3ality

The current wave of 3D films is a sucker's bet.

You've probably experienced it yourself: After slapping down a significant premium on movie tickets and sliding on your 3D glasses, you're treated not to a visual feast but a feeling of intense dissatisfaction. For many films, the 3D effects are barely there; in others, the post-production conversion actually makes it worse. … Read more

Starting later this year, subscribers to the U.K.'s Sky HD television services will have access to a third dimension of entertainment.

Sky will be broadcasting content in 3D through its Sky+HD set-top boxes, the third such channel announced in recent days. Sky will follow ESPN and Discovery, both of whom announced joint partnerships on dedicated 3D TV channels with Sony at CES 2010 last week.

Sky's 3D channel will be the joint effort of BSkyB and 3ality Digital, the company behind last year's 3D broadcasts of NBC's Chuck episode, an NFL game, and the … Read more

The rise of 3D technology for movies and television will force a change in how directors tell stories.

Say good-bye to gut-wrenching drops off cliffs and swoops through asteroid fields to call attention to 3D effects. Be prepared for directors to use slower pans, less cutting, and more deliberate camera moves to blend the technology into the story. These new 3D movies may look boring in 2D, but they'll end up feeling more engaging when seen in three dimensions.

"Unfortunately, the history of 3D is bad 3D," says Sandy Climan, CEO of 3ality, a company that makes, as he calls it, "end-to-end technologies from image capture to processing" for three-dimensional entertainment. The technology hasn't been up to snuff until recently, he says. He claims his company's tech is leagues better, naturally. But the art hasn't advanced, either, and no amount of technology can fix that. Directors need new rules.

I talked with Climan about the changes coming to cinematography and television in the move to 3D, as well as to Didier Debons and Isabelle de Montagu, CEO and business development manager of 3DTV Solutions, which makes 3D video recording products, and Tuyen Pham, CEO of A-volute, a 3D audio encoding company. The short takeaway: if you're in the video or entertainment business, forget what you know about directing and editing. 3D changes everything.

Think 3D is a gimmick and that professional cinematographers and television directors don't take it seriously? Financials, Climan says, dispute this. 3D films in 3D theaters gross two to five times what the 2D versions of those films do. Commercials in 3D yield better recall rates. And it's not just the novelty factor, Climan says. If so, the trend would have faded. Grosses for 3D films are growing.

"The family movie business has largely moved to 3D," Climan continues, pointing to films like "Journey to the Center of the Earth," "Coraline," and "Up"--the last two having being taken far more seriously than standard 3D matinee fare. On the grownup front, Climan says that for sports and concerts, there's nothing like the 3D movie or TV experience. The upcoming James Cameron film, "Avatar" is a 3D production and is expected to be a watershed for mainstream 3D entertainment.

For now, the growth of 3D looks inevitable. The next step for the medium, after family films and fantastic blockbusters, is for 3D to move into independent and artisan films. Climan thinks the technology is becoming straightforward enough to make that likely.

… Read more

Correction: This post initially misstated the company providing the tracking technology being used to provide security and safety for NFL personnel. The company is US Fleet Tracking.

At its core, football represents the polar opposite of technology: A bunch of large men run around a field, battling for position and the control of a small pigskin ball.

Of course, the production of an actual NFL game requires lots of technology--from the headsets coaches use to communicate, to the computers used to calculate statistics to the HD cameras that record the contest for the viewing audience.

When it comes to the … Read more

After months of hearing about it, I finally went to see the new film, U2 3D today, full of anticipation that for the first time in my life, I would be able to actually see the 3D effects in a film.

A little background: I have strabismus, better known to some as "lazy eye," a condition that, among other things, means that I don't have normal, binocular vision, like most people.

In daily life, this condition means very little. I can drive, hit a baseball, probably even fly a plane. I do see a little bit differently … Read more

A few months ago I wrote that one of the hottest tickets at this year's Cannes Film Festival was U2 3D, a 3D concert film about the popular band made using the technology of two companies helping to make 3D films a regular part of the movie going experience: 3ality and Real D.

Now, U2 3D is set to be accessible even to those of us who couldn't make it to the Riveria to hobnob with Leo and Bobby and the rest of the gang.

According to a release I got this morning from National Geographic Cinema Ventures, … Read more