3D

February 7th, 2010 1 Comment »

Up until now I’ve been fairly unconvinced by all the hype surrounding the 3D revolution happening not only in cinemas but also in upcoming television sets destined for the home. So with that in mind, last night we went to see Avatar, the current blockbuster 3D showcase movie. Firstly, forgetting 3D for a second, the screen we visited at the Odeon in Bridgend has been converted to fully digital, which means no more film based projector. The resulting picture is crystal clear – no scratch or dust marks on the picture, no black spot in the corner for reel changes, no jump in the sound and picture when that happens… just an absolutely superb picture. Back to 3D then….. On went the glasses and the movie began. The first thing I noticed was that in this film (and also in most of the trailers beforehand), there wasn’t a huge amount of flying-in-your-face 3D effect, 3D had mostly been used to provide a depth of vision to the screen making it appear deep as opposed to jumping out at you (does that make sense?), and in fact whenever an attempt to make the screen jump out was made it was unimpressive and just painful to the eyes. However as a depth effect it was amazing and I started to see what all the fuss was about. When the camera was kept steady the 3D effects were at their most impressive and comfortable, but when there’s lots of action and movement things can get a bit blurry or worse still nausiating (I recall a dodgy scene near the beginning when soldiers jumped off a vehicle with the camera following, jumping all over the place). After a while, you even forget you are wearing the special glasses and 3D just becomes another part of the overall cinematic effect.

So in conclusion, for films in the cinema I’m totally in awe of the 3D gimmick, but I’m less convinced for the home. I guess that once a standard is agreed then I may be tempted, but until then I’m still not sure 3D is right for normal TV viewing. Oh, and the £20 for two tickets plus £8.15 for a drink, ice cream and some Minstrels puts the cinema experience in the category of expensive – It doesn’t cost too much more for a classy meal out! (and I’m not talking TGI Fridays either).


Busy week for a geek

November 19th, 2009 No Comments »

They (who are they!?) say three buses will arrive all at once and they’re not wrong, this week is a busy one for persons of the technological persuasion. Firstly there’s Channel 4′s 3D TV week. In case you hadn’t noticed, Channel 4 have been broadcasting certain programs in 3D this week – the old red/blue glasses type of 3D. You can still pick up your free pair of 3D glasses from Sainsbury’s if you are quick and the schedule of programs continues this weekend with a ‘best of 3D’ program and a Hannah Montana concert. Check out Channel 4‘s web site for a full schedule. I’ve been recording all the programs ready to watch in a 3D marathon at some point in the future.

Next up we have the beta release of Microsoft Office 2010 – Microsoft’s newest version of their Office productivity suite available as an unfinished preview to those wishing to help Microsoft test it out before they sell it. So far, programs like Word and Excel don’t appear to have changed too much since their 2007 versions with the odd minor cosmetic difference here and there, but Outlook 2010 is muchos betteros especially when using the Outlook Live connector to link Outlook with your hotmail / live mail account. I can’t see Office 2010 being revolutionary if you own Office 2007 but the promise of Office 2010 Starter edition as a freebie for those just interested in the basic functionality of Word and Excel could tempt a lot of people. Even the “Home and Student” edition, Microsoft’s most popular version at the moment allowing up to 3 installations from a single (£99ish) purchase might suffer at the hands of the starter edition.

And finally….. we have an online movie rental service from Sony courtesy of the Playstation 3. I’ve not tested this out yet but there are over 800 movies ready to download either to rent or keep (prices from £2.49 for the sorts of films broadcast every few hours on ITV3+1 but it’s a start) with a number of recent blockbusters in too. I’ve been waiting for this service for a long time and there’ll be a full report once I’ve given it a run for it’s money. For those of you who haven’t got a clue what I’m on about, the idea is that using my Playstation 3 connected to my telly I can now browse a virtual store for a film I’d like to watch. I choose to either buy or rent the movie, and my Playstation 3 then downloads the film over the Internet for me to watch.