quote:

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A few days ago I found an odd package waiting in my mailbox. One of the commercial TV networks got my postie to deliver a pair of 3D glasses - very old school, with separate red and blue lenses. I spent a few moments assembling them, and presto! I looked like I'd just walked out of a showing of 1954's Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Now that James Cameron's Avatar has become the highest-grossing film in history, 3D is very hot. The hottest new toys unveiled at this year's Consumer Electronics Show were 3D television sets, 3D Blu-Ray players, and comfortable 3D glasses for the lounge room. At least three US-based cable networks have promised 3D broadcasts will begin sometime this year - for the few people who have 3D television sets. Everyone in the consumer electronics industry sees this as the Next Big Thing: now that everyone has purchased big, flat-screen TVs, 3D is the next logical step, the necessary upgrade that keeps us all on the treadmill of progress. The movie studios have also gotten behind 3D in a big way. Just last week Warner Brothers announced that the two final Harry Potter films will be shot in 3D.

Is this the decade of 3D? It might look that way, but we'd all better hope it turns out quite differently. You see, 3D is not good for you.

How can this be? Isn't the real world in 3D? Yes, the real world of objects is definitely three-dimensional. But that's where the similarity ends. What you're shown on a movie screen - or soon, a television - is not true 3D. That's the source of the problem.

Back in the 1990s I did a lot of development work in virtual reality - another technology destined to be the Next Big Thing. I helped Sega develop a head-mounted display (fancy VR headgear) that could be plugged into the Sega Genesis (known as the Mega Drive in Australia). Everything was going swimmingly, until we sent our prototype units out for testing.

Virtual reality headsets use the same technique for displaying 3D as we find in movies or 3D television sets - parallax. They project a slightly different image to each one of your eyes, and from that difference, your brain creates the illusion of depth. That sounds fine, until you realize just how complicated human depth perception really is. The Wikipedia entry on depth perception (an excellent read) lists ten different cues that your brain uses to figure out exactly how far away something is. Parallax is just one of them. Since the various movie and television display technologies only offer parallax-based depth cues, your brain basically has to ignore several other cues while you're immersed in the world of Avatar. This is why the 3D of films doesn't feel quite right. Basically, you're fighting with your own brain, which is getting a bit confused. It's got some cues to give it a sense of depth, but it's missing others. Eventually your brain just starts ignoring the other cues.

That's the problem. When the movie's over, and you take your glasses off, your brain is still ignoring all those depth perception cues. It'll come back to normal, eventually. Some people will snap right back. In others, it might take a few hours. This condition, known as 'binocular dysphoria', is the price you pay for cheating your brain into believing the illusion of 3D. Until someone invents some other form of 3D projection (many have tried, no one has really succeeded), binocular dysphoria will be part of the experience.

This doesn't matter too much if you're going to see a movie in the theatre - though it could lead to a few prangs in the parking lot afterward - but it does matter hugely if it's something you'll be exposed to for hours a day, every day, via your television set. Your brain is likely to become so confused about depth cues that you'll be suffering from a persistent form of binocular dysphoria. That's what the testers told Sega, and that's why the Sega VR system - which had been announced with great fanfare - never made it to market.

Video games are one of the great distractions of youth. Children can play them for hours every day, and our testers realized that children - with their highly malleable nervous systems - could potentially suffer permanent damage from regular and extensive exposure to a system which created binocular dysphoria in its users. This is the heart of my concern, because 3D television is being pitched as an educational medium - Discovery Channel has announced 3D broadcasts will begin mid-year - and that medium could damage the growing minds it is intended to enlighten.

All of this is rolling forward without any thought to the potential health hazards of continuous, long-term exposure to 3D. None of the television manufacturers have done any health & safety testing around this. They must believe that if it's safe enough for the cinema, it's fine for the living room. But that's simply not the case. Getting a few hours every few weeks is nothing like getting a few hours, every single day.

One of two things is about to happen: either 3D television will quickly and quietly disappear from the market, from product announcements, and from broadcast plans, or we'll soon see the biggest class-action lawsuit in the planet's history, as millions of children around the world realize that their televisions permanently ruined their depth perception. Let's hope 3D in the home dies a quiet death.

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There are some studies, a particularly couple of good ones done in Japan, that show that indeed some vision functions are impared after long-ish 3D exposures for a while.

