyone a literal headache. The new 3D processes don’t, but it will take some time for moviegoers to rid themselves of their low opinion of the lesser 3D systems.

Surprisingly for a company that has always been at the forefront of technical development, Disney has stumbled with Hannah Montana, only further supporting the idea that 3D in general is a badly flawed process that’s little more than a novelty. 3D on DVD is not yet ready for prime time, so why do it? It’s a bad deal for everyone.

There’s light at the end of the deep 3D tunnel. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE), which is responsible for the familiar color bars we use so often to adjust our sets, has established a task force to "define the parameters of a stereoscopic 3D mastering standard for content viewed in the home." The organization has announced that in six months they will deliver a report that will address the issues, challenges, minimum standards, and evaluation standards that will prepare the way for the establishment of standards for 3D.

But that’s all in the works, so let’s not jump the gun. Why don’t we just agree to release no more 3D titles on DVD until SMPTE has done its homework? I’m not sure that I think 3D will work at home even when there is a standard (the size of the screen figures greatly in my prediction), but at least we shouldn’t have to put up with bad interim projects such as Best of Both Worlds. Taking a cue from that film’s title, for the moment it would be best to produce movies that make the best use of more fully realized technologies, and to save 3D for a time when the technology is available to do it right. That time is probably not that far off.

. . . Rad Bennett
radb@hometheatersound.com

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