I was told by several persons that the XPAND glasses broke frequently and that they did not fit people who had to wear glasses. Of course all glasses break eventually and none fit everyone. XPAND is making new ones with built in RFID tags and other features (e.g., you can now wave a special wand over them to determine remaining battery life) and they said that the batteries last 300 hours. This means ca. 150 movies and amortizing what they said is the average cost to the chains of $65/pair this means ca. 40 cents per film, assuming minimal breakage. They charge about $14K for installation. They claim 500 installations by the end of 2008 which about ties them with Infitec (i.e., 300 each by Dolby and Barco). Even if their nonreplaceable batteries do last an average of 300 hours, this makes XPAND by far the most expensive of the 6 alternatives followed by Real D, Twin Polarized, MasterImage and 3DTV with Infitec the least costly. I exclude the supercheap bicolor anaglyph (e.g., SpaceSpex) which is unlikely to appear.

What all this seems to amount to is that the sun is setting on the Real D empire. In spite of Real D’s continuing claims that they have over 90% of the world’s 3D theaters, the fact is that they have less than 50% worldwide and are quickly losing share even in the USA, where their angels (Disney, AIX etc.) deep pockets have been keeping them alive. About three years ago Real D had essentially all of the 400 or so 3D digital theaters then existing, and nearly all were in the USA , but now there are ca. 2200 worldwide and Real D has less than 1000 total. They are the only one of the six systems required to ghost reduce and the only one who charges an annual fee ($25K). The roughly 1000 Real D theaters will pay them ca $25 million in license fees in 2009, most of which will be saved by those using the other five methods (except XPAND where the cost could be more). This only makes sense if their major installers such as AIX own stock in Real D and even then they would have a better image and save a bundle as well as freeing themselves from ghost reduction, the expensive CP glasses and silver screens, if they switched technologies. There were no Real D systems at the show. One suspects they did not want to risk a comparison. One knowledgeable person who saw “Journey to the Center of the Earth” at a Real D theater in Oahu, Hawaii said it gave him a bad headache. Neither I nor anyone I talked to had a problem with it at 3DX. Potential reasons for the difference are numerous. There could have been excessive ghosting due to depolarization by substandard glasses or screen or by fingerprints on his glasses or by sitting close to or to the sides of the screen or by deterioration of the CP switcher. It’s possible the cinema server/projector or CP switch malfunctioned or even that the theater did not receive a ghost reduced version of the digital film.

A theater with a 3D capable projector could install the 3DTV Corp 3D Window shutter glasses system in less than an hour for just the cost of the glasses ($50 to $100 each dep. on qty.) and emitter ($500 to $5000 dep. on theater size). If they replaced an Infitec (Dolby or Barco) system the brightness would about triple , with the downsides of the cost of glasses and a slight increase in ghosting. If they had a Real D system, by changing they would (on average) pay for the glasses in the first year by shedding the license fee and would have a brighter image with lower ghosting and no need to get a ghost reduced film and constantly monitor the quality of the polarization chain (i.e., CP switcher, screen, glasses). If they had MasterImage or dual polarized they would (on average) have a somewhat brighter image with lower ghosting and drop the need for paying for (or getting their customers to pay for) paper or plastic glasses. If they had XPAND disposable shutter glasses they could (due to compatibility) start phasing them out immediately and reduce glasses costs to as little as a tenth (i.e., pennies per customer) depending on how long the XPAND batteries last and the relative breakage rates. I have not seen anyone estimate the market for 3D Cinema hardware so I have put my estimates in Table 1.

NOTES:

3DTV 3D Window LCD shutter glasses system can replace any other 3D system in an hour with payback cost in from 3 months to a year. 30M = 5M install + 25M glasses 55M = 5M install + 50M glasses

The XPAND system should cost from 3 to 10 times more than the 3DTV system, with cost differential increasing with higher use. If battery life is less than the claimed 300 hours the cost rises accordingly as the batteries are not replaceable. 39M = 14M install + 25M glasses 139M = 14 install + 125M glasses

The 10K license fee for Infitec is the estimated extra cost to buy an Active Infitec enabled projector. 22M = 12M glasses + 10M license premiums on projectors 34M = 24M glasses + 10M license premiums

Real D 35M = 25M license + 10M silver screens 135M = 125M licenses + 10M silver screens

MasterImage 42M = 32M install + 1-M silver screens

Twin Polarized 60M = 10M silver screens + 50M for second projector
Cost of projector is not included except for Twin Polarized which includes cost of the second projector.

Infitec is rated 2nd in IQ since it is expected that on average the image will be significantly less bright, less well color corrected and more blurry due to fingerprints and reflections than shutter or polarized theaters.

Due to it’s zero crosstalk, the color corrected Dolby® 3D Digital Cinema system ((i.e., the Dolby Active Infitec system also licensed to Barco) is clearly the hands-down winner for those theaters with the very brightest projectors and smaller screens (i.e., brighter because all the light is on a smaller area). However as noted, many persons here commented that this projection was the best they had ever seen (including IMAX 3D projections of some of the same films), and teams from Technicolor, Dolby and Disney brought in lots of equipment including two giant state of the art Christie DLP projectors, put one eye into each projector for 4.1 lux at the screen (incredible) and tweaked it to the max. Unfortunately, virtually all of the 600 Dolby/Barco/Infitec installs are the single projector Active Infitec with significantly less brightness and possibly less than perfect (or even no?) color correction (i.e., a less pleasing image with poorer depth and more eyestrain). I assume the color correction (and Infitec filter wheel sync) must be done on site and details will vary with each projector model.

