Agtel

When will producing 3D video be affordable?

We’d all love to be producing 3D content, but when will it really become affordable?

James Cameron has added 16 extra minutes to Avatar at a whopping cost of $1 million per minute. That’s a little bit too expensive for most people, and it’s not something you can "cheat" in post production either. According to Cameron, you have to shoot it - 3D can’t be "fixed in post" as the saying goes, so it doesn’t look like the costs are going to tumble any time soon.

Oh and he thinks we’ll all be wearing those silly 3D glasses for a while yet.

Gizmodo have posted this really interesting short article summing up James Cameron’s strong opinions on 3D:

Glasses-less 3DTV is "Eight to Ten Years Away" From Taking Off, Says James Cameron

While glasses-less 3DTV is already winging its way to Japan in the shape of Toshiba’s two tiny TVs, James Cameron reckons it’s "eight to ten years away" until it autostereoscopic 3DTV properly takes off. For now, we’re stuck with glasses.

He spoke about 3DTV at the Blu-Con 2010 conference today, and shared some interesting details on the extended version of Avatar—apparently those extra 16 minutes ended up costing Fox $1 million per minute, which is the reason they chose to re-release it in cinemas, so as to try and recoup some of the costs.

Cameron has previously harped  on about how the industry needs to shoot more in 3D, rather than applying it post-production like the studio of Clash of the Titans, and the latest Harry Potter movie did—or attempted, in the latter’s case.

"You see another stumble with the most recent Harry Potter movie from the same studio making the same mistake - except really getting spanked for it now because they didn’t get the film done.

They announced it in 3D - threw a bunch of money trying to convert it to 3D in post-production and it simply didn’t work. They just didn’t get it done."

Cameron’s signed on to do Avatar 2 and 3, which he’ll begin working on next year. While I do feel that particular story’s been flogged to death, Avatar was  probably the greatest example of 3D. While I’m not personally a fan of the format I do await the day when I don’t have to squeeze a pair of 3D glasses onto the top of the glasses I already wear—nor fork out over $100 per pair of glasses. [BBC and TechRadar]