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This topic comprises 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
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Author
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Topic: 3D is bad for you ...
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 03-24-2010 04:13 PM
quote: Joe Redifer
So you think that in the near future, 3D will be used on all but the random artsy-fartsy independent picture? And to my knowledge sound is always used even on those types.
On the topic of "gimmicks," digital surround sound could be called a gimmick. Nearly 20 years ago 6-channel surround (either 70mm magnetic or 5.1 digital) was typically used only by high profile movie releases and only a small minority of big city movie theaters featured the necessary equipment to play that kind of audio.
Today, 5.1 surround is used on most movie releases, even the majority of artsy fartsy indie features. Not only that, but many TV shows, sports programs, concerts, etc. use 5.1 audio. 5.1 audio is pretty fun in video games.
This doesn't mean 3D will catch on in the same manner as multichannel surround sound. At the very least, I think the argument is pretty convincing that surround sound is no longer merely a gimmick.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 03-25-2010 12:36 PM
Color, sound, surround sound, etc, are a "walk-in" experience. You don't need to do (or wear) anything special to enjoy it (or hate it).
With 3D you need the glasses and related hassles (clean them, adjust them, store them, change batteries if they are active, replace them when broken/scratched, etc).
But the BIG issue here remains the same.
3D per-se is not a gimmick, of course. But what you see on a 3D film is NOT the "same 3D you see in real life" just as 5.1 sound is NOT the same "3D" sound you hear in real life. As such, 5.1 sounds "artificial", limited and sometimes "weird" or downright "gimmicky" when overused. Same with stereoscopic 3D.
But all that is not the main question. The main question is that those people that really enjoy 3D and see no problem whatsoever with it don't realize that OTHER PEOPLE SEE A COMPLETELY, TOTALLY DIFFERENT THING and that that's the majority.
Most of us would not stand for 5 minutes a hard-rock music at life concert levels. A professional DJ can play house-acid music every single night for 20 years at 130db and not give a damm. He doesn't understand why we all don't like loud music.
Some of us could watch 3D films all day and night and think they are wonderful.
Show them to an audience of 100 people and:
-10 would think they same as us: "why the hell hasn't stereoscopic films, or PHOTOGRAPHY, which have existed for about 100 years now, become the NORM like color or sound? People are stupid!!!"
-10 would say: "WTF was that? I don't want to watch a 3D film or take a 3D photograph ever again. What a piece of crap."
-80 would say: "Oh, that was cool. Let's do it again." After about 10 films/100 photographs they'll say: "Thanks but no thanks. Not interested. Specially if I have to wear the glasses, watch a dark picture with weird hotspot reflections, wear geeky glasses and pay more."
It's been proven time and again. General public is NOT that much into 3D at all. They just don't care enough, specially if they need extra steps (like glasses) to obtain "inferior" results (like darker pictures) or more expensive equipment, etc.
That's why it has died over and over in spite of good or bad (3D) films, all kinds of 3D photo cameras and even video cameras (I have a Toshiba VHS-C 3D camera since the 80's), etc.
But it's true that, since 3D TV basically costs the same as 2D TV nowadays (i.e. the cost of 2 cameras or editing a dual stream or broadcasting it or a 3D TV set is very small in this century), and manufacturers are set to push them into the market, then 3D will become somewhat "ubiquos" BUT heavily underused after a while.
You'll see people with 3D TV watching in 2D mode 99% of the time after the original "novelty factor" wears off, which it will quickly. Cheap producers that don't want to spend a few thousands extra for a second camera rental and 5% more expensive editing, are going to quit doing it 'cos it's not worth it to do 3D if only <20% of your audience is going to flick the "3D mode switch" on.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 04-15-2010 06:22 PM
I thought this was related. Samsung, the first manufacturer with 3D TV's in the market, issues this health warning on 3D TV's:
http://www.samsung.com/au/tv/warning.html
quote:
WARNING* IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION. READ THE FOLLOWING WARNINGS BEFORE YOU OR YOUR CHILD USE THE 3D FUNCTION *WARNING
Children and teenagers may be more susceptible to health issues associated with viewing in 3D and should be closely supervised when viewing these images.