Nodoby I know has publicized a long term study on long term exposure to stereoscopic 3D of the type used in movies, specially in young children, but it is my opinion also that it may indeed be a significant issue.

I knew Japanese manufacturers in the past avoided some VR products because of this, but I don't know what changed their mind with the current push of 3D TV's as a "24hr tv channel thing".

Also, VR stuff had more significant issues, so the effects were quite worse than just stereoscopic non-near field vision in small(-ish) screens.

Still ... hope we don't get to see a "massive recall", but probably warning labels to not use too much, at least while the visual system is developing, since it could get used to the cheating and respond worse in real-life situations.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-14-2010, 09:34 AM:
 
On the other hand. the human brain, if not anything else, is a highly adaptable LEARNING system. It's not stupid and not easily fooled. Which is why when you are watching a 3D movie and an object that is converged to look like it is a few feet in front of the screen, if it touches the screen edge, the brain says, "Hey, that can't be right." And the 3D sensation collapes. You don't go groaping your way out of the theatre, banging into things.

We are able to deal with different depth perception constructs all the time. Every time we look at any 2D picture that has perspective, i.e., objects that are supposed to be further back in the picture than the foreground, the brian deals with it without even a hickkup. It doesn't say, "Gee, the eyes are focused on this plane, but that object in the background has perspective cues that tell me it is further away....oooh, I'm so confused....time to explode."

This idea that somehow we are not adaptable enough to learn what cues are in play when we watch faux 3D and can somehow be permanently damaged seems more like hysteria and quite an assumptive leap. Just like people who thought the eyes would be injured by watching those new fangled moving pictures. Or the harm that would come to the body by being hurled through space in a motor car going more than 20 mph.

No doubt there will be studies made, and there should be, but more than likely they may find that the answer to binocular dysphoria would be not to let the kids watch so much damn TV! On the other hand, we may find out that watching MORE 3D helps eliminate binocular dysphoria by giving the brain time to learn how to deal with a different set of depth perception cues that are in play when watching 3D.

Class action suit? Come on. At most, they will slap a warning sign on the BluRay boxes and a statement before each 3D broadcast, should there ever be any real definative proof of any substantial harm. They haven't taken cigarettes off the market yet have they?

I say, if you are really worried, until there is a definative answer rather than a lot of guess-work, after you've seen a 3D movie, be sure not use heavy equipement or pilot aircraft as soon leave the theatre.
 

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Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 03-14-2010, 10:00 AM:
 
I think the main concern is in children, where it is known that the visual system can easily be developed into permanent pathology by incorrect repeated use.

An adult can probably adapt with only temporary periods of dysfunction. We all know how we "continue" to see red/blue for a while after we take off anaglyph 3D glasses worn for your regular 90m film, i.e.
 

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Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 03-14-2010, 12:46 PM:
 
Convergence grids. That's all I see now, nothing but convergence grids.
 

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Posted by Jack Theakston (Member # 4484) on 03-14-2010, 03:06 PM:
 
Judging from this article, the OP has no clue what he's talking about. And it certainly doesn't help that he makes the tired old error that CREATURE was originally shown anaglyph and using Wonkypedia for his arguments.
 

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Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 03-14-2010, 04:17 PM:
 
The author of the article is freely extrapolating the much more complex scenario of virtual reality (especially early attempts, where depth cues from extra head movement, moving shadows, etc, were grossly off/ignored by the hardware) with casual stereoscopic viewing on fixed screens. That much is true.

Still, there is a point that enough data doesn't exist (AFAIK) on the lack of potentially bad side-effects on developing visual systems in children when exposed to many hours every day of stereoscopic 3D viewing, especially if shot wrong (i.e. with vertical parallax, excesive divergence or whatnot) or if it's computer generated (i.e. videogames).

The studies that do exist seem to point to temporary impairment of some visual parameters. But they weren't long term-long exposure.

3D videogames tell your brain that there is a certain interactivity matched to a depth perception that is different with real life. You can't really "see around the objects" by moving your head slightly, etc in stereoscopic games.

The OP worried that if you do this 3D videogame playing many hours a day the brain in children will stop interpreting the depth cues in nature the correct way.

There is a point there. We just need more research to figure out how much this could be a problem or hardly at all.

