Enjoy 3D Movies at Home

FANS scrambled to see 3D movies such as "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" in theaters this year and new 3D televisions could soon have home viewers feeling as if they're surrounded by a spaghetti hurricane on their couches.

Next year major electronics manufacturers Sony Corp and Panasonic Corp plan to introduce 3D-capable high-definition televisions for the mass market. You'll still need to wear special glasses, though.

Movie studios hope 3D can help lift the sagging home video market the same way it has pushed up box office results.

The initial price of such sets is expected to be high - perhaps 20 percent more than normal sets of the same size. But costs should come down in the coming years.

Depending on prices, 3D-ready TVs could be in 28 million to 46 million homes worldwide by 2013, predicts Alfred Poor, an analyst with GigaOM Pro. He estimates that next year, as many as 2.5 million sets worldwide will be sold with 3D capability.

"We're raising a whole generation of kids who expect to see this effect for their movies at home," Poor said. "I think people want 3D. I just don't think they're going to want to pay a whole lot more for it."

To avoid the need for special screens, some manufacturers of TV sets are shunning the 3D technology common in theaters in favor of what's known as "active shutter." That uses an infrared emitter on the TV to tell battery-powered glasses when to flicker the left and right lenses in conjunction with the images on the screen, which gives the perception of three dimensions.

The sets themselves will require relatively minor upgrades from today's models, but the glasses will cost more, raising the price of the overall package.

There's no question 3D movies are popular.

They generated more than US$1 billion at box offices worldwide this year, and on a per-screen basis, 3D showings typically bring in more than double the revenue of regular screenings when a movie is offered in both versions.

For hits like Disney/Pixar's "Up" and 20th Century Fox's "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs," more than half of ticket revenues came from 3D screens, despite accounting for far fewer showings, according to research firm Screen Digest. Those screenings tend to fill up, and moviegoers are willing to pay a few dollars extra per ticket.

Making these 3D movies hasn't been cheap, and so far there hasn't been an adequate way to recoup those higher costs in the home video market, which brings in far more dollars to studios than the theatrical release.

In September, DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc released a two-disc pack of "Monsters vs Aliens" with just a 3-D bonus vignette accompanying a 2D version of the movie.

It comes with cardboard glasses with magenta and green lenses that create a 3D effect. The so-called "anaglyph" technology is out of date and can distort colors but works with regular TVs.

"We think for 10 minutes or so, it's a fun experience, but it's not a great experience for an-hour-and-a-half or two-hour movie," said John Batter, DreamWorks' co-president of production for feature animation.

The studio is considering a re-release of the movie at higher prices using modern 3D technology, followed by future releases after 3D TVs become available next year.

Batter said 3D releases "will certainly grow over time and it will become I think a significant part of our home video business in a three- to five-year cycle."

Meanwhile, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released the stop-motion animated movie "Coraline" in July both in 2D and 3D with the cardboard glasses, but director Henry Selick said he was disappointed with the result.

"I wish they'd waited to do the home 3D release until the technology caught up to what it was in the theaters," Selick told a conference last month. "I'm disappointed in how few people got to see it in the best possible way."

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3D adds more depth to Toy Story

When George Lucas released his digitally tweaked versions of the original “Star Wars’’ trilogy in the mid-’90s, his rationale was that he wanted the experience of watching the films to be everything that we remembered. If we remembered the effects as being more advanced than they actually were, then that’s what he’d give us. (Oh, he also had a new trilogy to prime us for, in case we weren’t already planning to buy tickets. And toys and video games and Underoos.)

With the new double-feature reissue of the “Toy Story’’ films, Disney and Pixar follow the same model. They’re giving their flagship a 3-D makeover so the movies don’t look stale next to “Up’’ - and when “Toy Story 3’’ opens next June, it won’t have been 11 years since we had Woody and Buzz Lightyear on the brain.

Happily, “Toy Story’’ and current technology do make a terrific match. Seeing the imagery dimensionalized subtly adds to the already tangible curviness of Woody and Buzz’s molded plastic world. And since the movies were conceived in 2-D, there’s no “comin’ atcha’’ gimmickry. When Buzz takes flight, infinity and beyond are still generally situated off to one side, not right at the audience. Oooh-eliciting depth-of-field moments come in more natural ways: An incidental shot of the green army men lining up in formation in the sequel, say, or Woody’s nightmare drop into a discarded-toy abyss.

Precisely because the two movies predate 3-D’s recent rise, they also do more than just pay lip service to animators’ self-declared rule that story always comes first. That’s what they say - but it sure feels like we’re seeing some animated features that are content to coast on 3-D’s dazzle factor and just cobble together a script. The stories here, particularly in the first installment, feel as imaginative as ever. And the Pixar crew even puts effort into the intermission, offering a reel of 2-D video trivia, clips, etc.

The only issues with the double bill are with the presentation. “Grindhouse’’ attempted a similar two-fer, and that was an endurance test, even for adults. It’s hard to say how the three-hour running time will go over here, although a good portion of the crowd at a preview screening did hang in for the entire show, including mock outtakes.

A memo to the tech folks: If so much of 3-D is aimed at kids, what’s with the one-size-fits-all glasses? And the slight color muting continues to be a distraction. “Toy Story’’ is supposed to be all about a kid’s brightly hued world. Mr. Potato Head’s ears should be screaming pink, not guest-bedroom dusty rose.

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