Following on from this week's news that the UK is set to get 3D TV 'within two years', TechRadar spoke to Marie Bloomfield, an analyst at Screen Digest, about her thoughts on 3DTV.
While she does think that that 2011 is a reasonable timeline for 3D TVs to enter the market, it all depends on format standardisation, and even then it will be early adopters only who will embark on 3D in the home within two years.
"3D will slot into the current replacement cycle of TVs, so we don't expect consumers to upgrade to 3D sooner than they would replace a set ordinarily," explains Bloomfield.
"Replacement cycles for TVs in the US and Western Europe is about six or seven years, so consumers will adopt within that sort of timeframe."
Format agnostic
In terms of which 3D technology will win, Bloomfield is confident that we will see stereoscopic TVs win through: "It will be a glasses-based solution initially. Autostereoscopic technology is just not close enough to be ready for market.
"It's possible that the industry will be fairly format agnostic at the display end, however. The studios aren't particularly bothered about whether the displays are active or passive, so the standard may be agnostic."
Game for 3D
In terms of the early adopters, Bloomfield believes that although the movie side is gearing up for mass invasion of 3D films, it may be gamers who adopt 3D first. "There's definitely a lot of the content in the pipeline from the movie side," she explained.
"Studios are eager to get that content into the home as it is obviously a lucrative window for them.
"Equally, however, the early adopter demographic in the games market has shown it is willing to adopt peripherals – just look at Guitar Hero and Wii controllers. And the consoles are certainly powerful enough to render in 3D."