Think about it. Until now, through history, children have never (really) been exposed massively to potential stereoscopic anomalities like pseudoscopy, divergence, accomodation breakdown, infinite depth of field from CGI tied-to-stereopsis, wrong perspective-to-stereopsis relations from non-orthoscopic shots/aberrant lenses/extreme focal lengths, etc, etc. Even just the accomodation breakdown has been proven to temporarily affect adversily visual accuity.

Subject a child to 3 hours a day from age 5 til 12 and who knows what can happen ... There is a good chance that nothing good.

I agree is more a concern in stuff like videogames and virtual reality or badly shot 3D material, but still worth considering.

Otherwise, the article is bollocks

Responses like this, though, don't bring a lot of confidence:

quote:

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Panasonic are well and truly on the 3D TV bandwagon. This morning I had the opportunity to check out a pre-production sample of a 50-inch 3D plasma at Panasonic HQ, and asked them about concerns over Binocular Dysphoria, as brought to our attention by Mark Pesce on Byteside the other week. Here was their response:

To be fair, I sort of put Panasonic’s Director of Consumer Electronics Paul Reid on the spot when I asked whether there had been any research done to test the potential damage done from continuous 3DTV watching, but this was his response:

“I don’t have any information at hand on any specific research studies, but one thing I could say is that Panasonic’s been developing 3D for many, many years and we’ve been evaluating, testing, viewing tens of thousands of hours of testing and we’re absolutely confident that our 3D solution will meet every safety standard and we don’t see any issue in that regard.

Fundamentally, we would encourage anyone who feels any sense of discomfort watching 3D to stop watching. And if they’re a little bit unsure, then they should spend time in a retail store for themselves viewing 3D and come to their own conclusion.”

Panasonic’s Group Marketing Manager for Viera Matt Pearce added:

“I think the other important point is that this is a 2D TV as well. It’s an option, it doesn’t have to [display] 3D, you can watch the content in 2D as well…

It’s safe to say obviously that if there were issues we’re not going to bring something to market.”

They’ve promised to look into the issue a little more for me to see whether or not Panasonic’s done any research during the development of the technology into this, and I’ll obviously let you know their response.

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quote:

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We've done testing, says Sony

Sony, which is planning to launch several 3D TV models in Australia this year, said it had already conducted safety tests on its technology.

"We’ve had a third party, specialised research institute to study the impact of 3D viewing to people’s health and received a report that they did not find any change of health condition which should be deemed as an issue," it said.

However details of the safety report, including whether it addressed binocular dysphoria, were not available.

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 03-14-2010, 04:29 PM:
 
Frankly, I am getting very tired of people who dislike 3-D trying to tell the whole world how bad it is. I have been a 3-D junkie since I saw my first movie, BWANA DEVIL in 1952 at the Liberty Theatre in Honolulu and has been hooked since. Many other 3-D formats have come and gone because the public did not like them including me. I know how good 3-D can be if done properly and although Dolby 3-D and RealD 3-D are good, I still feel they are not good as the 3-D I had enjoyed during the early fifties.

Yes, nothing upsets me when I read newspaper articles about how bad the 3-D films were in the early fifties because they were shown in the Red/Blue anaglyph process compared to the Polaroid process of todays Real D 3-D and the Dolby 3-D system.

On another matter, how can watching 3-D films for a long period of time can be harmful? I mentioned at another thread how much I regret I was not able to attend a dual projection 3-D film festival of movies from the fifties at the Egyptian Theatre several years ago. If long tern exposure was harmful, how is it I had never heard of any class action suits against the promoters of the festival for making people watch 3-D movies for about three straight days on a continuous basis?

If you hate 3-D, that is ok with me but stop telling all of us who love 3-D that it is bad for us.

-Claude
 

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Posted by Julio Roberto (Member # 4976) on 03-14-2010, 04:53 PM:
 

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa

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If long tern exposure was harmful, how is it I had never heard of any class action suits against the promoters of the festival for making people watch 3-D movies for about three straight days on a continuous basis?

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Claude,

Most people did not watch all the films every single day.

Those of us who did, probably ended up with our vision temporarily screwed. I couldn't really tell you. It was already night time when out and I just walked straight to the hotel and went to sleep or worse, jumped over to the Dome theater for cinerama or whatnot.

Just watching 3 regular 2D films in a theater everyday for a week will likely give everybody some temporary eyesight discomfort.

