Here's my prediction. I think the industry it going to make a big push for 3D. I think the televisions and accessories that support 3D will be ubber cool. And I think the 3D effect will blow us all away. But ultimately, I think 3D will travel the same road SuperAudio and DVD Audio did... I don't think the masses will buy into it permanently.
I say this because I don't think the majority of people will want to have to wear glasses everytime they sit down to watch a program. It's just too complicated. How much will the glasses cost anyway? After all they're pretty hi-tech themselves. I know over the years they'd come down until eventually they cost a dime a dozen, but it's the upstart that concerns me. Families wont want to have to shell out $100 bucks per pair if there are 5 or more people in the house. And do you have to provide an additional 2 - 6 pair for any guests that might come over, or are they expected to bring their own? Sports bars will face this issue, do they bare the expense of supplying everyone in the joint a pair of glasses so they can watch ESPN, constantly replacing missing or broken pairs? Or do we all have to carry around 3D gasses with us everywhere we go just in case? Plus kids will inevitably break them constantly, loose them, fight over the coolest pair, etc...
Then there's the problem with people who already wear glasses, how will they watch comfortably? Then there's the cool factor, kids 13 to 19 won't be caught dead in them unless Oakley makes them. And then there's the cost of buying everything involved to bring it into your living room. We all know how few people actually own a decent reciever and surround system as it is. Having to buy a $3000 dollar television, $1000+ reciever, and a new $250+ DVD player isn't going to be on many people's priority list, not in the 90's economy, and expecially not in the present economy. Does anyone here remember them talking about the digital switchover originally being as far back as 2004? They wanted to do it far sooner than they eventually did. But they simply couldn't because the vast majority of people refused to run out and replace their analog only television to comply with the new digital standard.
So 6 years later, when most have finally made the switch from analog to digital, do you think they're ready to switchover again from regular digital to 3D digital? Think again. If the 3D format accepts it's initial role as a very,very small one, one that only the highest of the high end crowd will buy into for... perhaps a decade or better, and is willing to exist as a luxury and not as the standard, then perhaps it will survive until eventually the costs of the technology is so low it's incorporated into everything... like stereo sound v/s mono for instance (can you remember the first TV you bought that boosted it was a STEREO TV? Can you even buy a mono TV anymore???), then perhaps one day we will all own a 3D TV. But if they expect everyone to buy into it immediately, and aren't prepared to support it through a long, unprofitable period... then it will probably die like SuperAudio did.
It doesn't matter how much better it is than standard TV. SuperAudio is noticably better than standard stereo, the masses simply didn't care. The hassle to bring SuperAudio into one's home was just too much for the average consumer. My guess it'll be no diffeent for 3D. And I for one agree with Jake, I don't wear glasses except for sunglasses, and that's only to protect my eye's from the sun. I don't want to have to put glasses on to watch TV. Every once in a great while to see a cool movie is one thing... to watch Sport Center every other hour is completely different. Not for me.
