CES has always been about seeing which way the various consumer companies are jumping. With the rise of 3D television this years CES has seen a marked increase in the number of units sporting 3D as standard. Whilst the manufacturers will almost certainly release cheaper versions without the 3D capability, at CES pretty much every brand has a strong 3D presence.
3D television hasn’t really taken off in a huge way, there are a number of barriers to adoption that have hindered it, namely:
- high price of 3D capable televisions, at least compared to similar TVs without 3D.
- use of glasses that limit the number of people who can watch, the majority of sets require glasses, and if you need active shutters they’re also incredibly expensive to buy.
- confusing options, the majority of the TV using world doesn’t understand Active/Passive technology, viewing cones or the myriad of other options that come with 3D.
- Scarcity of 3D content, there are more films being produced in 3D and many countries now have 3D capable satellite/cable programming – but it’s still a very small percentage overall. Despite the claims made by entertainment companies at the last two E3’s there still isn’t a huge trade in 3D ready games titles either.
This year the manufacturers seem ready to address most of these issues:
- by making 3D an almost standard option the price difference between 3D and non 3D sets has shrunk to almost nothing
- many more glasses free sets were shown at CES this year, with a much wider viewing angle.
- the sets themselves are getting smarter with much wider options for automatically setting up things, plus the industry seems to be moving more to glasses free or passive glasses – cutting the options and confusion down.
- There isn’t much the manufacturers can do about this, but if the sales of 3D televisions pick up then more 3D content will be produced. Most of the TVs shown have in-built media options, such as film streaming, so that should help deliver 3D content. The ability to ‘fake’ 3D content from a 2D source has massively improved with this new generation too. Like the adoption of HD before it, the industry will be looking to the games industry to push the standard – Microsoft’s adoption of HD in it’s 360 console almost single handedly kick started the HD revolution in several countries – especially the UK.
There are always going to be people who don’t value the addition of 3D to home TV, myself included, but CES has shown us that the industry certainly expects it to be a major part for the foreseeable future.