The problem is likely not with the adults nor with watching a couple of 3D films a week. It could come, though, from watching hours of TV a day at very young ages for years. Or maybe not. We just don't know. It has never been tried, AFAIK, but there are some indications it could lead to worse developed visual systems in depth perception/assessment. Probably only very subtly and nothing to worry about, but who knows. Maybe it will actually INCREASE the ability to assess depth and distances.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-14-2010, 07:57 PM:
 

quote: Claude S. Ayakawa

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If you hate 3-D, that is ok with me but stop telling all of us who love 3-D that it is bad for us.

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Personally I don't think 3-D is bad for any person. But I do think it's bad for business, in the long run. Unless the "bubble" doesn't burst this time, like it has every other time.

The way it's looking, here's what is (and will be) happening:

1. Some movies which would have flopped are released in 3-D, and are very successful because of 3-D.

2. This leads to movies that would have been blockbusters ANYWAY being made in 3-D. (Toy Story, Harry Potter) With the 3-D surcharge they will gross in the stratosphere, leading to...

3. Film companies will now start thinking that to be successful, every movie needs to be in 3-D. This will lead to...

4. The backlash.
 

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Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 03-15-2010, 04:40 PM:
 
Mike - Why backlash against 3D? It's not the fault of the process if a movie stinks! Right now 3D is still a novelty so anything they release has an advantage. Should the trend continue and it become more commonplace people will start being more particular about which 3D movies they go to see. Hence a stinker in 3D should die as quickly as in 2D and deservedly so.
 

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Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 03-15-2010, 04:55 PM:
 
A recent issue of STEREO WORLD magazine explored the claims that a young Japanese boy became permanently crosseyed after watching an anaglyph cartoon on television.

So don't blame 3D, blame ANAGLYPHIC 3D!
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-15-2010, 06:33 PM:
 
That's weird, as anaglyph 3D doesn't make your eyes "cross".

I like 3D for viewing stills or short videos. Not good for entire movies. It doesn't make me ill, but it seems pointless. And this is coming from a guy who takes tons of 3D pictures. Avatar only worked so well because of all the parallax caused by the camera motion (it was never, ever still if I recall). Otherwise you never really get a chance to appreciate the 3D in motion video.
 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 03-15-2010, 07:20 PM:
 
The backlash could happen when enough crappy movies get released in 3D and people get the idea they're being screwed with the higher ticket price, hence they then decide not to go to 3D movies anymore. This would lead to further collapsing of the video window because of the lower grosses. This would lead more people to wait for the DVD. Then the studios, now releasing nearly everything in 3-D, will be screwed, as will the exhibitors who are still paying off the expensive 3-D equipment.

This is just one of several scenarios that could happen.
 

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 03-16-2010, 12:14 PM:
 
Mike , when will people like yourself realize not all 3-D movies are crap? The fact that AVATAR and now ALICE IN WONDERLAND are successful proves that is not true. I have a lot of friends that have seen both of these movies and they enjoyed them very much including the 3-D. Like many people, I am very selective what movies I see in a theatre, just because a film is in 3-D does not make me want to see them. With the exception of UP, I now avoid seeing any animated movies in 3-D.

-Claude
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-16-2010, 01:31 PM:
 
Here is the problem......Name one 3-D movie that was really any good that came out in the 80's. I can't think of one. That is just one of the reasons 3-D failed in the 80's. The reason 3-D has not failed now is because the majority of the movies so far released have been good movies in both 2-D and 3-D.

I saw Avatar in 2-D first because I wanted to judge the movie on it's own without the 3-D gimmick thrown in. I enjoyed it a lot and I watched it in 3-D on the second go around. I think hollywood may have learned that it still takes good story telling to sell the movie when it is gimmick driven.

Now I know there are some titles coming out that will likely just be for the 3-D gimmick (Saw 6 and Piranha 3-D) come to mind and there are some titles that just do not need to be made 3-D or not (Step Up 3-D).
 

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Posted by Jeremy Jorgenson (Member # 2989) on 03-16-2010, 09:18 PM:
 

quote: Darryl Spicer

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Saw 6

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seven.

Jackass 3D should be interesting.
 

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Posted by Darryl Spicer (Member # 711) on 03-17-2010, 12:05 PM:
 
Yep 7 is what I ment.
 

