Does Latest 3-D TV Rival the Movies? Movieline Takes It For a Test Spin

The 3-D explosion of the 1950s -- and its re-emergence in the 21st century - had a very specific economic agenda in mind; namely, to get people to stop watching their TVs and to drag themselves out to the movies. But will the new 3-D TVs take away the last special perk that movie theaters have to offer?

To find out, I ventured to the Sony Style store at Los Angeles' Beverly Center to check things out for myself. And I brought along my friend Dave C., who's one of the biggest early-adopters I know when it comes to gadgets and technology. (He also designs theme-park attractions, so he knows all about 3-D. He's been known to see 3-D movies multiple times at different theaters to see which screening process works best.)

We turned on the Sony 3-D glasses and looked at a Bravia LED/LCD HDTV that was showing Deep Sea, a documentary about ocean life that screened in IMAX theaters. I was immediately impressed with the way that the plankton looks like it's flying off the screen and into my face -- what Dave C. tells me is the "Z-axis" -- when Dave observes, "Well, here's a problem. These glasses already feel heavy on my nose."

The Sony glasses are battery-powered, and thus heavier than the sunglasses-like Real-D peepers you get in movie theaters. (I hadn't noticed the weight of the Sony glasses because they were resting on the eyeglasses I already wear.)

My first quibble with the system comes when I tilt my right ear down to my right shoulder, and everything goes flat. Dave explains, "A lot of 3-D requires your eyes, and therefore your head, to be in perfect alignment. Most eyestrain or headaches that people get from 3-D isn't from the images being fuzzy; it's from the muscles in your head and neck trying to keep your eyes locked into position. Some of the more current theatrical 3-D systems like Real-D and Dolby Digital use techniques that allow your head to be slightly off-axis but still maintain a sharp image. So you can slouch and still see 3-D. Imagine sitting at home and having to remain perfectly upright for the running time of Avatar -- it might even be more of a problem at home, since we're used to slouching on the couch to get comfortable."

But as long as you keep your head still, the 3-D is crisp and stunning. Even Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which looked choppy and retrofitted on the big screen, has a real sharpness to it. "The people who edit the 3-D movies probably work on monitors like this one," observes Dave. "So it's probably designed to look better on a smaller screen than in theaters."

If you're looking really hard, there are visual imperfections to be found -- in high-contrast moments, there's a bit of "ghosting" on the 3-D images, but that's something that always happens in 3-D, no matter what the format. Still, as Dave points out, "I've bought many different brands of TVs in the past, and now I always buy Sony, so I'm sure this at-home format looks better here than anywhere else."

The Sony Style store offers only a handful of 3-D titles -- Disney's A Christmas Carol and Sony's Monster House and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, among others -- but the demo we see at the store includes a USC football game shot in 3-D as a demo for ESPN, some extraordinary aquarium footage, and coverage of Rio's Carnavale parade. Dave and I talk about how high-definition TV, and even movies shown that way, is so crisp-looking as to look like video and not film, but that we're also one of the last generations who will probably make that visual distinction.

Dave's final verdict? "I'm lusting after this stuff -- but I'm gonna wait," he told me. "It's just too expensive to shell out $100 for each pair of glasses. It's nice that the store gives you two pair free with the purchase of a TV, but if you want to have friends over, you'll need to invest in more. And besides -- do we really know if Blu-Ray is the future? Are Sony and Netflix going to start streaming 3-D content? It's still too early for me."