What’s wrong with 3D films and TV?

Hailed as the next big thing in entertainment, 3D films and TV will emerge over the next five years and result in most of us sitting in darkened rooms wearing strange glasses for fun.

I visited a friend’s house this week and he proudly told me that he had been with his children to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D at the local cinema and how much he and his kids enjoyed it.  I promptly picked up the pair of the “Roy Orbison style glasses” he had been forced to purchase to watch the film and put them on.  I looked at his youngest child through the glasses and threw up my arms in excitement and loudly exclaimed “Wow!!! I can see you in 3D, that’s amazing !!!”.  The child smiled , I think she got my point.

Despite the hype and box office success of the latest batch of 3D films the 3D effects are hardly revolutionary and neither do they match the 3D experience of everyday real life.

When I went to see AVATAR in 3D I immediately noticed some of the problems with this technology.

Firstly the wearing of the polarized filtered glasses over my normal specs was awkward and resulted on me constantly fiddling with them to prevent them slipping down my nose or being misaligned.  I also noticed multiple internal reflections from ambient ceiling spot lights, which cinemas are required to keep illuminated for health and safety reasons (I assume).  This is annoying but the main issue is that the tinted glasses reduce the colour vibrancy of the screen image and thereby mute your enjoyment somewhat.

I found that some of the 3D scenes just didn’t fit or register right for me; perhaps it’s my eyes or something to do with the optimal seating position or screen size.  But the most critical effect of this type of 3D is that your eyes can’t alter focus within the 3D scene as they would in the real world.  I found that as my attention wandered over the scene I was trying to focus on foreground and background objects that the director and camera operator has decided would be out of focus in this shot.  At this point I lost the 3D experience magic, the illusion was broken and consequently my attention on the film and its story was momentarily interrupted.

I am suspicious that perhaps the commercial success of AVATAR might be due to people having to go back to see the film a second time because they missed part of the story the first time around as their brains were trying to process and sort out the 3D effects.

My father, whom I accompanied to the film, had more serious problems with the 3D.  His eyesight in one eye is good but in the other bad; he has the start of cataracts and has problems seeing detail in low light.  The net result was that after trying various arrangements of the 3D glasses and his own prescription specs he declared that he both couldn’t see the awesome 3D effects very well and in fact the picture was better without the 3D glasses!  He concluded watching the film without both his ordinary glasses and the 3D pair and apparently fell asleep somewhere around half way through.  I wondered if this experience might have beset some of the aging members of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (who decide on the Oscars) and hence that was why AVATAR didn’t get best picture or best director this year.

So, what will be needed to give us a real 3D experience?

Ultimately advances in large scale holographic imaging and projection are needed for cinema scale public viewing and objects need to appear solid in the 3D space.  Ideally glasses should not be necessary.  The Star Trek Holodecks come to mind as an ideal example.  But at the moment I have no idea how this would be done or even if it will be possible anytime in the future.

In the meantime however, we may get closer by increasing the HD resolution of image projections and TV screens and displaying multiple images, possibly hundreds of stereo pairs every second, of a particular scene at different focusing points.  The Camera technology to do this would be beyond even that developed for films like AVATAR and Alice in Wonderland.  A pair of LCD shutter type glasses would select the image pairs to be viewed by each eye by examining the optical geometry of your eyes and allowing you to both view the desired object in the scene that you want to focus on and also correcting automatically for any vision aberrations, in effect also acting like your own prescription glasses so obviating the need to wear two pairs or a pair of contact lenses.  I neat idea might be to combine the shutters and eyesight focus detection within a pair of contact lenses.

An alternative way might be to create a virtual 3D world of the Movie in which you can both observe what’s going on in an immersive fashion or even participate in the film as an extra.  As with many current computer games that put you in the driving seat or as the first person shooter, you would see the movies surroundings while wearing a light weight 3D headset and be able to move your head and look around the scene.  Actors and the action would occur around you or you might even find yourself as the passenger in the car chase.

The viewing angle would have to be the same as your normal peripheral vision and therefore the goggles would have to be large enough and possibly curved 180 degrees to give the coverage.  A wearable IMAX if you like.  Alternatively the images could be beamed directly into your eyes and onto your retina by low power lasers, although for some reason I don’t think I would feel safe with that.  Extending the contact lens idea mentioned above could see images created in active contact lenses in your normal field of view.  An adaption of that could even present augmented reality in the real world so that you see things that aren’t really there, for example, a virtual life size assistant in a department store or conference participants seated around the table but who are in fact all over the world.

For this Ultimate 3D experience to become a reality the technology for high definition image capture and processing will need to be much greater than it is now, particularly because the rendering of multiple virtual images in a computer will need to be accomplished in real time and not take days to render a single frame but it is not beyond near future possibility as graphics processing chips continue to be developed.

But while this seems a long way off do not despair, with very little technology and very low cost you too can experience the awesomeness of 3D right now…just open your eyes and go outside into the real world and smile

I am dismayed at the lack of progress at the Copenhagen climate change summit and at the chaotic demonstrations as well as the actions of the police in crowd control.  (more on policing in the 21st century in a later blog).

