ARCHIVED FORUM -- March 2012 to February 2022READ ONLY FORUM
This is the second Archived Forum which was active between 1st March 2012 and 23rd February 2022
Says there's not enough demand and viewers can't be bothered with it. Story here
Or in case the embedded link fails: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23195479
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Present: BL90, Core, BL6000, CD7000, Beogram 7000, Essence Remote.
Past: BL1, BL2, BL8000, BS9000, BL5, BC2, BS5, BV5, BV4-50, Beosystem 3, BL3, DVD1, Beoremote 4, Moment.
I'm not a gamer, but I'll note that some people have significant problems with simulator sickness gaming with large screens anyway, add 3D to it and I bet a lot more will have issues.We have had issues in the simulations I've worked on, some people can get remarkably ill so we took to keeping a bucket next to the users when they interacted with the simulation.
I don't think 3D is that good an effect unless the screen is so large that it fills your field of view significantly, mainly in a movie theater or an IMAX place. I've seen it on small displays, and I have no inclination to get the glasses even though my TV and BluRay player support it.
And I think movies that weren't shot in 3D but adapted later do significant damage to the format, they usually suck and don't help sell the thing. I've seen the best 3D has to offer, Peter Jackson's Hobbit, filmed at 48 fps and it was the best 3D I've ever seen, none of the artifacts I see in other ones, and to be honest for me it still was a "yeah that's cool for the first 15 minutes" kind of thing. Didn't really add to the movie, actually it can detract IMO, and I usually leave a 3D movie with a headache.
Jeff
I'm afraid I'm recovering from the BeoVirus.
I'm not a gamer and bought a 3D TV just over 1 year ago. Other than viewing for a few minutes in 3D for the novelty of it, that's been it. I've never watched a whole programme or a full movie in 3D. Before I bought the TV and experienced it properly at home, I really thought I'd dip in to it quite a bit and I was dismissive of those on this forum who forecast its demise. I've now joined their ranks and think this must be one of the most expensive technological flops since Betamax or Toshiba's HD DVD system.
If manufacturers introduce glasses-free 3D to the market they'll have a hell of job trying to convince consumers to buy into it.
I've never watched a 3D movie outside IMAX.
Too long to list....
Never enjoyed the sports 3D. It looked manufactured if you know what I mean? MUCH prefer the HD channels. Just like I enjoy Blu-Ray movies. To support 3D tech I would say there is still a future in animated movies or even documentaries.
A few years ago I said 3D sports wouldn't take off. Lo and behold. It looked manufactured if you know what I mean?
I think 3D is a gimmick. It makes you buying the telly for it. But after having spend several hours, you'll get something like, seen that, done that and move on..
I also think that 3D only works properly in cinema's. And even then your mind must be "capable" of handling all the incentives. I heared (read somewhere, can't quote) that a large percentage off the audience can't handle all the perceived (visual) info. And that's causing the headache, sickness feeling.
You cannot beat a good with with surround sound and nothing else.
I watch 3D at the cinema and that's it.
Smart TV's in general I think are a waste of time. My bv7 is smart enough.
After a few weeks of my tv can do this and that I'm sure everyone will sit and watch a few soaps and films.
Eclipse 65V1-32Beosound M5Essence MK2BLI
I only use the "smart tv" capability on my set to do Netflix streaming of shows. It works well, but I have no use for the Facebook, YouTube, or any of the other stuff.
I agree, surround sound makes a much larger improvement in home movie watching enjoyment than 3D.
Beosound Stage, Beovision 8-40, Beolit 20, Beosound Explore.
The main reason for 3d was to make pirating of films at Cinemas more difficult!
i cannot imagine the BBC could justify making content for this novelty market except special things to take advantage of the effect.
Beo Century ,Beoplay V1, Beocenter 6, Ex-Beolit 12, Beotime , A8. Beolit 15 , Form 2i , Beolab 2000, Beoplay A3.Beosound 1
Simonbeo: The main reason for 3d was to make pirating of films at Cinemas more difficult! i cannot imagine the BBC could justify making content for this novelty market except special things to take advantage of the effect.
Interesting theory and I'm not casting doubt upon it, but do you have any other references of opinions as to this reason for its introduction?
No proof but an appealing theory when I heard it!
