Cameron admits progress for 3D TV is slower than expected

Avatar director James Cameron remains upbeat about Cameron | Pace Group’s 3D production business but has said he misjudged the demand for 3D TV.

Talking exclusively to Current, he said “It’s not progressing as fast as I thought it might, but it’s progressing very rapidly, and a large part of the revenue at the Cameron Pace Group, which is my 3D production technology company, is in television: mostly live sports – major sporting events all of the world are being shot in 3D – it gives it a sense of an event and it gives people a sense of being almost physically present and it’s something to get very excited about,”

Cameron, who will start shooting Avatar 2 and 3 back-to-back soon, has even said 3D viewing might never become normal, mainly due to the glasses but once glasses free 3D technology advances we can expect to “see an avalanche of 3D production”

During the 2012 Australian International Design Awards, Cameron said “The jury is out on whether people will adopt it just for general viewing until we get to glasses-free technology, and I think we’re right around the corner from that because the majority, by a slim margin, don’t take in most of their entertainment on that type of screen, it’s mostly on tablet and laptops. For tablets and laptops, it’s a very straightforward engineering problem to do it, to have good displays without glasses, and I think the next breakthrough will be something like an iPad that has glasses-free 3D display, and then you’re going to see an avalanche of 3D production”

Returning to today’s market he said “When you put the glasses on it has to be something special: if you’re sitting down to watch a movie that you love, that you own on a 3D Blu-ray, or you’re sitting down to watch a major sporting event. It’s working very well in that area, it just hasn’t broken through beyond that yet.”

The competition between CPG and 3ality Techina was evident in his response when asked if he was happy that the London Olympics would be filmed in 3D. “No,” he said, “because they should be using our technology!” referring to 3ality Technica winning the contract to supply the 3D rigs for the games.

James Cameron and business partner Vince Pace were highly impressed with the glasses free 3D LG Optimus 3D smartphone at IBC last year and they, like many others in the industry, clearly think glasses free 3D is the key to a successful 3D future.

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