10 Big Tech Advances in Television

By Tracy V. Wilson, HowStuffWorks.com

Groovy Glasses

Wondering how digital 3-D compares to those old, red-and-blue glasses? Find out in this article from HowStuffWorks.com: How is digital 3-D different from old 3-D movies?

1. 2007 and Beyond: Digital 3-D
The popularity of 3-D has waxed and waned for almost 100 years. Before now, its most recent surge took place in the early 1980s. Watching a 3-D movie then required a set of glasses with one red and one blue lens. Without the glasses, the picture was full of distorted, wavy lines. Even with them some viewers got a headache.

Digital 3-D, though, was a little different. Some digital 3-D technologies can be viewed in theaters without special glasses. Others still require distinctive eyewear, but the lenses are polarized instead of multicolored. The way movie studios use 3-D has changed, too.

"The current trend for 3-D in theaters is much different than in the 1950s and 1980s," says David Naranjo, director of product development at Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America. "Today's 3-D DLP digital cinemas use advanced projectors as well as passive eyewear to provide the audience with a truly immersive experience. This experience provides the audience with a sense of being in the movie without the previous negative issues of headaches or eyestrain."

The next step? To take that experience into people's homes.

"The success of 3-D cinema has paved the way for the emergence of 3-D in home theater setups," Naranjo continues. "Many organizations and companies are working very diligently to bring the same 3-D immersive experience to the home. Mitsubishi has demonstrated such a solution that enables consumers to play PC games in 3-D today and will be able to show 3-D movies in the future. In the same way that HDTV changed the TV landscape, 3-D will ultimately have the same impact."

The first such set hit the market in 2007, and home 3-D was big news at the Consumer Electronic S how in 2009. So will 3-D be the next big thing in home theater? Only time will tell.

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