With now-regular releases of 3D feature-length movies like Journey to the Center of the Earth, Bolt, and the upcoming My Bloody Valentine 3-D, it’s only a matter of time before we’re all enjoying 3D content in the comfort of our living rooms…

3D at Home

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is right around the corner, beginning on Thursday, January 8, and I suspect that a large number of 3D displays and equipment will be shown off. As high-definition televisions work their way into the home environment, the next step is to take that crisp, clear 2-dimensional picture and bring it into 3D space.

Several companies have already begun the process of trying to make 3D technology common. I purchased a 56″ Samsung DLP HDTV around 1.5 years ago that I knew featured 3D capability of some sort, though I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. DLP.com’s somewhat vague Web site offers a little bit of information on how to hook up such a display to a computer for 3D gaming with a select number of games. Not exactly what I had in mind when I thought of 3D content.

However, when I visited the 2008 International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) convention in Orlando, I stumbled across a company’s booth that was demoing 3D content on such a DLP television… but they weren’t showing off some silly game. Instead, using a pair of shutter glasses (electronic glasses that receive an infrared signal to quickly open and close shutters over each eye in sync with the picture), they were displaying clips from Journey to the Center of the Earth in full-color, full 3D. No headache-inducing red/blue anaglyph glasses here. It was true 3D content, in high-definition, on a consumer-level television set. I immediately recognized this as the future of home entertainment.

Recently, Disney has pushed 3D in theaters with their Disney Digital presentations of most of their animated feature-length films. Pixar will release all of its future films in 3D, including re-releasing the original Toy Story and Toy Story 2 to theaters. But when it came to 3D at home, Disney resorted distributing free red/blue anaglyph glasses to present Miley Cyrus’ Best of Both Worlds Concert, as almost no one currently has the necessary equipment to view either polarized or shutter-based 3D content at home.

In the upcoming Superbowl, a red/blue 3D commercial for the film Monsters vs Aliens will premiere. Here’s a trailer with information on where to pick up the glasses:

But this is still resorting to decades-old technology to deliver 3D content to the average home viewer. Fortunately, Dolby Laboratories Inc. is working to change all of that:

From reuters.com:

Dolby says it is currently talking with content providers about encoding its digital 3-D technology into Blu-ray movies. It declined to identify potential partners. The company is also working on getting its technology used in 3-D video games.

In its push into home 3-D, Dolby will face stiff competition in a nascent market. Many companies at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas will be showcasing various ways to bring 3-D into the living room.

[…]

Dolby’s home 3-D technology is designed so viewers would not be required to buy additional hardware, he said. It would work on any 3-D enabled TV — currently available from companies including Mitsubishi and Samsung — with a standard Blu-ray player.

Most 3-D entertainment requires the use of glasses, from simple polarized lens to costly pairs with extremely fast-moving shutters. Dolby said its technology would support whichever glasses the TV manufacturer specifies.

So the good news is that 3D content is definitely on its way home. The bad news is that its path is a long one. With the upcoming digital television transition still confusing many consumers and HDTV only in around one-third of American homes, high-definition 3D content is still several technology leaps away.