Good theory, but the only problem with it is that every 3D movie I've seen advertised at the local movie theater also had a non 3D version playing at the next screen for a cheaper price. So far I've never seen a 3D only release.
The history of movie technology has been an interesting battle against consumer apathy and TV technology. Movies first abandoned 4:3 aspect ratio as TVs became increasingly popular and attendance dropped. Eventually of course we got letterboxed movies for TV and wide screen TVs. Same with surround sound, at first only in theaters, same with the old Sensuround, I think that's what it was called, that had huge subwoofers brought in. Midway, Rollercoaster, those were two such movies, and the first movie I ever saw with surround was Star Wars. Then surround sound hit the home market, and 3D came along to again try and boost sagging attendance figures, followed by 3D TVs.
I will say that for me anyway 3D did get me back into the theater, albeit only for two movies, The Hobbit and Star Trek Into Darkness. I usually much prefer to watch movies at home. Cheaper too. If you want to know why food and drink are so high in theaters I've heard that for the first few weeks all money from ticket sales for a movie goes to the studios, the only money the theater makes is from the concession stand. I love movies, movie theaters not so much.
I'd rather the BBC put the licence fee toward content, it has often led the technological charge and yet I'm not sure what return it gets from leading the field.
The BBC channels on Freeview are much better than their ITV equivalents, but how many people care and, even if they did, what option do they have if they want to watch the content offered?
625 lines lasted a very long time, current HD broadcasts are typically at 1080i which are a significant improvement. 1080P would be better still, and amply good enough for most lounge TV's / viewing distances. It is unlikely that the majority will have 85" or larger TV's and so I'd rather funds were spent on quality content than leading a technological charge that may result in little return.
Ban boring signatures!
Further thoughts - would 3D, 4K, HD or even colour have made Laurel & Hardy any funnier? Are movies made of stunts and special effects or stories and performances? How many remakes are actually better than their originals?
The TV manufacturers and the content providers obviously have a vested interest in selling you their latest TV's, and the same content over and over again as new DVD's, Blurays etc., but, come Christmas, the best movies are always "Wonderful Life" and "White Christmas" (although my daughter-in-law would make a (heavily disputed) claim for "Elf")!
The point being, most of the stuff I watch and enjoy, has nothing to do with the resolution of the picture, it's all about the content!! By all means have a suitable resolution to give indistinguishable picture quality on a given screen size (for new content) but recognise that your most favourite back catalogue is in "SD" and is none the worse for it!!
Puncher, you've captured my thoughts precisely! Too many movies and shows today are all about special effects and tricks and not about story, and characters that are fleshed out and believable. An example I often use is the first Star Trek movie, an almost three hour expansion on the Changling episode in the original series, state of the art effects for the day, and I barely stayed awake thru it. Contrast that with old Dr. Who episodes for example, delightfully entertaining with some of the most horrendous special effects ever. The story is what matters. Same for the old Christmas movies, although every year I have to watch the Blackadder Christmas episode as an antidote to the overly saccharin Yuletide fare.
And there is this insane obsession with resolution to the exclusion of almost everything else, particularly insane as unless you sit close to a huge screen you will never see any difference. You have people obsessing over 4K sets in 46 inches. This mindset is why you see absolutely excreable LCD sets with horrible contrast and motion artifacts sold, but by the gods they are 1080P!
The Imaging Science Foundation once did a rating of what mattered most and absolute resolution was down there below contrast/black level, color temperature accuracy/color accuracy, and gray scale accuracy. To this day even the best panels, local dimming LED backlight LCD or plasma, don't come close to the contrast of old CRTs.
Puncher:.... (although my daughter-in-law would make a (heavily disputed) claim for "Elf")!
LOL !!! Every Christmas Eve, I sit the wife and kids down, pop the popcorn, crack open the beers and soft drinks, dish out the sweets (candy to our American cousins) and press play... with Elf !!
Buddy is our regular Christmas Eve friend - we all love it !!
I agree wholeheartedly with Puncher et al on content.
There is a limit as to how frequently someone wants to see an artificial looking picture through special spectacles, with some images jumping from the screen.
3D still photography has an equally chequered history, although lenticular technology allowed the special spectacles to be done away with many years ago. Lenticular screens may yet appear on TVs, but who wants to sit alone precisely on the centreline of the screen?
