James Cameron . . . oh he of the 3D zealotry . . . has predicted that we will have mass market glasses-free 3D TV within the next eight to ten years. See http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/36587/james-cameron-predicts-autostereoscopic-3dtv for one report on his talk to the folks who are the movers and shakers of entertainment medium. Of course, in terms of technology, that’s the schedule we’ve been seeing elsewhere, with many of the breakthroughs already occurring that will drive the technology. Cameron is absolutely dead on when he says it is not movies that will push 3D TV but television, music, and sports . . . I would add games into that mix as well. There really isn’t enough 3D content right now to drive the purchasing of expensive 3D television systems yet but once we see a couple major networks make the switch to broadcasting we’ll see an explosion in purchases – ohhh, Catch 22 as they won’t make that switch until they already have hardware penetration in peoples’ homes.

Cameron is correct . . . well, at least I agree with him . . . the recent 3D boom is not a flirtation, it’s an embrace. Of course, things can still dive into abysmal failure . . . especially if the content and hardware don’t get their acts together and accelerate availability. If there are only a few titles available people won’t buy the machines but if they don’t buy the machines there won’t be more titles and producers could assume that 3D doesn’t sell when 3D will sell fine . . . actually, amazingly well . . . but only when there’s plenty of content to justify the purchase.

Seriously, you can only watch the 3D version of Avatar (just released, but only if you buy a particular 3D TV and Bluray setup) so many times and while you can always put in the 3D version of This Ain’t Avatar XXX (the porn parody, out in 3D now) before you get bored and need something else. Sure folks like me with our own 3D cameras that also shoot video can play around with our own home made content but everyone wants big budget quality content to justify their purchases of expensive sets and players. So, the appropriate strategy might be to stop with all these damned blasted exclusivity deals and start flooding content and pushing the sale (even subsidized or undercut) of professional 3D production equipment to the content creators and encourage them to switch from the current regular and HD streams they broadcast in to triple stream of regular, HD, and 3DHD and get this puppy movin’.

All the best,
Brian