The hottest ticket in Las Vegas last night was the inaugural 3D broadcast by RealD which featured the BCS Championship game and we were there. After chilling with some big wigs and interviewing Mark Cuban, we settled down in the comfy Paris Las Vegas theater for what we were told was the next big thing. We quickly found out that was a lie; a dirty, nasty lie.
Technical difficulties aside (like a blowing the right speaker), this 3D thing is a bust. Doug and I sat there while all these grey haired men were blown away thinking that we may have missed something. Was simple movement like even the swaying of the arms suppose to blur? Was it suppose to give you a headache with the terrible picture? Are people really going to attend more than one of these events?
Sadly, the picture quality was a step down from high-def. The praised 3D picture was sort-of 3D; I guess. The broadcast had their own cameras and crew at the game so they optimized the shots to showcase 3D effects but even shots of the teams running out of their tunnel were not that impressive. The in-game stats windows that show the score and info did come across nicely in 3D as it seemed to hover in the corner in true 3D fashion.
The over all experience was like watching football on a large LCD TV six years ago. The still shots looked good but any movement suffered from terrible lag. Even when the players on the side lines walked about, their arms and legs blurred. Worst of all though was you couldn’t see the football clearly when it was thrown. The picture and viewing experience was a big step down from a high-quality HD picture.
Our taste of 3D sports last night left us with a sinking feeling that this gigantic venture needs a lot more polish. I would have rather watched the game at the same venue via a 4k projector. Said system should be able to provide enough depth to give a similar, if not superior, 3D experience while maintaining all the quality we have came to expect from premier sporting events. Who knows, maybe Doug’s contacts and my glasses caused the picture to look so crappy but there is no way I would pay money to watch another 3D sporting event. Sorry, Cuban.
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Matt,
With all due respect, I feel like there must have been something wrong in your theater. My two friends and I, 23 year-olds who love football, decided to venture down to park slope to take in the first live event in 3D shown to the general public.
I’m not alone in saying that we were absolutely blown away. To be honest, I was already on board before we got there, thinking if nothing else it would be cool to see the game in a movie theater, but my two friends were incredibly skeptical. I was only able to convince them to come after showing them the posts about the success of the NFL’s broadcast of the Chargers-Raiders game a few months ago.
Anyways, in our Brooklyn theater, it felt like we were on the field. While there were certainly a few times where the focus went out, the picture was NEVER blurry, it was just in double vision. Myself and the rest of the theater oohed and ahhhed as they finally seemed to get it right by showing the overhead view for most of the second half.
I agree with you, the 3D fx looked great, but the game looked great as well. We own a 56″ high quality HDTV at home, and the picture at the movie theater felt sharper than that. And again, it also felt like we were in the huddle whenever they went to a tight shot of Tebow.
In addition, the commercials they showed were amazing and seemed to take full advantage of what was a glimpse into true power of 3-d. The Oakley commercial left everyone speechless and the nature (?) one was also very, very cool. I don’t know if you saw those in Vegas as well, but they were stunning.
In fact, after the game, my buddies remarked they would have gladly paid 40 dollars instead of 20 for their ticket and they were excited for the opportunity to take an NBA game for All-Star Saturday night (if we can convince our girlfriends to do Valentines day on some other time than the 14). We also thought it would be cool to see hockey in 3D.
Appreciate your feedback, I wonder if there was something off with the picture you were seeing because over here on the east coast, the positive praise for 3D was coming left and right.
Matt
I was at the game in a theatre in Brooklyn and it was a great success and we loved the quality – people attending had a great time and a few small glitches aside – I was really impressed with the quality – your description does not do justice to the experience we had last night.
What football clown would patiently sit and watch 3D football for 3 hours without having a fit? Sports people want to roam, drink, eat, piss, fight, yammer/yell, drink more, pass out, etc. while watching a game. Good luck to those who want to be well-behaved patrons, sitting in their seats, in a stuffy movie theatre while wearing Buddy Holly 3D sunglasses. Tequila shots at the snack bar might help?
Matt,
There were some problems but the picture at my theater was great. About 1/3 of the problems I saw were technical. The other 2/3 were more with execution (and much more correctable).
Here is my own blog on what I saw:
http://virtualvector.com/archives/164
To Matt and others,
My theater, and apparently numerous others, had the right and left image reversed. The result is exactly what Matt describes, a “sort of 3D”. In the 3D biz, this is referred to as “pseudo stereo”. You perceive some depth, but it just doesn’t look good, or right. My guess is that some, maybe all, of the broadcast feeds had the right/left reversed.
Luckily for my theater, I knew what was up and told everybody to turn their glasses upside down. This corrects the problem. Nobody in the theater had realized how bad the image was until they saw it correctly, and then they were amazed at the difference!
There were some other glitches (camera misalignment, satellite feed pauses). But overall I thought it was great. They need a little more game info – down/distance, clock – and more use of the press box camera angle to follow the action.