Graham
Jeff: To this day even the best panels, local dimming LED backlight LCD or plasma, don't come close to the contrast of old CRTs.
Well - I would say that a good Plasma comes close to the contrast (and natural colours) of the CRT's.
-and to Simonbeo's earlier posting: I doubt that the reason for developing 3D was to make pirating in the Cinemas more difficult. I guess the reason was simply "because we can" - and offcourse to make Money.
I'm quite sure that "Avatar" would not have been such a big hit, if it wasn't because it was the first movie with the new advanced 3D technology (It has been tried a few times before). I know quite a few people who normally wouldn't watch a sci-fi movie, who went to see it in the Cinema only because of the big hype about this very expensive movie.
And, as many already have been pointing out; 3D (with the present technology) is not, and will never be, a big hit in 'home cinemas'. Today you can hardly buy a tv without 3D - but it's definitely not because of 3D that most people buy them.
Having gone from Plasma to LCD and now back to plasma, I'm almost saddened my the overwhelming LCD production compared to Plasma. LCD is great for a computer, but not so great for a TV.
I'd agree, the latest plasmas are very close on black level, maybe equal. And the gray scale and color on my Panasonic in THX mode both are close to spot on. Thinking more about it, I think the one area where there is still a noticeable difference is in how plasmas handle slow changes in brightness over large areas of the picture. They don't yet have the smooth, continuous decrease in intensity CRT can do, you tend to see steps that mar the effect. It's much better in my new panel than in the first ones by far but it's still noticeable.
Pit is sad that LCD seems to be crowding plasma out of the market, but it wouldn't be the first time a superior product lost the marketing wars...remember Betamax?
Jeff:Pit is sad that LCD seems to be crowding plasma out of the market, but it wouldn't be the first time a superior product lost the marketing wars...remember Betamax?
That is mentioned a lot, but in truth Betamax really wasn't that much superior. The only real technical specs it did far better than VHS was colour resolution and colour S/N, but those are both properties a layman watching a screen couldn't tell from his left foot. The real reasons for Betamax losing were licensing issues (cost to market) and the fact that Sony was slow to introduce the longer tapes that could hold an entire rental movie.
Things were the other way round in the professional market - RCA developed a component broadcast format from VHS (Hawkeye) which quickly lost the game to Sony's similar Betamax evolution, the Betacam. Betacam was later improved to Betacam SP, which was THE dominant broadcast format for as long as analogue equipment was used (and still is in many places). It was even carried over to the digital era as Digital Betacam and Betacam SX - and the smaller cassettes still share the form factor with the original Betamax cassette, although they don't have anything else in common any more.
(yeah yeah off topic, I just wrote this in the hope somebody would be interested )
Plasmas are in the margin now, and the main problem - very poor energy efficiency - remains. I doubt that much will be invested to their technical development any more, while LCDs are getting better all the time. This means that it is only a matter of time until plasma displays will be history from all but some specialiced applications.
--mika
Chris Townsend:If you look at how many stores have ditched them, and then compare like for like sales of the 10/11 series v the 12-65 it just goes to prove you can quote this that and the other about specs all you like, nobody's interested. I personally wouldn't swap my 11 for any plasma, but that's just me. Buy what makes you happy, and accept that others will disagree and buy what suits them. In the general publics case, that is LCD.
I personally wouldn't swap my 11 for any plasma, but that's just me. Buy what makes you happy, and accept that others will disagree and buy what suits them.
In the general publics case, that is LCD.
Well, the only problem is that the desires of what could be called either the general public or the great unwashed seem to overly influence the market. Most who are serious about audio will agree that Bose gear is fairly awful. No matter how much the average guy likes it, but Bose isn't pushing all other speaker approaches out of the market. Video displays require a lot more in the way of technology, research, and the like than speakers, so the decisions of a few major players can kill a superior technology.
And remember your BV11 is far and away better than the vast majority of LCD displays on the market. It rivals the best plasmas, but getting that level of performance out of even a non B&O LCD isn't cheap.
