Washington, D.C. (January 13, 2009) -- While visiting CES last week, I had the opportunity to check out two HDTV events in 3D, the National Championship BCS game on January 8 and a 3D experience presented by Panasonic at the show.

While both demonstrations showed some promise, I must say that the future of 3D HD technology in the home is far from clear. 

The BCS game showed the pros and cons of the 3D experience. The BCS broadcast  was beamed to several theaters around the country including a theater at the Paris Hotel in Vegas. The broadcast was completely independent of the broadcast shown on Fox with different announcers and completely different camera angles.

It was the camera angles used to show the game which was what I found the most unnerving thing about the broadcast. It appears that the 3D effect is not as noticeable the farther away the 3D camera is from the action. Therefore, in order to maximize the 3D effect, the broadcast used several cameras that were either on the sidelines or in the first couple of rows in the stands shooting over the heads to the Florida bench.

From these low angles, the 3D effect was very impressive, showing great depth. The problem is that the sideline of a football game is one of the worst vantages from which to watch a game which is why most offensive and defensive coordinators choose to view the game from the press box.

The camera placement choices designed to really show off the 3D effect also made the game very difficult to watch and enjoy, which is the whole point of televised sports in the first place. The cameras were so close to the field that often times, the end result of the play was not in one's field of view.  Many times, the quarterback would drop back to pass and throw and you would not see whether the pass was completed, dropped or intercepted and would instead have to watch a reply from another angle to see what happened. 

This was due to a couple of factors, the narrow field of vision of the cameras as well as the fact that the camera could not see through the players standing on the sidelines when the camera operator would pan to follow the play. The shots taken from above the action during a normal broadcast simply did not have the depth of the lower shots so I can see why they wanted to use the lower shots.

The more traditional press box shot at the 50 yard line looked barely 3D and lacked much in the way of the wow factor that the lower shots conveyed. However, the decision to do so really made the game a chore to watch. I couldn't help but think while watching the game that I would have been much better off watching the game on a large flat panel screen.

Before 3D technology is used on a regular basis for televised sports, especially football, there are quite a few bugs that need to be worked out. The placement of cameras is issue number one for me. Another issue is the use of the polarized glasses. If you are like me and already wear glasses, putting another set of glasses over them to watch an event is a real pain. If you don't wear glasses already, donning a pain to watch TV is a pain as well. For a special event or movie at the theater it is OK but to have to use the 3D glasses at home to watch TV just seems like a hard sell to me. 

Another issue that needs to be worked out  dovetails into the issue of camera placement is the effect that quick camera panning has on the 3D image. Each time the camera had to make a quick pan or movement to follow the action, the image on screen would jump and move around in a circle to the point that you though there was something wrong with your eyes. Until this issue is resolved either through improvements to the technology itself or through better camera placement, it seems to me that the use of 3D technology for fast paced sports is problematic at best and best left to movies. 

As for the Panasonic event, a recorded segment featuring movie trailers and sports was shown on Panasonic's 103-inch plasma sets in a rather small room. All in all, this was a much better experience due to the fact that there was no camera placement or motion issues as the content was carefully selected to show off the benefits of 3D. 

While those benefits were obvious to every viewer, the wearing of glasses for the effect was still bothersome and frankly a bit fatiguing. Even though the demonstration lasted about 10 minutes, I found the whole experience to be fatiguing resulting in a good bit of eye strain.

While the 3D effect is impressive, I can't see at this stage in the technology, 3D having much of a future in the home environment. Until the issues described above are worked out, I see 3D HD's immediate future (i.e. the next 5 years of so) limited to special events at a local theater rather that at home, or at least, the homes of all but the most wealthiest of Americans.

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