As I may have mentioned before, for our Christmas gift to each other Debbie and I bought a new Samsung LCD/LED TV. It’s got a lot of bells and whistles, including built-in WiFi and that great edge-to-edge picture that makes it look like movies are literally coming out of the woodwork. And it’s also got 3D capability, via the almost-but-not-quite dorky-looking glasses that came with the set. (Does anyone still refer to it as a “TV set”?)
The 3D thing was not a selling point for us; there’s simply no option to leave it out, if you want the same overall picture quality and other features. We have yet to even try out the glasses, other than to put them on and look around the room to see if they turned an actual three-dimensional environment into a 4D one. (Sadly, they didn’t.)
That’s going to change, however, as we broke down yesterday and bought a 3D movie on DVD at Best Buy. It’s Captain America, which we haven’t seen, and which got some very good reviews from people whose opinions I respect. The darn thing cost $35, which is ridiculous, but still not much less than seeing it on an actual movie theater screen by the time you add in the required peripheral purchases.
And not only do you get a Blu-Ray 3D version, you also get the plain vanilla Blu-Ray version, as well as an old-and-busted non-Blu-Ray version, and also a digital version. So, theoretically, you could watch this movie in four different formats in four separate rooms at the same time. Does that count as 4D? (Sadly, it doesn’t.)
I hope I’m not setting myself up for a big disappointment, but I’m prepared to be blown away by the awesomeness of 3D in my very own living room. I’ll try to file a report on these pages, assuming I’m not trapped in an alternate universe.
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I’m eager to read your impression of Captain America 3D. Of course that assumes you’ll be able to see good enough to type afterwards.
We’ve yet to watch a 3D movie on our new Samsung but we have watched a couple of the 3D trailers and shorts available through the built-in app and I have to admit I’m fairly impressed with the 3D quality. There’s a short documentary-type show about birds that was pretty fair but the Japanese cartoons didn’t do much for me.
We did get a 3D Avatar disc from Panasonic (coupon with a new Blu-ray player) but haven’t attempted to watch it yet. It’ll be interesting to see if we can make it through the movie without migraines or hallucinations.
You need some kind of time-keeping device to get 4D.
Given our experience last night (documented in a subsequent post), we’ll be sticking to Samsung’s built-in 3D programming, too. What a train wreck!