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 03-23-2010, 04:15 AM:
 
There will always be lousy movies whether they are in 3D or not. Why are we continuing to call 3D a gimmick? You see in 3D ALL THE TIME. Is it a gimmick? Is color a gimmick? There was a time when critics were saying the same thing about color....that only certain genre of films should be made in color. SERIOUS films, dramas should be made in black and white. The color "gimmick" should be used only for fluffy subjects like musicals and comedies. Now we think of those arguments as quaint or even silly. 3D is not a gimmick, it's a cinematic tool just like color. One could say the same thing about color as Joe said about 3D -- "what's the point" of having a film in color when you could tell the same story equally as well in black and white?

As more and more films are made in 3D, and even more to the point, as 3D Television becomes a reality, 3D will become part of the entertainment landscape just as color TV eventually became ubiquitous. And that WILL happen sooner rather than later because the broadcast industry and hardware manufactures are all geared up to MAKE it happen. At this point the public is almost irrelevant. I was just flipping thru cable channels today and on CableVision Chn 3 - iOTV as it calls itself -- the screen was black. How odd I though, so I want back to it and there on the bottom of the screen was the station ID band which read, iOTV in 3D. Evidently they are already testing 3D transmission. Once 3D TV become a reality, the idea that 3D could be a passing fad will become moot. Once it's in the living room and not just an occasional specialty at the movies, it will be here to stay, just like color.

The fact that there will be bad 3D movies, just like there are bad movies in color, will no longer be the deciding factor as to whether or not 3D "sticks" this time. Directors don't HAVE to throw things at the audiences and they will learn that fast enough, just like directors learned that they didn't need to have gaudy bright colored objects dominate every scene to show off the color process.

Cameron knew how to use 3D; AVATAR is about the best use of 3D I've seen. 50 years before him DeToth knew it and made HOUSE OF WAX with superb 3D depth and with very few gratuitous in-your-face 3D effects....the same with Hitchcock's DIAL M FOR MURDER in which most of the whole film was shot with practically everything further behind the screen plane. So why did it need 3D at all Joe would ask? Well, why did it need color at all? It's a way of seeing that the director chose to use, as is the case with all cinematic tools. Why shoot in 1.85 or scope? Why not Academy? Is 1.85 a gimmick? Is scope? (don't answer that!)

And Julio, I too was at the first 3D Expo, and except for 2 days when I couldn't get up in the morning in time for the first screening, I watched all three movies all 6 days of that festival and I DIDN'T go directly to my hotel but partied at least three nights into the wee hours and every night drove back to the hotel which was in Santa Monica, not downtown. I can attest that I suffered nary the slightest bit of ill effects from watching six hours of 3D movie a day. No dysphoria, no dyslexia, no dyspepsia; no difficulty balancing, swallowing or judging distances.

Like I said, the brain is quite adaptable and a pretty smart organ to boot; it seems to have no trouble figuring out what is a 3D movie and what is 3D reality. At least that was my experience as well as the guys I was partying with after those long days of dual projection 3D. None of us were even mildly impaired...at least not from the 3D!
 

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Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 03-23-2010, 07:10 AM:
 
Thank you Frank! That's exactly how I feel about 3D.

For those who believe 3D is a gimmick, I found this suggestion: If you want to make a movie without ANY "gimmicks," write a book!
 

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 03-23-2010, 09:41 AM:
 
Isn't it funny that all the things that are fun and enjoyable on this planet are bad for you in some way. It's a f-ing conspiracy!
 

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Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 03-23-2010, 11:34 AM:
 
Frank & Hillary, you are my kind of people!

Frank, in addition to color being a fad, so was sound. Some people hated it at first but both color and sound was perfected and became an industry standard today and so will 3-D. How I wish 3-D survived in the fifties because it was very good.

-Claude
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-23-2010, 12:28 PM:
 
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.

Sound and color go hand in hand with the picture. 3D really doesn't. I don't think it can really be compared. A lot of people cannot see proper 3D or can't see it at all, so it does nothing for them. Sure, some people are colorblind or deaf, but those people are outcasts from society and shunned into dark caves where they eat maggots and used toilet paper to survive, but 3D-less people are still allowed to walk our streets by law. Both color and sound add A LOT to any movie. It makes a huge difference. Does 3D? Not really. It is neat to look at when done right, but that's about it. Plus it is super annoying because you are forced to wear glasses which also deteriorate the image quality. If you are watching a movie and suddenly the sound or color goes away, you notice immediately. If the 3D went away during a movie and people were suddenly watching 2D, most wouldn't notice or probably even care.

