3D - Is it worth it

3D is an amazing technology, dont get me wrong on that. But the question of its future in terms of general entertainment is quite a difficult one to ask. On the one hand its commercial success with films such as James Cameron's Avatar and in handhelds like the Nintendo 3DS it seems very much as though the next step in its life would be the continual integration into normal everyday equipment.

Now there are a few problems facing the technology. First and foremost is the most obvious flaw, the "Glasses". I dont think anyone has yet to find a way of making wearing large glasses indoors anything but ridiculous, add to that the cost of the more effective higher end specs and you have a rather expensive viewing experience on top of the base cost for the TV set itself.
The solution is of course to go down the non-glasses route which has been successfully demonstrated by Nintendo with its handheld system. However we come up to a huge problem when it comes to integrating this technology into larger formats such as a home television. Currently the only way of producing this "glasses free" 3D effect is to simultaneously project 2 different views (one for each eye) at a focal point which when viewed together produce the effect. The problem of static focal points has been remedied by coupling motion sensor technology with the TV in order to move the focal point of the image to suit a moving object (this would allow a viewer to move around in a set area and still get the 3D effect). This is however very expensive in its current form. The biggest problem however arises when you have multiple viewers, so far the technology is unavailable to provide multiple focal points in order to facilitate multiple viewers from multiple angles.

With all of these problems holding the technology back it is likely that without a major push by Electronics manufacturers we will see a stalling of development or at worst a discarding (a la HD-DVD) of the technology from the main stream consumer market. However you are not likely to see a major push from the manufacturers until we see a real surge in the demand from the consumer for the technology. It is certainly a sector well worth watching over the coming years.