Three Dimensional Technology

This year, 3-D and Imax have a lock on blockbusters With digital projection, Imax screens and movies in 3-D all coming to a theater near you, 2009 could go down as the year that high-tech became the indisputably dominant force in American movie theaters.

For nearly a decade, television makers have been asking consumers to step into high definition. This week, they'll be asking buyers to step into three dimensions. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, companies such as Panasonic Corp., Samsung and Texas Instruments Inc. will show off TV technology capable of displaying 3-D-like pictures. The industry is billing it as the next big leap in TV technology.

The Cannes Film Festival has no shortage of big-budget 3-D spectacles: It opened with Pixar's 3-D animated film "Up," and Disney on Monday showed footage from its upcoming 3-D holiday movie "A Christmas Carol," while fake snow decorated the landmark Carlton Hotel in the 80-degree Cannes weather. But the immersive technology also is attracting a growing crowd of independent filmmakers, some of whom are making -- and trying to sell -- 3-D movies on a fraction of Pixar's and Disney's budgets.

Apparently, size does matter. As you may remember, comedian and "Parks and Recreation" costar Aziz Ansari recently caused a huge flap when he put up an outraged post on his blog excoriating Imax after he went to see "Star Trek" in Burbank -- and discovered that the supposedly giant Imax screen was barely any bigger than an average-size theater screen. Feeling ripped off (after all, he'd paid an extra $5), he blasted Imax for "duping" its customers and "whoring out their brand name."

20th Century Fox's high-profile stare-down with exhibitors over who would pay for digital 3-D glasses to go with "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" has been settled. But the issues underlying the dispute will almost certainly flare up again. Fox, which had initially threatened to make theater owners bear the costs, has agreed to pick up the tab, according to several people familiar with the matter. The glasses are supplied by RealD, a Beverly Hills company that provides 3-D technology to theaters.

ESPN is expected to announce today that the Sept. 12 USC at Ohio State football game will have a limited showing in 3-D. The 3-D version will be available at the Galen Center in Los Angeles and the ESPN Zone at LA Live as well as at a single theater in Columbus, Ohio; Hartford, Conn. (for ESPN invitees) and Hurst, Texas. The Texas site, according to Anthony Bailey, ESPN's vice president for emerging technology, was chosen because ESPN would like to see how a 3-D broadcast would do in a place unaffiliated with either team playing.

In an effort to get theater owners to upgrade their technology, Paramount Pictures will pay exhibitors to show its movies in 3-D. The new offer begins with the March 27 release of "Monsters vs. Aliens," said Mark Christiansen, Paramount's executive vice president for operations. The studio is offering a similar incentive for films shown in a digital format, he said. Under Paramount's offer, the studio will help defray the cost of converting at least one digital screen to 3-D. Separately, the studio is offering similar fees to chains that convert at least half their screens to digital.

Walt Disney is going 3-D on a lot of future films -- and some from its past. The studio announced Tuesday that 3-D versions of the computer-animated tales "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" would be released Oct. 2 for a two-week run as a double feature. Disney also is preparing a 3-D version of its hand-drawn animated musical "Beauty and the Beast" for release Feb. 12, 2010. With 17 3-D releases in the works through 2012, Disney offered a preview of its lineup at ShoWest in Las Vegas, an annual convention of theater owners.

A Stanford University researcher has developed the first system to project true three-dimensional color images, allowing people to view the same full-color animated moving picture from any angle, according to research made public Thursday. For decades researchers have strained their ingenuity to create the illusion of a three-dimensional picture by fooling the human eye into perceiving a two-dimensional scene in high relief.

It had traveled the 2,500 miles from Toronto--very, very carefully--and was lowered into place through a hole specially cut in the theater roof. But an accident was not the main worry for those responsible for installing the first giant IMAX 3-D movie projector on the West Coast. The real threat is dust. "One speck of dust in there would look like a football on the screen," said Larry Porricelli, general manager of Edwards 21 Cinemas at the Irvine Entertainment Center.