Wednesday, October 23, 2013

The Short Life of the 3D TV Trend

A few years ago, it appeared that the next big trend in video technology would be 3D viewing.  The manufacturers and sellers of TVs were enthusiastically marketing new 3D-capable sets, while content providers were lining up to announce plans for 3D programming. However, continuing lackluster sales of 3D sets and recent announcements—like the one in June from ESPN, an early and prominent enthusiast for 3D technology, that it was going to discontinue its pioneering 24/7 3D channel—indicate that reality took a sharp left turn somewhere on its way to the promised future of 3D TV. What happened?

As is usually the case with new technologies, the failure of 3D TV to really take off is not the result of any one factor, but due to a combination of issues. The first issue is that adding 3D capability to a TV makes it more expensive to manufacture, which means it is not free, but a feature that consumers must pay extra to get. This, by itself, wouldn’t be an insurmountable issue, if the extra capability provided an obvious benefit (like HD over older SD technology), but some viewers find the 3D experience annoying,  uncomfortable, or even distressing, while the rest tend to regard it, at most, as suitable only for special occasions. So getting consumers to pay extra for a feature they believe will be rarely if ever used has proven to be a hard sell. This lack of everyday viewers, in turn, has translated to poor ratings for new 3D channels, resulting in announcements from the provider side of the TV equation like the recent one by ESPN discontinuing their service.

The combination of extra cost, limited usefulness, and little (but still declining) programming has conspired to perpetually maintain 3D TV in its status as a technology of the future. To be sure, there is some research being done to surmount the biggest obstacle keeping 3D TV from being an everyday technology, namely, the need to wear special glasses. Whatever the merits or demerits of different types of glasses (active or passive), by their mere existence, 3D glasses frustrate any semblance of normal TV viewing by preventing multi-tasking and hindering normal social interaction. Only if glasses can be entirely eliminated will it be time to reopen the discussion of the future of 3D TV on new and more promising grounds.

Pending that breakthrough, however, other newer technologies hold much more promise as a realistic future for TV. We’ll take some time in our next blogs to examine the particular advantages of 4K and UHD standards, and how Telairity fits into the adoption of those technologies.  Make sure you stop back here for more of the latest information on interesting trends within video technology – you won’t be disappointed!