PHOTOSENSITVE SEIZURE WARNING AND OTHER HEALTH RISKS
Some viewers may experience an epileptic seizure or stroke when exposed to certain flashing images or lights contained in certain television pictures or video games. If you suffer from, or have a family history of epilepsy or strokes, please consult with a medical specialist before using the 3D function.
Even those without a personal or family history of epilepsy or stroke may have an undiagnosed condition that can cause photosensitive epileptic seizures.
Pregnant women, the elderly, sufferers of serious medical conditions, those who are sleep deprived or under the influence of alcohol should avoid utilising the unit’s 3D functionality.
If you experience any of the following symptoms, stop viewing 3D pictures immediately and consult a medical specialist:
altered vision;
lightheadedness;
dizziness;
involuntary movements such as eye or muscle twitching;
confusion;
nausea;
convulsions;
cramps; and/ or
disorientation.
Children and teenagers may be more likely than adults to experience these symptoms. Parents should monitor their children and ask whether they are experiencing these symptoms.
Viewing 3D television may also cause motion sickness, perceptual after effects, disorientation, eye strain and decreased postural stability. It is recommended that users take frequent breaks to lessen the potential of these effects. If your eyes show signs of fatigue or dryness or if you have any of the above symptoms, immediately discontinue use of this device and do not resume using it for at least thirty minutes after the symptoms have subsided.
Watching TV while sitting too close to the screen for an extended period of time may damage your eyesight. The ideal viewing distance should be at least three times the screen height. It is recommended that the viewer's eyes are level with the screen.
Watching TV while wearing 3D glasses for an extended period of time may cause a headache or fatigue. If you experience a headache, fatigue or dizziness, stop viewing TV and rest.
Do not use the 3D glasses for any other purpose than for viewing 3D television. Wearing the 3D glasses for any other purpose (as general spectacles, sunglasses, protective goggles, etc.) may be physically harmful to you and may weaken your eyesight.
Viewing in 3D may cause disorientation for some viewers. Accordingly, DO NOT place your TV television near open stairwells, cables, balconies, or other objects that can be tripped over, run into, knocked down, broken or fallen over.
GUIDELINES FOR IN-HOME VIEWING
To watch in 3D mode you need to put the 3D glasses on and press the power button on top of the glasses.
Turn off all fluorescent lighting and block sources of direct sunlight before watching in 3D mode. Fluorescent lighting may cause a flickering effect and direct sunlight may affect the operation of the 3D glasses.
This is a pretty generic warning and has more to do with the time-sequential nature of the system and possible side effects from the fast "flicker".
The lab that run the study commissioned by Sega on VR in the 80's that pointed to the alleged binocular dysphoria were interviewed by wired magazine during the 90's and, although they couldn't comment on the specifics they researched for Sega (and Sega refused to make the study public), they did say there were a number of "unresolved health issues" with the mass deployment of the virtual reality gear they studied.
But that's another larger, more complex issue to treat here.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 04-16-2010 06:06 AM
And here we have some of the health authorities in some (developed) countries starting to act on the lack of information of lenghty 3D viewing, specially in minors where existing research suggests there MAY be a problem:
http://www.glassesdress.com/italy-prohibit-children-under-6-use-the-3d-glasses-to-watch-3d-film/
quote:
Italy Prohibit Children Under 6 Use the 3D glasses to watch 3D film
Thursday, March 18, 2010 8:33
Posted in category Eye Protection Tips, Friendly Tips1 CommentXinhua NET in Rome on 18 March (report, van der star) Italy’s highest health care Committee recently decided to prohibit children under 6 years old use the 3D glasses to watch a film in 3-D.
This decision also includes: 3D glasses may be recycled and used again to others; cinema a film in three-d, break time must be lengthened.
The highest health care Committee of experts pointed out that the vision has not yet been fully children use the 3D glasses can cause amblyopia and strabismus or other vision problems. If you watch a film in three-d long, adults also appear, so adults use the 3D glasses to watch a film in three-d should limit the time. The Commission said, should widely publicize the proper use of the knowledge of 3D glasses.
Italy a consumer protection organization had repeatedly pointed out that 3D glasses on Visual acuity may pose a potential risk, this decision is based on this suggestion of an organization. This organization also pointed out that the cinema provides 3D glasses often reuse, recycling and disinfection, inevitably lead to the audience at risk.
