Dolby 3D Glasses

[Kris Anderson]

I took my kids to see Cars 2 in 3D the other day. Firstly, 3D just doesn't do it for me. The glasses are really annoying and I find they limit what I can actually see compared to what I can see without them. This was a Disney theatre so I would hope it was equipped correctly.

Anyway, the glasses given to us were branded with Dolby on the side.

I noticed that the slightest shift of my head upwards would turn the whites on screen (say, Lightning McQueen's eyes) to a magenta tint. Shifting my head down would result in everything having a green tint. I'm not talking big head movements, small ones, like when you breath.

Is this common? Imagine spending all that time making a film, grading it, and then have it be at the mercy of a $5 pair of 3D glasses? it was really disappointing.

Sorry, but 3D just doesn't float my boat yet.

 

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Yeah i'm not a huge fan of dolby 3d.....especially the glasses.... Kinda small and affects my feild of view and your correct depending on your angle of view you can see weird color shift from the filters used for the projection....

The xpand glasses are okay but too heavy for my taste...my favorite is still realD. Even though they tend to be a bit dim and have more lig loss.

Then again each theater around the world you can have vast quality shifts

 

[Kris Anderson]

The theatre was aboard a Disney ship so I'm assuming it was done to spec. It was a great image, other than the colour shifting.

I saw "It's Tough Being a Bug" today at Animal Kingdom in Florida. Best 3D I have ever seen as it combined the screen action with physical fx. So, when a bug flew past you it was accompanied by a jet of air inside the theatre. Or when the bugs were "allowed" to leave the theatre before the humans there was the rush of air and something moving under your ass on the seat. It was very well done.

 

[Jason Goodman]

Dolby 3D uses a technology originally developed by Daimler Chrysler for automotive applications and then spun off as Infitec. The system splits each wavelength of the visible spectrum in half, sending half of each color channel to your left eye and the other half to your right. In standard anaglyph, red goes only to the left eye and green and blue only to the right, causing severe retinal rivalry.

In Dolby 3D, even though each eye is seeing a slightly different range of red, green and blue, they each get some of every color, so overall image density is well balanced and your brain can interpolate the two halves together, avoiding retinal rivalry (ideally).

I have seen the system work extremely well in DOLBY controlled locations, such as Dolby screening rooms in Burbank and New York and the 3DX Festival in Singapore. The Singapore presentation was particularly impressive. Size and brightness were far better than what you see in a cineplexes in the US. Ghosting was eliminated and it looked superb from the back of the house on center.

That being said, I have never seen it look remotely good in a theater where I paid to see the movie. It is always dark, reds look very different in each eye and the glasses are a problem as well. As you mentioned, they can cause color shifts depending on where you sit in the theater and how you move your head, and the lenses are small. Even more annoying, they are very expensive so the theaters "clean" them and give them back to people.

By contrast, Xpand glasses, are also expensive and heavy and need to be cleaned, but at least look good and have big lenses.

RealD is of course the most widely installed system. They have big lenses and are very lightweight, comfortable and inexpensive, so you get a new pair every time. Real D XL equipped theaters seem to be the best places to see 3D movies right now. You can tell you're watching Real D XL if you turn around and see two images on the projection booth window.

Be warned however, a Real D XL projector doesn't guarantee a good presentation. I recently observed a horrendous installation of Real D XL at the Cinemark in North Hollywood. The projector was so far off center and the keystoning so bad, the two images didn't line up properly on screen!!! Sadly the mistakes of the 1950s and 1980s are still being made today when it comes to exhibition.

Inexpensive, high quality 3D TVs may be the savior of the format.

 

[Matthias Hutter]

From what I've seen I think active shutter has still the best 3D quality, provided you have fast enough glasses and Displays/Projectors (i.e. no LCD TVs).
I like the ease of use of RealD glasses though. I think the biggest caveat is that they don't always get a perfect stereo separation.
For all technologies I hope that they fix poor projection problems (low brightness etc.. ) and use a higher frame rates.

 

[Pedro Guimaraes]

Ghosting was eliminated and it looked superb from the back of the house on center.

I agree completely with this as well....

I didn't see one shot ghost on all of transformers movie

 

[Jason Goodman]

I was talking specifically about the projection at 3DX in Singapore. I cannot speak for the theater you watched Transformers in. My point was, when Dolby engineers are involved it works well. In local theaters, I've never seen it work well. Same problem on cruise ships apparently.

 

[kenneth gruyaert]

If active shutter glasses for 3D at home are so much better than what you get in the cinema i think this might cause more people to just choose to wait and watch new movies at home?

I am not a fan of the current situation with proprietary shutter glasses that fit poorly and are even worse if you already wear prescription glasses and i really dont see it ever becoming very widespread in its current form, i think the future is a standard that allows you to buy high quality custom (prescription) shutter glasses that work on all new TV's. If this would take off in the next few years this could also become the standard for cinema's to simply work with the viewers own shutter glasses?

 

[AnthonyFlores]

Yah, the more I read and hear all the complaints and horror stories -- the more I believe something needs to be done in order to better standardize the quality control of projection. It's gotten ridiculously inconsistent.
I've seen the pleas from Michael Bay and other directors, but I think the owners of the movie theater chains (who like the NBA owners, would probably complain they are LOSING money) should intervene and fix this
by upping the pay/responsibility of those in charge of this.

I don't know how much projectionists make -- but there really needs to be a skilled individual at each theater who makes enough $$$ to justify actually caring about the consistency and quality of projection.

This is a really big deal, and as you said Jason -- if they don't find a solution, the numbers of people who just stay at home and watching is going to shoot up even more quickly.

 

[David J. Shuman]

Transformers Real-D 3D looked great once our projector had light!

Transformers Real-D 3D looked great once our projector had light!

I just saw Transformers this past Friday at Paramount Theatres in Montreal. I am a die-hard fan of 3-D ever since I saw Comin' at Ya in 1980. Bad Movie, hooked on 3-D.

Never mind that the cldle power of the projector was low, it burned out during the trailers! No one complained, I went to the usher and remarkd that there was sound but no image. Just before thefilm started, the image came back on. Slight ghosting, but circular polarized Real - 3-D is the way to go for me. Transformers was great!Excellent use of stereo. Sick of poorly converted movies. This was great!

A competitor in Montreal Cinemas Guzzo, used to use Dolby 3-D, but abandoned that silvered screens, and now uses Master Image (a Real-D knock off that turns the filters 45 to be incompatable with REal-D glasses) Same effect, Cars was near-perfect here, as was most of the films in 3-D.

AMC in Montreal uses Real-D and is always a gorgeous experience. Green lantern with high contrast space sceenes, seemed to suffer the most cross-talk.

The worst experience was a t a showing of Spacehunter at a local rep. house, they installed the over under beam splitter so poorly, the iages were over under, not side-by-side. I went totalk to the projectionist, he was adjusting the mirrors throighout the movie, what a headache, we even had to return the cardboard glasses for re-use! No wonder people get upset.:rolleyes5: