3D at home still a tough sell

Even if "Piranha 3D" has a modestly successful box-office debut this weekend, it could in the long run do more damage to the hopes of 3D TV makers than good.
The more 3D movies available, the better is what the consumer electronics industry's strongest proponents of 3D would say. After all, the more opportunities to demonstrate the technology to people and sell the 3D Blu-ray copy later is in their interests. But a horror movie starring three-dimensional carnivorous fish, and similarly schlocky uses of the technology could be a setback.
The industry that's trying to convince people to buy TVs and Blu-ray players capable of re-creating the 3D theater experience at home are already fighting the perception that 3D is a short-lived trend, a rehash of past failed technology, and worse, a gimmick.
That and other roadblocks to TV buyers embracing the still-nascent technology was part of a panel discussion about the future of 3D here at the DisplaySearch TV Ecosystem conference on Wednesday.
"Making 3D movies is relatively easy. Making good 3D is hard," said Mike Abary, Sony senior vice president of Home Electronics. "We have to do a very good job as an industry to ensure quality 3D is brought to the consumer otherwise it will just be considered a gimmick by consumers."
He didn't refer to "Piranha 3D" specifically, but it's hard not to connect the dots when the horror movie is the highest-profile example of an intentionally campy execution of 3D.
"The end game is to make (3D) not a special effect but a key resource in the storyteller's tool kit," said Phil Lelyveld, who manages the Consumer 3D Experience Lab at the Entertainment Technology Center @ USC.
That means getting to a place where 3D is done subtly and in a way that makes entertainment "immersive," the panelists agreed.