3DX--the world’s first digital 3D movie festival was held Nov 18-23rd in Singapore. I was one of over 200 persons who paid $1000 and up to attend but some of the films were shown in the evening to the general public also..

Hollywood is taking 3D very seriously with some 40 films on the slate for the next 3 years and many others from majors and independents sure to come. Top execs from Fox, DreamWorks Animation, Disney and others, as well as reps from TI (the maker of the DLP chip that powers nearly all projectors used for 3D) and projector maker Christie (owned by 4600 screen global theatrical giant AIX) gave talks often accompanied by clips of upcoming films. Christie claims 80% of all digital cinema installations. I think they used two of their brightest (14fL) CP2000 SB’s here.

The huge lovely theater at the Golden Village Cinema in Vivo City was set up and run by teams from Technicolor, Disney and Dolby (which has now installed about 600 cinemas with the Dolby Digital movie server, including some 300 with the Dolby Active Infitec 3D system). Active Infitec, or more properly Dolby® 3D Digital Cinema is Dolby’s patented single projector system which uses a spinning wheel inside the projector (it can be retrofitted on some models) with half right eye and half left eye Infitec triple notch filters. It is licensed to Barco, who will also approach 300 installs by the end of 2008. However, since this process loses over 90% of the light, on this occasion two top of the line color corrected Christie projectors, one for each eye—i.e., the original passive Infitec system—were installed.

Some persons told me there were two synced active Infitec projectors used, but I spent 15 minutes in the projection booth with the techs and I am sure it was a passive system. Dolby’s system (and perhaps all pro Infitec systems) are color corrected, meaning that the color imbalance that otherwise exists for any anaglyph method is minimized to the point where it’s very hard to tell it’s anaglyphic. This, combined with the superbly even luminance in the two eyes and over the entire screen, and the very high (compared with most venues) brightness of 4.1 ft. lamberts gave a spectacularly good image. I heard many who have seen up to 60 different recent 3D digital theaters (e.g., Ben Stassen of nWave, producer of four IMAX 3D films) say it was the best they had ever seen.

The huge (ca. 13x20M ) white screen was also unusually large for digital 3D. In addition, all of the films had good to excellent image alignment and minimal binocular asymmetries, so the end result was stunning. I was able to watch as many as 6 full length films in one day with no more eyestrain than I would expect from sitting in the dark looking at a very bright screen with 2D images. It might be thought that I was insensitive to eyestrain due to 35 years of frequent 3D viewing, but in the few cases when things were not right I felt the strain immediately, as I note below. However it must be kept in mind that this system give essentially zero ghosting, which contributes to eyestrain and which is present to some degree in the other 5 competing systems. Likewise it is critical that I always sit in the middle of the theater in the back and clean the lenses carefully, so as to minimize all the 2D and 3D contributions to eyestrain due to position and glasses. Sitting further away also tends to increase the apparent depth. It is interesting to note that many of the experts (e.g., the filmmakers) often sat in the front or on the sides—a peculiar phenomenon I have noticed at many 3D events. If I had sat in the front or to the side, or viewed the film thru a fingerprint or with CP glasses (i.e., with Real D or MasterImage systems which have higher ghosting), or in a theater with a less than perfect silver screen, or had suboptimal polarized glasses, or the projector had a steep projection angle to a silver screen, or seen a dimmer or unevenly illuminated image, I would expect more eyestrain.

I find it useful to define an “Eyestrain Budget”, which varies from person to person, which is used up by every error in the image, expressed as a % deviation from perfect, multiplied by time viewed, which produce eyestrain (i.e., headache, nausea, dizziness, blurred vision) in a given person with a particular environment and viewing modality. Non stereo image factors (e.g., dim image, excessive image motion due to camera movement or seat movement-i.e., ride films) must also be figured in. Problems with the original program add to those of projection, viewing method, viewing position and one’s own psychophysiology. Any use of our visual system uses up the budget including reading and watching TV but bigger, brighter screens in darker surroundings with lots of motion consume the budget much faster and 3D is the most difficult case.

Next: Reviews of the films and viewing technologies.