Two other problems with the Dolby® 3D Digital Cinema system (i.e, Infitec) were the reflections off the inside of the glasses from aisle lights and rear lights in the theater (a problem with all types of glasses but notably worse here) and, by far worst of all, the near impossiblity of removing the very obtrusive fingerprints. I solved the former problem by changing my seat but, unlike the case with polarized or shutter glasses, I was unable to completely remove the prints on these with clean tissues. I have been told that alcohol wipes have been mandated for use in French 3D theaters and these would appear to be essential for Infitec.

As I predicted in my previous article, Sony has introduced a split lens polarized system for their high end LCOS projector, but this necessitates losing pixels and also the brightness takes a big hit, so the future of their LCOS for 3D is problematic. It was not in evidence at the show nor do I know of any theater using it.

Now for a little non-3DX 3D info from Singapore. TI’s rep. (i.e., the maker of DLP engines) told me they have sold 2 million of the Samsung/Mitsubishi 3D DLP tv’s in the USA now, but of course there are still no compatible 3D movies on HD DVD. TI has made a hi-res, very bright 240hz (i.e., no motion blur) DLP engine but so far no takers for manufacturing it into sets or projectors.

I finally got a chance to see the autostereo lenticular display from Pierre Alio and colleagues on display in the cinema lobby. It was bright and reasonably sharp with decent depth as expected, but it had bad diagonal Moire bands due to misalignment of the lens sheet with the display. This is the normal problem for lenticulars and it’s almost impossible to totally and permanently eliminate it, as one has to make a whole new metal master for every change and that can cost in the $100,000 range for a 42 inch display. Also the plastic will tend to expand and shrink with heat and produce Moire even if it was not there to begin with, and this gets worse with time and in more extreme locations as the plastic shrinks, the glue degrades and the lens sheet yellows and dehisces. Of course none of the manufacturers of such displays mention these issues in company literature.

I checked out most of the other 3D experiences available while I was in Singapore. There are two on the hill on Sentosa Island near the Imbiah station of the express train from Vivo City ( where 3DX took place). CineBlast is another of the 10 minute motion platform ride films from SimEx-Iwerks which sits 6 in each car that rocks and rolls more or less in sync with the 3D computer graphics on the screen. There were 9 cars for the 12M wide screen. They used dual LP projection, which is quite odd since nearly everyone who does rides that jerk you around as much as this uses circular polarizers, which permit head tipping (unlike LP’s). In addition to the ghosting caused by head tipping, the rapid movement of the images and the discomfort (in my case) from the excessive car motion, the two projectors were seriously out of register, with about 8cm of vertical parallax and excessive horizontal parallax. I guess from the look of the images that there was an excessive angle between the two stereo views in the original graphics as well, but with all the other problems it was impossible to say. Like all the 2D and 3D ride films I have seen, the graphics look quite dated with no ray tracing etc, and inferior to the better current videogames.

The other Sentosa 3D attraction was "Pirates"--also a SimEx-Iwerks attraction, which I had seen before in Beijing, and which I think was shot with dual 70mm film (perhaps with the HinesLab rig). I believe it premiered at Busch Gardens in Florida maybe 10 years ago. As in Beijing the seats rocked back and forth and the film was synced with leg whips, air jets and water sprays. This really dumb 15 min. comedy about clueless pirates with Leslie Nielsen and Eric Idle had reasonably good 3D and dual LP projection, but again the two projectors were seriously out of alignment H and V and skewed right to left and this, combined with asymmetrical illumination and the slight jitter and weave from the film cameras, significantly diminished the effect. It was, however, far from the worst 3D projection I have seen in recent years. That honor belongs, hands down, to the short 3D film I saw at the Mars M&M store in Las Vegas two years ago. I presume the projector was originally OK when they installed it but bad things had happened and there was horrific mismatch of the registration, ghosting (possibly due to burnt out polarizers) and brightness of the images in all directions, and such a dim image and huge H and V parallax it was impossible to watch. I had my glasses off most of the 10 min. but the others had no clue and their headaches must have been extreme compared to mine. I talked to the projectionist who told me he knew something was wrong and said it had been that way for a long time. I explained the situation and gave him my card for the manager. Subsequently I wrote a letter about this disaster to the Mars company telling them what was wrong and suggesting this was a major liability as people could easily get dizzy enough to fall down the several flights of stairs or throw up in the store. I managed to locate Michael Mars home address and sent him a copy of the letter. As expected (after 35 years in the 3D industry), I never heard a word from anyone. If anybody happens by Las Vegas I would like to know if they have fixed this. So far as I know this is the only place where this 3D film is shown.

Another 3D rarity, called the "Tiger Beer Experience", is located across the street from Vivo City. You have to endure 20 min. of history on Tiger Beer to get to the 10 min. 3D movie, presented with dual LP projection on a 7M screen with rotating elevated platform. The whole theater was done ca. 3 years ago by NHK and I suspect it cost at least $10M. The film combined 3D video and graphics to tell you about how beer is made and the visuals looked quite good considering that the projectors were seriously out of whack. Misregistration H and V and skewed images with asymmetical illumination. Also, the glasses were very beat up. I talked to the manager and he was aware it was not perfect but when we took a look at the projection and AV set up I saw he had a major job on his hands. The extensive NHK installation was racks and racks of equipment and lots of wires running all over the building as well as going to a pair of large projectors set in an almost inaccessible place up in the air. It was going to be a lot of work to get a test image into them and adjust the mounts. He was quite receptive but had to go thru Tiger to make any changes, so we shall see.

The final short 3D film was X4D at the Discovery Center, probably also a motion base ride film from SimEx-Iwerks, but it had not opened yet, so some other intrepid stereopath will have to check it out.

Singapore has made a decision to get into media production, including feature films, and Lucasfilm has a studio there. This accounts for the government sponsorship of this and other events and one can expect a lot of film activity here in the future, both 2D and 3D. If 3DX 2 takes place here next November it should be quite spectacular.

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