- June 14, 2010
- 4:03 pm
- Jamason Chen
NAB show 2010
By Jamason Chen
That was almost 2 months ago, my first trip to Las Vegas, the trip I had never thought I’d like to make. But that was an inspiring trip, seeing the “sin” city and the very innovative media technology showcase. This blog is a delayed on-site report what I saw in the show mostly, of course a few images of the city.
In the show, stereo 3D is the major showcase, partially, I believe, with the aggressive promotion by SONY with their heavy involvement in making and presenting the stereo 3D movie Avatar. All the major media technology giants showed their latest development in the stereo 3D media technologies, from content acquisition, post-production to presentation. Since I have spent a lot of time in research of stereo 3D content creation and presentation, I was more interested in what would be new technologically compared to the anaglyphic or polarized binocular methodologies a century ago. The solution I saw from those major name companies is still the same: 2 cameras or one camera with 2 lenses mounted on a very heavy and technically complicated tripod with some parallax view adjustment system. Through my conversation with those stereo 3D salepeople, I concluded that at this point the stereo 3D is still a financially luxury production choice and technically sophisticated implementation method. But as the stereo 3D research community said 10 years ago, when the stereo 3D media technology is ready, the next demand will be the content. So, now it’s the time to explore the stereo 3D content production, not just how to produce the content but what should be the content best using this immersive visual media.
This new stereo 3D wave is the 3rd wave in the visual communication history since photography was invented in 1839. Will this wave be successful and become a new media form with other interactive features new digital media has been demonstrating? The answer is still unknown. But it is for sure that this new stereo 3D wave with all the features digital media technology has provided will not end suddenly as its precedents.
Many years ago in the end of my research paper on stereo 3D visual communication I was uncertain if this technology would revive to the popularity in its heyday in late 1800′s. In this NAB show 2010, I can tell that it’s almost there. Who knows in the next few years everywhere may have stereo 3D displays, and everyone may holds a stereo camera. The three dimensional world would be not only in our lives but also in our media experiences.
