3.5 Million Blu-ray 3D Discs Sold In the U.S.

[admin]

A new IHS Screen Digest report shows that a whopping 3.5 million Blu-ray 3D disc have been "sold" already in the United States, despite the 3D-iest movie of all, Avatar, still not being available for general sale.

Of course, almost half of the 3.5 million discs were actually part of hardware bundles (including Avatar, for Panasonic 3D TV owners, and those crazy enough to pay hundreds of dollars for a copy on eBay), but this still means 1.75 million discs were actually purchased by 3D hungry consumers.

By the end of this year, it's expected that there will be more than 90 Blu-ray 3D titles available, although with Panasonic and 20th Fox's exclusivity deal on Avatar not expiring until next year, Avatar won't be one of the available titles for general sale.

Another possible reason for the growth in Blu-ray 3D is the increasing range of "combo" packages, which packages the 3D and 2D version of the same movie (along with the old, boring DVD version) together, usually at a discount compared to buying separately. Movies like Tron Legacy, Sanctum, and upcoming releases of repackaged older releases like Alice in Wonderland, The Lion King, are all offering Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray 2D + DVD + Digital Copy combos, for the same price as you would have paid for a single disc Blu-ray release just a year ago.

And studios are keen to exploit Blu-ray 3D, by converting and re-releasing classics such as Titanic and Star Wars on Blu-ray 3D.

But (almost) everyone is still just waiting for Avatar.

(Story Source)

[drfsupercenter]

Yeah, I bought Tron Legacy's 4-disc combo pack since it was only $5 more than the standard Blu-Ray. I have no interest in the 3D one since I don't have a 3D TV, but if I can ever find a program that lets me play it back in 3D using polarized IMAX lenses I'd look forward to it.

[admin]

PowerDVD Ultra 9/10 will let you watch using those old red/cyan glasses though, which obviously not as good as the recent glasses, but it's still 3D.

You would need a passive 3D monitor/TV for the IMAX glasses to work, as it needs to be able to display polarized images.

[drfsupercenter]

Yeah, you already told me about PowerDVD, I've tried the trial. But red/cyan glasses are annoying.

I thought all it needs is the ability to do 120Hz to do polarized images?

[admin]

Active glasses need 120 Hz, because you're effectively only seeing half of the frames in each eye, and so if it was 60 Hz, then each eye would only see 30 Hz, which would mean flickering.

I'm pretty sure passive glasses won't require 120 Hz, as each eye will be seeing the same 60 Hz picture that's being displayed, except at half the resolution. That's not to say that passive 3D TV/monitors aren't or can't be 120 Hz.