3D College football is actually quite enjoyable
It's no secret that as much as we love HD, we're not a big fan of 3D. It isn't that we just hate anything 3D, it's just that the demos we've seen haven't impressed. Well we're happy to report that we actually kinda enjoyed our time at the BCS Championship game in 3D. In fact there are actually a lot of things going for the idea, but to us the 3D aspect is just icing on the cake.
What we saw wasn't a technical demonstration or even a demo of an upcoming product, it was actually the first of many events that will be presented in 3D in theaters all over the country. But to us, the story wasn't really the 3D, it was the idea that theaters are going to present live sports in very high quality. There are a few reasons why we like this idea. For one, people like to watch games with friends and family, and second who doesn't want to watch their favorite team on a gigantic screen? So combine these two with the novelty of 3D, and you have yourself a good combination.
Cinedigm is the company with the technology behind this and is leveraging its existing digital cinema network to distribute digital movies, to broadcast games in HD. The games are produced just for the theater experience without commercial interruption -- which we really like -- all the way down to the announcers. Unlike some 3D demos we've seen, the glasses weren't annoying to wear and we didn't feel sick after a few minutes, but it did take our eyes a few minutes to readjust afterwards
Unfortunately the experience wasn't all good, in fact when there was lots of motion, things got fuzzy. Interestingly when you close one eye with the glasses on, not only does the motion blur go away, but in some cases the football would actually disappear all together. There were also some audio issues which we're told were specific to our venue and not the norm. But worst of all, occasionaly the picture would just go crazy and made our eyes feel like they went crossed. But this is new technology and although these issues were super annoying, they didn't make us want to walk out. Now if we'd have paid to see this, we might be asking for our money back.
So overall we found the experience enjoyable but the technology still has a little way to go until it's perfect. Either way, we can see a future for this technology.