Plus, you are not paying inflated ticket prices for movies with color and/or sound. So yes, I can see how 3D can be labeled as a gimmick. Get rid of the idiotic glasses, charge the same price and then we'll have this conversation again.
 

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Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 03-23-2010, 12:34 PM:
 

quote: Mike Blakesley

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The backlash could happen when enough crappy movies get released in 3D and people get the idea they're being screwed with the higher ticket price, hence they then decide not to go to 3D movies anymore

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quote: Hillary Charles

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For anyone who's familiar with 3D in the 1950s, was there any surcharge, or was it just used to get people back in the cinemas?

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There was no surcharge in the good old days, but 3-D is way more expensive with digital than it ever was back then. Even the "special lenses" used during the last 3-D craze in the mid '80s were only about $2000. With digital you're looking at 10 to 20 times that amount.

What's funny is that back then, 3-D was a gimmick "to get people back to the theatres" but in reality, good stories and good movies did the trick just as well without the gimmicks.
 

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Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 03-23-2010, 06:22 PM:
 
That won't work this time as the home can do anything the theater can do just as well if not better.

Anyway Technicolor 3D still has a surcharge on it even though in reality it is only a special lens and a silver screen, just like the 80's. I'd be a lot more receptive of 3D if it weren't for this completely bullshit surcharge.
 

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Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 03-24-2010, 07:54 AM:
 
Thanks guys for the info. I figured that the difference today is the huge investment for the 3D attachments, far more than anything needed previously for theatrical 3D. It would be nice if once the equipment were amortized, the fee could at least drop down to $1 extra. But I realize that as long as the royalty fees remain, that ain't gonna happen.

Good movies and good stories will always remain in fashion. Money is very tight for us right now, and I've noticed that I can enjoy good drama on the tv set at home, without having to spend $20+ to see it theatrically. 3D gives us a cinema experience not quite possible at home (and if scale is an issue, never really will) and gets us to the movies. Probably like Claude, I've gone to see movies I normally would not have, just to see them in 3D!

Yeah, I went to see "My Bloody Valentine," but stayed home and watched "The Queen." And I enjoyed both very much. I'm probably the exact kind of rube the studios are doing this for!
 

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Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 03-24-2010, 02:48 PM:
 
I agree with Claude that 3-D is good however I still prefer the two projector 3-D format... weather it be digital or film... nothing beats two projectors.

Mark
 

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Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-24-2010, 04:13 PM:
 

quote: Joe Redifer

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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.

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quote:

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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.

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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.

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quote: Jonathan Smith

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Oh God, are they going to put warnings on 3D glasses now?

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Warnings on 3D glasses have always been pretty common. The warning was limited to: "do not use these glasses as sunglasses and don't wear them for other reasons than to watch 3D films".

But a warning, nonetheless.

Wearing them while driving is no good

Specially anaglyph ones


 

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Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-16-2010, 08:19 PM:
 
Anybody want to guess how long until the first teenager gets in a car wreck while wearing 3-D glasses as sunglasses? (The glasses won't cause the wreck but will be blamed by the parents.)
 

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Posted by Chris Slycord (Member # 4239) on 04-16-2010, 09:20 PM:
 

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The highest health care Committee of experts pointed out that the vision has not yet been fully children use the 3D glasses

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quote: Chris Slycord

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Somebody got lost in translation. I'm not the best writer out there, but that is complete grammar fail.

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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.

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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.

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quote: Joe Redifer

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Why do they keep talking about 3D TVs and not just 3D movies in general? 3D TV is bad for you but not 3D movie theaters?

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It also may be because everybody who watches 3D movies for 4 hours a day everyday in a theater is either in this board or a hospital

Watching a 3D film once a week (at best) for a couple of hours seems to, at worst, only bring temporary discomfort or impairement of certain functions for a short period thereafter, so no big deal. Plus you are watching from a distance, without engaging the visual system "near-field modes".

But having a kid with his/her face stuck 2 feet away from a (3D) TV screen at home for hours a day during years ... that's a whole different (potential) issue.

Going out to a bar on weekends and having a couple of beers=fine.
Having a bar at home and drinking vodzka 4 hours a day, everyday, for years=bad for you.
 

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