Re: ABC 3D (not!)

[P3D John W Roberts <roberts@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 19:35:36 -0500
>From: P3D Bill Davis  <bd3d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: ABC 3D (not!)

>Well, I'm happy to hear that some people were entertained by ABC's
>presentations.  While someone suggested that those of us who were
>disappointed in it were expecting Red-Button quality, that isn't true in my
>case.  I was just hoping for some semblance of quality 3-D.  I'm the sucker,
>I guess.

The "Red Button" comment was exaggeration. But seriously, the limitations of
anaglyph 3D are discussed fairly often on P3D - and the fact that broadcast
anaglyph is more limited than anaglyph in print medium. (I was surprised
that there didn't seem to be discussion of phosphor characteristics and
chromaticity issues prior to the broadcasts - there was some discussion of
color encoding in NTSC.) In terms of stereo quality, I don't think that
ABC did the best that could possibly be done with broadcast anaglyph, but
the best would not have been enormously different from what was shown.

I think part of the problem may have been lack of a *recognized expert* on
broadcast anaglyph. It's all very well for a random stereo enthusiast to
go to ABC and say "you're doing it all wrong - I know much more about it than
you do" - but how do *they* know that your statements can be considered
reliable, if you don't have some credentials in the field, and how do they
know that the recommendations you make to improve the anaglyph won't mess up
some of the other production criteria they've been following?

Judging by the discussion on P3D, they were able to get a person with
recognized credentials in anaglyph movies, but that the expertise was in
*film*, not *broadcast*. Therefore this person may not have been able to
convince others in the project that he had sufficient expertise in broadcast
anaglyph to be considered an authority on what would work and what wouldn't.
One can imagine the following exchanges (with no claim that they actually
took place):
 3D person: Those "pie in the face" scenes are pushing the capability of
            broadcast anaglyph too hard - you'll get ghosting.
 Reply: But that's what the audience is expecting, and besides we need to
        play up things that anaglyph can do and Pulfrich can't.
 3D person: Don't turn the color down - you need the color to convey the
            depth information.
 Reply: You don't understand broadcast - our experience has shown that our
        viewers like the color to be a little subdued - besides, the 3D looks
        fine on our monitors here in the studio.
 3D person: If that woman wears that color clothing, it will interfere with the
            anaglyph stereo effect.
 Reply: She always wears that color on this show - we have to maintain
        continuity.

So there's a plausible scenario in which no ill will was involved, and
everybody did the best they knew how, and yet because of lack of experience
in this particular combination, and lack of knowledge on how to weigh
conflicting criteria, some things that could have improved the quality of
the broadcast were not implemented.

It will be interesting to see how the Pulfrich broadcast turns out. There
have been several live action Pulfrich broadcasts in the past, some of which
turned out pretty well, and at least one animated series that used several
minutes of a variant of Pulfrich in every episode. So there may be enough
expertise on broadcast Pulfrich that they know more of what to expect.
Pulfrich *can be* true stereo if it's done right.

But don't expect it to look like medium-format 3D slides. :-)

John R


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