Re: New 3D Movies (long)

[P3D Bob Wier <wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

|I was inspired by Larry Berlin's posting regarding new 3-d movies and
|opportunities for 3-D...
|

George's interesting thoughts deleted (urp!)...
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Something I've done some wondering about (possible Master's Thesis...)

When you look at the progress of technology in motion pictures, you get

Original Silents (1900?)

Sound (1929)

Widespread Use of Color (1939/1945?)

Stereo/3D (1955 more or less)

Smell o vision / touch stimulation ("The Tingler") (1959?)

Multi Track Sound Formats (1965 more or less)


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As far as *information* content goes, the addition of sound to the
pictures was certainly a major step.

But what about color? Maybe the addition of color did not 
result in nearly the same amount of additional information transfer
as did the advent of sound. 

How about color versus 3D? Why did color succeed whereas 3D did not?
Well, the absence of color is obvious in EVERY scene (except *perhaps*
film noir - although one could argue that the absence of much light
and therefore color actually increases the usability of 3D - as George
noted in House of Wax), 

whereas the absence of 3D is only obvious in "close up"
scenes. Also there are 3D clues present even lacking two images, whereas
there are much weaker backup systems for the absence of color (allthough I'm
old enough to remember a stoplight with green on TOP in a rural town
in Texas in the early 50's before things were really standardized - 
amazingly enough I don't remember any accidents).  

And of course getting true 3D is inconvenient/expensive whereas having
color does not require any great modifications in the projection end -
it's all in the origination end. 

Multi track sound formats did require changes in the theater end, but
not to EVERY seat in the theater. Plus, while I like Dolby Surround,
it's not a determining factor about whether I would see a film such
as would the presence/absence of sound (large) or presence/absence of 
color (much smaller ) would have.

Just some random musings...

   ====== wier@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ======
  1:44 PM Friday, July 26, 1996
   keeper of the Photo-3d, Motorola
 MC68HC11, Overland-Trails, LDS State
Research Outline Guides and other stuff
     (currently in Ouray, Colorado)



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