[photo-3d] Re: P3D Decline of the stereo market

[Rob <lilindn@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chuck Holzner" <cfholzner@xxxxxxxx>  wrote:
> Subject: Decline of the stereo market
> 
> Does anyone know the reason(s) for the decline of the stereo market
> back in the 50/60 era?  Maybe we can prevent it from happening again.
> 
> 
   One major factor in the decline was how movie producers took to 3-D
movies when they became popular circa 1953 - they started using 3-D
strictly as a marketing gimmick rather than as an improvement of the
stereo art.  With few exceptions, 3-D movies showed more comical scenes
of props being thrown right at the audience that realistic 3-D scenes
with natural depth.  
   It was not long before schlock movie producers began using 3-D to try
to make money off a movie they knew was going to have lousy screenplay,
acting and production, and "3-D movie" became synonomous with
"gimmick-laden bad movie".
   By 1954, you had theater chains releasing movies that had been filmed
in 3-D as 2-D movies - Hitchcock's "Dial M for Murder" as a case in
point, to save the film's reputation from critics before it was
released.
   The same thing would have happened to color movies if they had all
been set up to exploit color - like "La Cucaracha".  A movie which was
filmed in color, even though it had many plain gray and brown scenes -
"Gone With The Wind" - changed that.
   The still-picture art community was not kind to stereo, either. 
Editors of photography magazines of the 1950s, 60s and 70s derided
stereo as a gimmick for those who lacked artistic vision.  At that time,
it was considered passé to use photography as a means to portray
reality.  The way to get your picture in Pop Photo was to have a picture
of a purple horse against a pink sky, shot with a fisheye lens!
    Finally, there was the shift in the American lifestyle that hurt
stereo, as well as slides (which peaked well after TV was popular) and
home movies (which virtually disappeared long before anyone had heard
the word "camcorder").  Men were always more likely than women to use
stereo, slides of home movies than women, and the 1970's saw the camera
being taken out of the hand of the married father and put into the hand
of the single mother.  (note - this is only *statistically* significant,
many women have made excellent images in all three of the above media!).
    I've always thought that stereo was on the verge of a comeback, and
see two ways it could happen:
    1) if a respectable movie producer were to secretly film a good,
modern movie with stereo equipment, release the movie in 2-D, let the
movie receive rave reviews and box-office success, then, a year later,
re-release it in a 3-D version.  This could clean stereo's reputation
and stir up some interest in it.
    2) televise major sporting events (NFL, for example) with stereo
HDTV cameras at the site, provide a 2-D feed for the TV network, but
beam (via 12GHz digital satellite private channel) the stereo HDTV
version to stereo HDTV receivers in sports bars, who would pay a fee to
draw many customers to the equipped taverns to see the game in stereo. 
Eventually, customers would want the stereo image at home as well.

    Rob 
    "Day 13490 - creativity held hostage"