3D at Home: Awesome or Awful?

by Peter Martin May 21st 2009 // 7:03PM

Filed under: Horror, Lionsgate Films, New on DVD, Home Entertainment

'My Bloody Valentine 3D' At theaters, 3D is all the rage, boosting box office receipts and giving moviegoers something to talk about -- if not always to love. The year began with generally positive reactions by horror fans to My Bloody Valentine 3D and continued as young fans enjoyed Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, and families lined up for Monsters vs. Aliens 3D. Can that enthusiasm spread beyond theaters? Can the 3D experience be enjoyed equally well at home?

When he reviewed My Bloody Valentine 3D, our own William Goss felt it was "cheesy, corny, gimmicky, gory fun -- if only in its 3-D theatrical presentation." He questioned whether it would translate at all in 2-D or on DVD. The movie hit DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday, and our friend Peter Hall at Horror's Not Dead took the movie for a spin. He found the experience seriously wanting: "Watching [My Bloody Valentine 3D] on Blu-ray is akin to trying to watch a movie after staring into the sun before getting donkey punched with an ugly green paint can." He points to a message board thread at High Def Digest that says the "the technology to do Real D (the non red-blue glasses variety) at home does not exist." So all that's available is the "dreadful red-blue" type of "3D" experience for home viewers -- you know, the same type that made us want to claw our eyes out while trying to watch 3D movies in the 80s.

I tried watching the old school 3D at home with Friday the 13th Part 3 on DVD and lasted about 15 minutes. Awful!! Have you seen any recent 3D titles at home? Do they provide a decent experience, or are they a complete waste of time and money?

10 Comments

Tags: 3-d, 3-d at home, 3-dAtHome, 3d, 3d at home, 3dAtHome, featured, my bloody valentine, my bloody valentine 3d, MyBloodyValentine, MyBloodyValentine3d

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

5-21-2009 @ 9:38PM

emersondartagnan said...

I think for Avatar, this will no longer even be a question. *crosses fingers*

5-21-2009 @ 10:29PM

Peter Hall said...

Unfortunately, AVATAR won't be any different, unless they crack the tech before hand. There is a lot of mumbojumbo involved, but the main hurdle is that in the US the standard for TVs makes displaying the 'good' 3-D nearly impossible. I've read of a few plots in play to make it work, but nothing has hit the market yet.

5-21-2009 @ 10:32PM

Boomzilla said...

The only 3-D at home you'll see for the foreseeable future will be anaglyph - the red/blue glasses. The technology that would bring RealD type 3-D (with polarized glasses) exists but hardly any TVs or monitors possess the processing power to accommodate the necessary refresh rate or imagery. By foreseeable future I mean, say, the next 12 months, and even then the sets will be prohibitively expensive for most of us unless manufacturers think ahead enough to do some sort of tie-in or development to coincide with James Cameron's "Avatar" when it comes out on Blu-Ray. For the immediate future, any other thing you see now advertised as 3-D at home will still be the substandard kind.
Eventually, though, the possibility exists of 3-D at home or even in theaters -- WITHOUT glasses! It's not that far-fetched, and lots of really dedicated people are working on it. There are prototypes.
But brace for another format fight to see who gets the licensing fees -- same as with Beta/VHS, Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD.

5-21-2009 @ 10:44PM

ElevatorHappyFun said...

I saw My Bloody Valentine 3D and Monsters vs Aliens in 3D.

They both were great for different reasons; MBV3D was cheesy on purpose fun while MvA was the perfect popcorn kids fun romp.

Would either one be good without the real 3D (polarized) not really. MBV3D would have been a B movie like Slither, but not funny. MvA would be good but forgettable like 'Over the Hedge' was.

Bottom line for me...
3D is good in theaters 2-4 times a year. (polarized)
3D at home sucks (Red/Blue).
Give me both versions on the disc.

2-4 times a year, for 3D, seems like a lot for some people; but i go to about 40-50 movies a year.

6-24-2009 @ 11:36PM

Ron Wagner said...

Coraline Real3D was fantastic in every way. It is the best 3D I have ever seen. It is the best animation also. Up was fantastic also. It had great artwork, but was not a visually overwhelming. They both deserve four stars.

I now look for what is out in 3D before I look for other movies. I think that all movies will be in 3D some day. Same at home.

Theatres should offer reruns of all Real 3D movies. People will return for seconds and more, or some will have missed certain movies.

I am a 64 year old man, that has been fascinated by 3D since I bought 25 cent 3D comic books.

5-22-2009 @ 9:43AM

DanJack said...

Just for the record, there is another type of 3D called Field Sequential 3D which does a decent job with full color 3D. There are a lot of DVDs available in this format and it is quite good for now. I don't know if this would work on BluRay at all, but it is a good choice for regular DVDs.

5-22-2009 @ 5:33PM

Duane Vibert said...

I saw Journey to the Centre of the Earth in 3D at home & I enjoyed it just as much. I've heard people say that the 2D version sucked so I told them to watch the 3D version. Much more enjoyable. I'd hope that they can bring other 3D movies from the theatre to the home.

5-26-2009 @ 10:28PM

hayson said...

The silly thing about this is that the technology DOES exist. At ShoWest this year, Cinedign and Xpand 3D had a couple different demos set up with 1) a live 3D demo (camera shooting your direction, your image shown on a flat-screen tv) and 2) a 3D racing video game. Sure, neither were as great as the theatrical experience (and RealD isn't as great as the Dolby experience), but it sure beats the hell out of the red/blue glasses.

5-26-2009 @ 10:40PM

hayson said...

8-08-2009 @ 11:32PM

Dave said...

theres is modern 3d in the home, you just need NVIDIA 3D Vision Stereoscopic Glasses (tigerdirect) and a compatible display, theres a 120hz 3d ready 22inch monitor available from both viewsonic and samsung (tigerdirect, newegg) mistubishi dlp televisions also support the 3d hardware, for gaming you must have a pc with nvidia graphics card. let me tell you, movies and games will never be the same, its just like going to the movies to see a 3d movie, not that red and blue garbage, if you can afford it. buy everything and sit back with alot of popcorn and drinks :)