Another week, another technological assault on your perception of reality. Last week: dream recorders. This week: holographic broadcasting. They've worked out a way to transmit proper holograms in real time – just like the 3D begging letter from Princess Leia that R2D2 played for Obi-Wan Kenobi. Holograms differ from traditional 3D images in that you don't need glasses to see them. Also, you can walk around and examine them from different angles. If R2 had beamed that image of Leia onto a glass shelf halfway up the wall, Luke and Obi-Wan could have taken turns squatting underneath it and peering up her dress. In other words, "standard" 3D broadcasting has been rendered old-fashioned before it's had a chance to catch on.
Have you experienced 3D telly yet? Don't worry if you haven't, because so far it's powerfully underwhelming: the very definition of a step backward disguised as a leap forward. Consider this a warning from the future.
For one thing, there's less choice. Despite the explosion in rubbish 3D cinema, hardly any movies are actually available to buy in 3D – and most of those are bundled together with specific brands of television. The biggest 3D movie in the world, Avatar, is currently offered only as part of an exclusive package deal with Samsung. And Avatar is shit anyway: a humourless fable about a bunch of sanctimonious, stand-offish jungle-smurfs who spend their days running around in thongs, attacking explorers, interfering with sky-horses, and obstinately halting the march of progress for the sake of a poxy tree. Watching the Na'vi (see? even their name is obnoxious) mope and moan in three dimensions simply made them more real, and therefore more objectionable. Maybe if the final half-hour had consisted of one of the human soldiers repeatedly kicking one of the Na'vi shamen in his leaf- bollocks until he spewed blue sick and his eyeballs popped out in 3D, I'd have found it easier to stomach.
Still, at least the effects are impressive and it's got a few actual human beings in it (they're the shouty pink things the blue heroes are perpetually sneering at). Other than that, your choice of 3D movies is largely limited to sub-Pixar kiddywink cartoons about anthropomorphic squirrels and tedious Imax documentaries about fossils or seaweed. There's also one 3D TV channel bringing you such treats as Keane in 3D (it's just like they're in the room, sadly), a 3D episode of Are You Smarter Than a 10 Year Old? hosted by Noel Edmonds (yep, 3D Noel Edmonds: that's the glittering future right there) and live coverage of sporting events. Sport in 3D is impressive for precisely 19 seconds. The good news: it's pin-sharp and three-dimensional. The bad news: it makes everyone involved look two inches tall, so you feel like you're watching a swarm of tiny men scampering around a rectangular green carpet tile fighting for possession of a small white bead (football) or a squabble between two locusts (tennis). Even the biggest match feels instantly underwhelming. And that's assuming you enjoy sport in the first place, which I don't.
It's also possible to play videogames in 3D, which sounds almost as brilliant as it isn't. Remember Wipeout, the lightning-fast futuristic hoverjet racing game that helped Sony shift thousands of PlayStations back in the late 90s? Now you can play an updated version in high-definition 3D. Trouble is, it's almost impossible to tell what's happening – there's a racetrack twisting around in front of you, numbers and icons floating in the foreground, with your spacecraft gliding somewhere halfway between the two. And it all feels just too far away – you have to sit two metres from the screen for the 3D effect to work, so effectively you're watching the action unfold on the other side of the room. I'm sure other games will eventually arrive that make sense in 3D – probably slower-paced, puzzle-based affairs – but for now it simply gets in the way.
So the entertainment currently on offer is either a) limited, b) underwhelming, or c) confused. But that can improve. The other drawback – the physical reality of viewing it – will be harder to overcome. To watch TV in 3D you need to sit around indoors wearing a dumb pair of polarized sunglasses, like you think you're Billy Idol. On top of that, you need to stay as close to the centre of the screen as possible – sit further than 30 degrees to one side or the other and the image starts to concertina in on itself, like the pages of a pop-up-book in mid-turn. The horizontal plane isn't the only problem: the screen also has to be positioned roughly at eye-height – which means you shouldn't stick a 3D TV halfway up your living-room wall unless you plan to watch it standing up.
Oh, and forget lying sideways on the sofa while watching the bloody thing. Doing that knackers the picture up, too. Instead, you have to keep your head level throughout – sitting there, bolt upright, like an obedient prisoner, watching Noel Edmonds ask quiz questions in 3D. At least if he was a hologram you could peer up his trouserleg for a glimpse of his boxers. That's the future of entertainment.
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