All I know is that, personally, if I had a child under 7 years old, I would not let him watch stereoscopic 3D stuff and, under 10 yo, only for brief periods of time like 2-3 films a week max. After 12 yo or so, with proper feedback on his side, I don't think it's much of a potentially permanent problem to watch 1-2 hours a day of stereo-3D and temporary potential effects (that seem to vary in susceptibility with each individual) would likely dissapear half an hour after watching it.
Again, some people is more susceptible to visual system "corruption" than others, with some people having no trouble at all with stereoscopic 3D, even when badly shot (or presented) for long periods and others with disruptive behaviour for hours afterwards and only 1 case docummented in Japan of permanent damage on a minor. It is well known and a medical fact that minor's visual systems can be permanently impared through repeated improper usage and, thus, it would seem logical that it can lead to issues when presented with non-orthoscopic stereoscopic cues that don't follow natures' "rules" 100% for long enough.
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Julio Roberto
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 938
From: Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Registered: Oct 2008
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posted 05-05-2010 01:20 AM
IMHO, this article has it pretty right.
http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;?articleID=224500108
quote:
PORTLAND, Ore. — Visual disparities in 3-D TV images can cause physical strain in viewers, according to recent research at the University of California at Berkeley.
While proper viewing conditions can help avoid most problems--dark room, central seat far from the screen--3-D cinematographers also need to follow careful rules or risk making people sick, researchers said.
A stereo viewing chair that rotates was designed by UC-Berkeley researchers to allow manipulation of visual and vestibular cues to self-motion and body orientation.
The debate over 3-D TV heated up earlier this week when Samsung issued a warning about possible health effects.
Even if the physical strains of 3-D are avoided, other disparities can cause mental strain akin to vertigo, according to other investigators at the University of Washington. "If [cinematographers] confined 3-D to animations, then there wouldn't be a problem [since] the brain doesn't have the same expectations about cartoons," said Aris Silzars, founder of Northern Lights, a display technology consultancy (Sammamish, Wash.)
For the emerging crop of 3-D movies that incorporate real-world scenery, movie makers have one extra job beyond those of previous animations: Minimizing the so-called vergence-accommodation conflict.
The conflict arises from the fact that 3-D displays often cause distortions in perceived 3-D structure compared with the percepts of the real scenes the displays depict.
"The only thing we have any data on is what we call the vergence-accommodation conflict, which our lab has shown really does cause fatigue, discomfort, eye strain and headache in some cases," said professor Martin Banks, who led the research into 3-D eye strain at the UC-Berkeley, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
According to Banks, when viewers direct their eyes at nearby objects or scenes, their gaze converges. When they gaze into the distance they, diverge, or what optometrists call "vergence." Conversely, focusing the eye muscles to bring something into sharp focus is called "accommodation."
In the real world, vergence and accommodation are synched to the same distance, but in the world of 3-D stereoscopic glasses decouple the two, forcing the brain to cope with a disparity between the vergence and accommodation distances.
"Normally the distance to which you converge your eye and accommodate your focus are the same, so understandably your brain has coupled these together," Banks said. "The problem is a stereo or 3-D display breaks this coupling, and the reason why is that the disparity between the images that are being presented to the two eyes might specify something behind the screen or in front of the screen--and in those two cases you have to converge your eyes to a different distance than the screen, but you still have to accommodate the screen because that is where the light comes from."
The Berkeley researchers have performed two studies that reached the same conclusion: 3-D TV induces a vergence-accommodation disparity in the brain that manifests itself in a statistically significant number of people as fatigue, discomfort, eye strain and headaches. So far, test subjects have been between 18 and 30, but Banks plans to test 50-year-olds to determine whether they are immune to the vergence-accommodation conflict, as he suspects, since older eyes do not focus as well.
Banks recommends two solutions to minimize eye fatigue and other symptoms: Viewers should sit very far from a 3-D TV screen as they would in a theater. The farther from the screen, the smaller the difference between the convergence and the accommodation distances, Banks said.
The second is to shoot 3-D videos so that action is located at the front of the screen, not off one side or projecting out of the screen into a crowd. By minimizing the vergence-accommodation disparity, the possibility of fatigue and other symptoms will recede in most people, according to Banks.