But then in the tube days it wasn't much better, the sets that sold were the eye searingly bright and over saturated and not the accurate ones. Back then at dealers that sold both you almost couldn't give a B&O tube set away, they were actually nicely setup. I'm hoping a new and better tech comes along, like OLED, that gets cheap enough but still offers better performance than plasma. Fortunately I just got my VT series plasma so hopefully can let a few years pass to see what happens before needing a new set.
As for the Beta info, interesting! Been so long since then I'm not sure I ever knew the specifics. I do recall allegedly slightly higher resolution, and the licensing costs and shorter tapes conspiring to hand victory to JVC and VHS. At least what I recall reading back in the day. Back then I was just happy to have any VCR period.
"The real reasons for Betamax losing were licensing issues (cost to market) and the fact that Sony was slow to introduce the longer tapes that could hold an entire rental movie."
I saw a TV show that said the real reason VHS won that war is that the adult film industry embraced VHS, and the rest is history...not that I want to start a flap about porn.
symmes:I saw a TV show that said the real reason VHS won that war is that the adult film industry embraced VHS
Well... "rental movie"...
That was a huge industry back then and I'm sure it was the driving force behind many technological advances and commercial decisions. The internet has mostly killed physical media delivery for that though, and I'm not sure it'll push the more recent tech gimmics forward any more. 3D and 4K... eww
For broadcast equipment, the deciding factor was that the transport mechanics of Beta derivatives were much faster in changing modes than VHS (even after the so called "turbo" VHS transports came out). Especially in sports broadcasts, every split second counts, and you can't have the VTRs rattling away trying to make up their mind where to go next, when the director is yelling in your ear to dig up that previous goal for slomo. That has been on hard disks for more than a decade now, though...
HD porn...you're right, ewww. Some things weren't meant to be seen too clearly, although 3D could be outright frightening. Duck!
But from articles I've read that industry has always been on the cutting edge of new distribution technology, be it video tape or Internet.
Good insights you post from the broadcasting world, speed of access would definitely seem critical. Speaking of tape, back when there were no tape delays to let the networks censor things the story I heard about how Groucho Marx and You Bet Your Life got thrown off the air is probably apochryphal but here goes.
He had a woman contestant on who when asked about her life said she had twelve kids. Twelve kids, twelve kids?! Groucho kept aslking over and over. Finally she got miffed and said "yes, my husband and I love each other very much, what's so unusual about that?" Groucho replied "gee lady, I love my cigar too but I take it out once and a while!"
Like I said, probably an urban legend, but also completely in character. When I lost my DVR from the satellite company one of the things I really miss is I had a recording of *** Cavett's interview with Groucho.
Back to the original topic, I occasionally see the 3D available logo pop up on my TV on a show, but it's extremely rare, like I've only seen it a couple of times in 6 months. But then I don't watch sports, so it may be more associated with that.
Felfraa, don't let the door hit you on your way out.
bayerische: Felfraa, don't let the door hit you on your way out.
EDIT: solved, back to topic
hx
Heh.
I work in the TV industry. The big annual show is NAB. In 2009/2010, all the vendors were either selling 3D stuff or announcing it or stretching whatever features their product had to stress that it was 3D compatible.
I predicted the whole thing would fall flat. My colleagues in the industry, being largely led by "trendy" people (i.e., people fixated on trends), rolled up their eyes. Fear is a powerful incentive, and most people in the biz are deathly afraid to appear out of synch with the times.
Anyway, at NAB this year there was hardly a peep about 3D. Sony still had an exhibit with very complex, eye-tracking tech which enables 3D viewing without glasses. Of course, only one person at a time can watch the screen.
The whole thing is dead. I always thought B&O was making a mistake by getting into it.
I suspect a lot of the technology for 3D, at least from B&Os perspective, came with the panels/glass they were buying. Probably wasn't much more complexity from their end, a lot of the circuitry undoubtedly came from whoever they were buying glass from. Better to have it than not I'd guess, though as you say not very useful or popular.
If they didn't we'd hear no end of how this was the end for B&O as they weren't keeping up with modern technology trends and other complaining. Damned if you do...damned if you don't.
I do know that my Panasonic has it, but I've not felt even slightly tempted to shell out 22 US bucks for even one pair of glasses (that's for the Samsung ones that work with the Panasonic and are about a third of the price of the Panasonic ones).
the only 4k product of ANY importance will be the new apple tv