Reviews: Home Theatre/TV:

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Over the last couple of months, we here at Tone have been running regular articles on the technology that’s being sold as The Next Big Thing: 3D TV. With the rush of blood to the eyeballs that accompanied Avatar, it’s not wholly surprising that everyone got a bit overexcited about that extra dimension. But, after a couple of dud releases turned up in the cinemas, and we’d had the chance to sit down in front of the tellies for longer than it takes to drink a glass of champagne at a product launch, it’s easier to consider the 3D TV with a cooler head. After eight months, Avatar is still the only impressive movie shot in native 3D, despite promises from the studios and manufacturers of a torrent of content. This remains the single biggest problem with the technology — it doesn’t matter whether it works or not if there’s nothing to watch on it. Because there’s very little to see in terms of original content, companies are resorting to post-converting both at the production level (as with the widely panned Clash of the Titans) and in the TV itself. The results in both cases are less than impressive, particularly now everyone’s aware of how good 3D looks when it’s done right. Perhaps we need to wait until 3D TV gets the basics right too. TIM