It is showing up all that is bad about our understanding of the climate change threat and how much the world is divided.

Unless we can all (and I mean the whole 7 billion of us) come to a common understanding on climate change and agreement on mutual support, there is little hope that all but a handful of us humans, plants and animals will survive into the next century.

It astounds me how much drivel is written on www.sky.com/news and www.newscientist.com in the news article comments by climate change refuseniks.  They were asleep in their school science classes and suffer from delusional paranoia.  The Science is basic and easy.

Scientists around the world are shaking their heads in disbelief at the shear stupidity of 50% of the population who don’t get it and don’t understand that 7 billion humans are effecting the climate and their activity threatens survival of the whole human race and countless plants and animals.

This is a potential mass extinction event. Unless we can convince the 50% of their stupidity (but they are too stupid to know they are stupid) we are consigning future generations to intolerable hardship.

The current generation of kids and future grandchildren will not forgive them and will refer to them as Granny and Granddad Moron.

One solution I have come up with to avert severe climate change (why hasn’t anyone else thought of this?) was to coral the 50% of people who don’t get it and drown them.  Sorted !

TV is often disappointing, full of soaps, game shows and repeats but tonight we have a treat. 

Two documentaries deal with problems that every one of us will face and be impacted by. 

The first is by the excellent Horizon team and hosted be the venerable Sir David Attenborough  – How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?  on Wednesday 9th december 2009 on BBC 2 at 9 pm.

I have mentioned before about the potential crisis that over population will bring to our planet but there are ways to tackle the problem if we recognise it and we act.  See the documentary and let me know your thoughts.

The Second is Hot Planet on BBC1 at 10:45 pm.  Presenter-scientists Iain Stewart and Kathy Sykes round up the best current wisdom on climate change and look at the implications.  This ties in well with the Copenhagen summit and should provide enough real evidence for all of the climate change deniers out there, although I don’t expect them to change their opinions.  Again, watch it and let me know your thoughts.

With the Copenhagen Climate Summit under way I will be following proceedings and commenting here.

But already I feel that its is a waste of time.   The climate change deniers continue to put self interest or a misguided belief in some kind of conspiracy ahead of the future of human kind and without a global consensus it seems unlikely that any real and significant reduction in CO2 emissions will be made.

For a moment imagine what daily life will be like in 2109 if the worst case scenarios of climate change come about.  I hear you saying that you wont be around in 2109 so why worry, well if you have children then they and their children will be trying to live in those times.

Global warming effects will cause more extremes and not be evenly distributed around the planet.  So in some places sea levels will rise more than others, hot places will get hotter, possibly too hot for us to live outside.   Expect long droughts, food shortages, floods, killer heat waves, super hurricanes, and a run away effect that no technology can stop.   Let your imagination free to consider the catastrophe that is possible and then decide if global warming is something you should do something about now.

Four months on from my last post and war has not yet started but many things have happened and I feel confident that a major war will start by the end of the year.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the world and perhaps there were green shoots of an economic recovery the world has been hit by a pandemic 2009 H1N1 swine flu. This was one of the 20 or so potentially catastrophic world events that we know are overdue and could hit us at any time.  So far however, this pandemic is no where near as deadly as the one predicted and presents a mortality rate of perhaps less than 0.1% in developed countries. This is the first wave however and for the northern hemisphere it is summer, a traditionally low incidence of flu period. The autumn and winter 2009/2010 flu season and a possible second wave more deadly than the first has a lot of people worried. Even with a week off work for 30% of the world population who may catch the flu the impact on the worlds economies will be huge and may push many from recession into depression. Developing countries will be hardest hit in the second wave, especially for the young who may not recieve a vaccine in time if at all.

We have Anti-virals like Tamiflu, the ability to make vaccines and advanced medical care but still people die from flu. We have had nearly 100 years since the 1918 pandemic that killed up to 50 million people to understand and defeat a pandemic flu…I think we have been dragging our feet.

We should, I hope, learn a lot from this flu and how to prepare and protect ourselves from other emerging viruses. If we don’t then with the next one we may not be so lucky. SARS had a mortality of 10 to 20% that’s 100 to 200 times more deadly than 2009 H1N1. We got lucky with SARS too. An easy transmissible emerging virus or flu for which we have no immunity would likely kill in excess of 360,000,000 people worldwide assuming 30% became infected in a pandemic before the virus ran out of stream. There is much work to be done and little time. For more information on Swine Flu check out New Scientist magazine on-line at http://www.newscientist.com

Back to war. It seems highly likely that there will be a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities before the end of the year. This can only escalate. Iran is not Iraq and will not just roll over and accept it.. Iran is close to having “The Bomb”.

North Korea is itching for a fight and has “The Bomb”

Russia is playing a game, only it knows the rules and the game plan. It has “The Bomb”

Pakistan may become a failed state. It has “The Bomb”

America, China, UK, France, India, Israel and other countries will defend themselves and some may help each other and they all have “The Bomb”

America is stretched militarily and has a reputation problem and a public aversion to getting involved in any more conflicts. It wont be able to stop a runaway incident turning into a regional war that consumes those around it until it becomes a fight for survival for the world.  World War III.  If I have time (if any of us has time!) I will predict the period after the war and what it means for the survivors.

Anyway there are always positives and there is no need to worry until it happens and even when it does happen we wont have much time to worry about it.

So to lighten up Theaxion blog a bit I will be opening up categories for positive views of the future and many interesting topics will be discussed such as; future gaming and entertainment, virtual worlds, robotics, AI, future weapons, space exploration and cosmology, body part replacements and bionics, implants, nano technology applications, bio-engineering and genetics including artificial life forms, future alien encounters, UFO’s and the paranormal oddities.

For fun I may also add “Theaxion Horoscope” a monthly reading of the stars by yours truly. I have invented some new astrological techniques as I believe the old ones are no longer credible having been mostly debunked by our modern understandings of Astrophysics.

I will also be giving reviews of other futurologists publications and views, Scifi books and films and recommending ones that really spark my imagination and hopefully will also spark yours.

Monthly I will review the latest gadgets and predict their success or failure.  A thread will attempt to create the ultimate future gadget, a sort of gadget designed by committee, I hope however that it doesn’t come out looking like a camel !  I am all for function but I believe that form is equally important. 

To understand what Theaxion is all about and what I hope to achieve with the blog, go to the About page tab and remember to subscribe to the blog to get updates as I post them. Follow me on Twitter, why not ? It’s free and I’m funny (most days).

Posted by Theaxion Sat, March 28, 2009 17:20:32

Three months on and war has not started but the signs are still there. It’s coming.

Russia has decided to re-arm its forces with modern weapons and just today announced the commissioning of six new nuclear submarines and will also start patrolling the Arctic regions to protect its interests there. A report from America says that China is spending more and more on arms and its Military build up. Iran has reportedly enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb and North Korea has a long range missile sitting on the launch pad ready to test in a few days or as they claim put a satellite into orbit. Pakistan seems out of control and Militants in the form of the Taliban are gaining foot holds in some northern parts. Conflict and stress is building up all over the world…a pressure cooker that will explode.

The UK government seem convinced that one way or another extremists will get their hands on WMD of some sort in the near future and try to hit the UK with them. I’m not sure however that this fear justifies the 360 degree 24 by 7 survailance society that they have implimented. A significant terrorist attack or a world war would cement these measures and in the UK at least we would find ourselfs living in George Orwell’s “1984″.

This all sounds rather bleak.

To make matters worse the world economic situation seems to be stumbling from crisis to crisis and a number of countries have seen violent demonstrations against their governments handling of it. I would expect that to increase and spread in 2009 and of course demonstation against your government would now be viewed in many countries as an act of terrorism.

I see no reason yet to change any of my more extreme predictions from past blog posts.

And where in all this turmoil is the global warming issue?

A recent international meeting of scientists left us all confused as daily sound bites came from the conference. Many of these uttering were contradictory and it left political leaders not knowing what will happen in the future or with any convincing ammunition to sell uncomfortable changes of policy to their voters back home, especially in these times of economic strife.

It seems to me that we are accelerating to a tipping point in global warming where temperatures are rising unevenly around the globe and will cause the release of even more potent green house gasses like methane from deposits trapped in permafrost and under the sea.

The consequences are potentially catastrophic for humanity and much of the planets wild life but scientists are just so bad at getting the message across that in fact there is a backlash now from people who think it’s all some big confidence trick.

Distrust of government is so bad after the war in Iraq and the collapse of the financial system that many of the public just don’t believe that there is a global warming crisis…it’s all just scaremongering they say and scientists trying to justify their research grants. I can’t blame them for being cynical but I wish they were not, especially for their children.

Developing countries are also desperate to keep their growth going and can’t take on reducing carbon emissions right now.

Ironically the global recession may also reduce carbon emissions temporarily as businesses go under but when the recession ends it will be back to full throttle CO2 dumping into the atmosphere.

We seem also vulnerable to other external potential catastrophes such as global warming induced extreme weather events and extraterrestrial threats.

I don’t mean Aliens from outer space…well I don’t have any convincing evidence for that, what I’m talking about are space originating threats such as asteroids and solar flares.

An unexpected asteroid impact or a spell of bad solar weather with a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) thrown directly at us could well and truly finish us off. We are over due for these type of natural events and our population density and dependence on a rickety power grid infrastructure means that either event would force us back to the stone age, if we survived at all that is.

The question is this…would a World War wipe out a large proportion of humanity? Would extreme weather or shifting climate patterns like the monsoons wipe out a large number of people? Would an asteroid or CME devastate our civilisation?

What if all these things happened in the next 100 years? How many humans would be left on the planet in 2109?