3DTV – Reality or Fiction? | Digital Media Wire

3DTV – Reality or Fiction?

Authored by Jay Baage on September 20, 2006 - 8:32am.

New television technology is being developed surprisingly slowly, don’t you think? We got color, then what happened? Not much. Sure, you might say that HDTV, flat screens and TiVo are major break-throughs, but it hardly science-fiction, is it? Imagine what a totally new technology like real 3D television would do for the entertainment industry.

In a recent BBC interview, Professor Levent Onural, coordinator of a multinational 3DTV network funded by the European Commission, described the technology they are working on as the "ultimate viewing experience".
"For example, take a football game. Viewers would be able to look at a TV that will be like a coffee table and see small-scale real football players made up from light running around on that table."

Unfortunatly, he predicts that holographic television is at least 10 years away.

”We do think holographic 3DTV is feasible, but the technology is not in place yet. If you ask my opinion, it will take another 10 years to get there, but some say it will take 14 to 20 years.”

Excuse me? 20 years? That is scientist talk for saying that it is impossible. What ever happened to companies like Deep Light that last year said that they already had 3D technology to make this happen and was furthermore working on multiple "blades" of video that will enable one screen to show different programs to different viewers, at the same time?

Surely the technology must have advanced past goofy eyewear by now.

Related Links:
http://cordis.europa.eu/ist/kct/3dtv_synopsis.htm
https://www.3dtv-research.org