There’s a growing amount of buzz about 3D television, which seems strange given many consumers are still enthusiastically buying large-screen LCD and plasma televisions.
In any event, 3D seems to be attracting a lot of chatter but here’s something not getting a lot of TV: If you watch 3D television, you can’t do anything else.
So, what’s the big deal about not being able to do anything else but watch TV?
Well, when most people watch TV, they’re also doing other things – reading, eating, surfing the Web on a laptop, knitting, exercising, etc. The problem is it will be difficult to do most of these other things when watching 3D television because you have to wearing special glasses that make it difficult to see anything other than the TV.
So even though many of us our couch potatoes, we’re multi-tasking couch potatoes who may be challenged to focus on doing just one thing. Unless 3D improves, the inability to multi-task may be the killer blow to 3D television. At the very least, it may keep 3D to being a niche service for special events such as sports and some movies.
For more thoughts on the challenges facing 3D TV, check out James Brumley in Investopedia.
I had a chance to see and use the Sony 3D television and PS3 while down in Vegas (they have a setup to demonstrate it at the MGM). It was impressive. The television 3D was subtle; really more of an increased depth perception. I watched a demo reel that showed some soccer games and it was really quite interesting to see players seemingly standing closer to you and others further away. There was also an excellent nature show they ran for me and it was again very subtle but effective.
In the end though, to your point, I think the content has to be compelling otherwise things like multi-tasking will definitely impede the adoption / utilization of 3D in the home. If the content isn’t strong, the added subtle 3D nature of the programming won’t compel people to keep the glasses on.
Great post!