CES 2008: Life in the third dimension

Though it's a challenge to identify significant trends in the hardware at this year's CES, there's one that has been creeping up on us for a few years and could break through as the "next big thing"—if the industry gets it right. It's 3-D TV.

Digital TVs have gotten big, bright and sharp enough, by anyone's measure. But, though sales have been anything but flat, the picture on the screen still is. Movie and game producers would like to change that, and bring the enveloping visual experience you might have seen in a 3-D IMAX film into your living room.

Presented well, as in a few of the CES demonstrations we've watched, 3-D can be strikingly effective in drawing you closer to the action, adding realism and depth to scenes, especially ones portraying movement towards or away from the viewer. The degree of 3-D's enhancement to video is much like the move from monophonic sound to stereo was in the 1950's, at least in this viewer's experience.

The "magic" needed for 3-D is simply to have a slightly different view of the content presented to your left and right eyes, just as you see in real life. The technology is actually waiting, in some new TVs from big makers like Samsung and Mitsubishi, labeled "3D-Ready." These DLP or plasma TVs can show successive images fast enough to allow alternating right-eye and left-eye views while keeping the motion smooth. (LCD TVs are currently unable to switch images quickly enough for this kind of 3-D.)

Two more devices need to be added on to a 3D-Ready TV to complete the picture. First, you need special glasses that can rapidly switch each lens from clear to opaque in sync with the TV images. Second, you need a special DVD player—or game console, or PC adapter—that can feed the 3-D content to the TV. We expect to see the home-theater and gaming industries trickle out add-on systems—perhaps later this year—that will enable 3-D viewing.

Of course, you'll need to have the content itself. Some movies already "in the can," both animated ones like Polar Express and live-action ones like Beowulf, were produced in 3-D versions. These movies will probably be released on 3-D-enabled Blu-Ray discs.

And, most games produced today, for either computers or game consoles, are easily adapted for 3-D presentation. In fact, there are already several technologies being applied to computer displays that can present game graphics in 3-D. (Our upcoming tests of displays will include one of these.) Each of these technologies has its limitations, and it remains to be "seen" which ones prove to be practical and effective enough to catch on.

—Dean Gallea, Senior Program Leader

—Paul Eng