We have some bad news for 3D TV aficionados (all three of you). LG and Sony have both confirmed they will be abandoning 3D TV support in 2017. These two companies were the final holdouts. In other words, it will soon be impossible to buy a 3D TV from a major manufacturer in Australia – and 3D Blu-rays are sure to follow suit.
As reported by CNET, Sony and LG are pulling the plug on 3D video playback, presumably to concentrate on the Next Big Thing. This follows similar announcements from Samsung and Panasonic who have already stopped manufacturing 3D TVs. (Indeed, Samsung abandoned ship all the way back in March last year.)
It will still be possible to find 3D-capable TVs from budget manufacturers and last-gen sales, but the format is essentially dead and buried. We’ve known this was on the cards for a while now. For the past few years, 3D has been conspicuously absent from TV marketing – including on the box. This is despite being enthusiastically touted as revolutionary back when Avatar was tearing up the box office.
Despite its success in cinemas, 3D never took off at home as anything more than a curious gimmick. Simply put, consumers didn’t care and manufacturers have given up trying to convince us.
If you’re one of the few genuine fans of the technology, 3D Blu-ray releases are sure to dry up very soon (and it was only a trickle to begin with). The same goes for potential 3D content from streaming and broadcasting services in Australia.
On the plus side, you’ll still be able to scab 3D glasses from the cinema for a few years to come – these work fine on most passive 3D TVs.
See also: HD TV 2016 Buying Guide: Sony, LG, Samsung And Panasonic
[Via CNET]
Comments
9 responses to “It’s Official: 3D TV Is Dead”
Rendering all those 3D blu-rays obsolete… How will I ever watch Avatar now!!!
Never seen it. Is it actually good? or just hype?
Dunno TBH. Just remember everyone who had watched it telling me it “justified” 3D…
To be fair, the visual and environments are pretty good and it had a good starting idea.
But it is marred by having only a thumbs worth of plot that a 3 year old could guess in the first five seconds and the 3D effects are inconsistent at best.
Not the worst movie out there and worth just the one viewing but not something that will be rated high.
actually Good. and hype. But still good.
As a piece of drama it’s decidedly unexceptional, but viewed purely as an impressive audio-visual experience, it’s well worth taking in.
I watched cloudy with a chance of meatballs 2 on 3D at home, was great. As usual, no content = death of the technology.
The content was there but it was kind of like the lead up to the 1983 Video Game crash.
Even looking at the minority that is content for 3D, the body of content as a whole suffered from a lack of properly implemented 3D content.
Some “3D” movies were just 2D movies with trickery used to create the extra angle that didn’t exist before and other cases suffered from the 3D capture technology.
The only good implementations was in newer CGI movies or those where the source files still existed and new masters rendered.
The video game crash was for completely different reasons. That was basically caused by over saturation of the market.
I don’t see the difference. If you look at the market content for 3D it has the same problem; too many poor/retrofitted 3D movies and too few that are true 3D.
And even among them, there are too few good 3D movies.
Though I will admit fault for not wording my post properly (again). This is becoming like my early paper drafts.
I tried it once and my main gripe is that the glasses Samsung provided were so small. The frames obscured my field of vision and the slightest head movement ruined any immersion that existed. 🙁
I’d probably use it more at home if I could use the larger glasses from the cinema.
3D is great if the movie was filmed in 3D. But too many movies started being filmed in 2D, and the 3D added in post-processing. That looked horrible, and was very obvious.
If there are any home 3D fans here then there’s a petition running here with over 6300 signatures currently – https://www.change.org/p/lg-please-revive-3d-on-a-2018-oled-tv-model
3D is legit and totally worth it, in the right hands. This is a case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
With 4k and passive glasses, and the right content, 3D is a stunning experience. Not an everyday experience, but totally foolish to just discard.
Don’t miss out on 3D while you can still get in on it. Imagine how much poorer a future it will be if it becomes something to tell the grandkids about, and we don’t even have a way to show them what we’re talking about.
Films like Hugo, Imax documentaries like Under the Sea 3D, Space Station 3D, animation like House of Magic, 1950s 3D like Kiss Me Kate and It Came from Outer Space. See what real 3D is all about before you throw it all away.
So Chris, If their is only 3 of us that like 3D TV why even post an article?
Must be pretty quiet in Lifehacker office atm I guess.
I got my 3D tv for the dual play options
I love 3D blu Ray and I’m currently buying every 3d movie I can so I have a good supply of them. Examples of great 3D are avatar, mad max fury road, dr strange and gravity but there are more bad than good. I use a “to 3D or not to 3D” to help me when finding my movies 🙂