"The better 3-D movies, like Avatar and Pixar's 'Up' are clearly trying to minimize this conflict with the way they do the cinematography," said Banks.
Even if the theater experience is duplicated in the home, not all of the potential problems associated with 3-D TV will be resolved, according to University of Washington professor Robert Patterson. Patterson and Silzars presented their results at the 2009 Society of Information Display. According to the researchers, three other cognitive disparities can cause fatigue in addition to vergence-accommodation: binocular disparity, linear-perspective disparity and texture perspective disparity.
For instance, if a 3-D scene depicts a football player running the length of the field, depth has to be compressed into a few yards by the cinematographer to prevent too much parallax, causing viewers to see double-image ghosting. Linear perspective (geometric angles) and the texture perspective (distant objects that are less detailed) signal the brain that the distance traveled was 100 yards, thereby creating cognitive disparities.
"The reason why high-level cue conflict leads to discomfort in immersive stereo displays is that the intuitive reasoning system is attempting to make reasoned sense out of this incoming, conflicted perceptual information," Patterson and Silzars wrote.
These higher-level cues create conflicts in the brain that causes mental strain in addition to the physical eye strain of the vergence-accommodation disparity, they added, which becomes intolerable over time, resulting in a confused state of mind akin to vertigo.
"When you take away cues, you create in the brain what is called the 'doll house' effect. The scene can be very precisely constructed, but it does not look real--it looks like a doll house--because your brain is saying that its missing cues that are always present when viewing real scenes," said Silzars. "It creates a vision-to-brain conflict that can make you feel nauseous and dizzy or worse."
Worse still, according to Patterson and Silzars, is that the closer a set of cues comes to matching reality, the more discomfort viewers experience. That means the problem could get worse as cinematographers attempt to make 3-D experiences even more realistic. One solution, according to Silzars, would be to confine 3-D content to animations since the brain does not expect cartoons to contain the same realism as normal video or film.
"In Avatar for instance, the scenes that were shot with real backgrounds were less convincing than the animated scenes because the brain has lower expectations for animations," said Silzars.
This commentary, also seem appropiate
quote:
As a stereo photographer I have learned to tolerate the vergence-accommodate disparity, because that is the only way to "free view" side-by-side left-and-right images on stereographic cards without the need for glasses. You just stare off into the distance so that your eyes diverge, then slip the stereo card up into view until your eyes accommodate a close focus. Vergence is distant, but accommodation is close, a combination that is not normal--a disparity--but it can also be an acquired skill. In our stereo camera club (disclaimer: I am tech editor of the non-profit club newsletter, Stereo Views, and run the Uptown3D.org web site), about half the members have learned to tolerate this disparity and "free view" stereo cards without glasses--but the other half complain of discomfort and give up. I suspect the same will be true for 3D TV. For some it will be a joy, and the others will just flip the from 3D-to-2D.
The thing, in my view, is that about 10% of the population are stero-nuts and they have very little/no trouble with 3D and enjoy inmensely and simply can't understand what the others are talking about. They just don't realise that what they are seeing when they see a 3D film is NOT what 90% of the people are experiencing. Then there are about 10% of the population that just can't take 3D, mostly for medical reason. Of the other 80%, half (or even more) are fine and enjoy 3D, but don't value it as much as the stereo-nuts (hey, not EVERYBODY likes football, right?). The other half of those, have some minor discomfort and tolerate but not for too long the 3D "problems".
But the THING here is with young children, whose visual systems are still being developed. We KNOW that if their vision is "trained" the wrong way long enough, it becomes permanently impaired. And current stereo 3D stuff can range from, reasonably well photographed and presented to awfully done and shown in anaglyph (and even pseudoscopy, like wearing the red-blue glasses with the wrong color on the wrong eye by mistake).
3D works great for cartoons (including Avatar, which is 70% cartoon) because the brain can interpret size/depth/distance/movement relationships within the realm of fantasy, but the story changes when you think you are watching a real person in a real scenario and all the cues are slightly wrong and the brain has to make sense of it. And for shorts periods of time it doesn't seem to cause more than temporary discomfort at worse. But for long exposures to children, specially badly photographed realistic stuff ... well ... who knows.
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