Dawn of the Geeks

CNN is reporting that Hollywood is helping to foot the $1 Billion bill to convert a lot more movie screens to digital so they can play 3D movies. 3D movies reportedly do better in the box office than 2D movies and that shouldn’t be much of a surprise. 3D is something you can’t get at home. Theaters used to provide a unique experience, not just the ability to see something first. But now people would rather spend the money renting or buying the DVD and watching a movie at home than spend $20-40 to go see a movie in the theater. What the theater provides is not unique enough to justify the expense.

If you want to see a movie in 3D, you have no choice but to spend the money to go to the theater and it is worth the expense as long as the movie itself is good. With a lot of movies being computer animated in 3D it’s trivial to render the movie to be able to be viewed in 3D on the big screen. Recording the movie digitally to begin with also makes it easier to have two cameras rolling at the same time to be used for 3D viewing.

In the 1900’s it was a gimmick. In the 2000’s it looks like it’s going to be very common and more than a gimmick. With polarized glasses instead of red/blue glasses the effect is much better. Technology just makes it an all around a better experience than decades ago.