3D: The Demo
Fry's had a demo of the 22" iZ3D monitor on Saturday, so I stopped by to take a look.iZ3D has been one of the first monitor companies to support 3D technology, and I've always been curious about their products. The demo was unfortunately set up in an incredibly bright area, so the colors looked more washed out than they would have in a normal environment. Plus, it was just looping footage, not a game that we could actually play.
In spite of all that, the 3D was impressive. Not blow-me-away impressive, but just-about-there impressive.
The problem, and I think this is one of the major remaining hurdles to major adoption of 3D, is that there's no accepted standard for 3D development. iZ3D has their drivers, nVidia has their drivers, Zalman monitors only work with nVidia hardware, etc. Until there's a unified standard, I think it's going to cripple adoption rates.
On the home front, 3D was absolutely HUGE at CES this year, but there's no unified standard for home theater, either. And most existing plasma displays have problems displaying the full color gamut when used with 3D, including ours. We picked up Journey to the Center of the Earth (which was quite fun in 3D in theaters), and while the 3D effect was outstanding, Eli 7.5 immediately noticed how washed out the colors were.
On the positive side, though, there are huge incentives for the companies involved to work through these problems and find solutions. And the technology is improving very, very quickly--as an example, Panasonic demoed a 100" plasma last fall that can do 3D in full 1080p resolution. It will cost one trillion dollars, of course, but if the tech works, that will fall rapidly, and it will start being used in more standard sized "enthusiast" displays (42" and 50") as well.
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