My parents had a Samsung TV that used active-3D glasses (the ones that require a battery). It was kinda okay for CG movies but it gave me eye strain and caused headaches. I also tried using it with the PS3, and that was kinda neat too, but the hit to performance wasn't worth it. Like
Wipeout HD on PS3 is full 1080p at 60fps. That sh1t becomes 30fps with the 3D on (and I think lower res too). So no thanks. The batteries never seemed to last very long in those glasses either. I think the battery compartment for my parents' glasses was closed with a tiny screw, so it was a bit too much trouble to take the batteries out every time you were done, and put them back in when you wanted to use the glasses, if you were trying to preserve the battery life.
A friend had an LG HDTV that used passive 3D (no batteries needed). Apparently those displayed stuff at a lower res (and I'm not sure what other advantages active is supposed to have over passive). The only thing I noticed is that my eye fatigue was greatly reduced with passive. It bothered my eyes way less, I could wear the glasses for longer before my eyes had enough, and I think I recall being able to take in the overall image better too. In the end though, it was much the same to me as active 3D. Just wasn't for me.
On the Nintendo 3DS, glasses-free 3D was definitely the way to go. Again games tend to take a performance hit, and it still gave me eye fatigue and headaches, but it was nowhere near as bad as with the glasses-based 3D for HDTVs. First-party titles tended to use it the best, and when done well it was very convincing and could even be beneficial for spatial awareness. 3DS is probably the best use of 3D I have seen yet, at least when it comes to video games. That said, I still rarely used it. It was just too much for my eyes to deal with. Most of the time I would turn it on to check out certain scenes or areas of a game, then turn it back off. I almost never spent an entire play session with the 3D on. It was also very annoying to use the 3D, because you had to hold the system still, and your eyes had to be at exactly the right position and distance in front of the screen for the effect to work. You know how annoying that sh1t is to do with a handheld console? The New 3DS hardware refresh with the faster CPU and other upgrades did the 3D much better. It was eye-tracking-based, so the issues with holding the system still and your needing your eye to be in the right position was greatly reduced if not eliminated. The overall 3D effect itself was improved, and it also caused me less eye strain, and was less liable to give me headaches. I don't own a New 3DS, only the old one, but I have friends with New 3DSes so I've been able to briefly check out the 3D on such units a few times. I would be more inclined to use the 3D more if I had a New 3DS, but I'm not sure it would get me to use it all the time. Anyways, I don't know about movies, but when it comes to video games, 3DS had done 3D the best so far.
Speaking of glasses-free 3D, I do wonder about these:
Acer has shared a press release detailing one of its latest gaming laptops, the Predator Helios 300 SpatialLabs Edition.
www.thefpsreview.com
Acer has announced the SpatialLabs View and SpatialLabs View Pro glasses-free portable 15.6-inch 3d 4K displays.
www.thefpsreview.com
It would help 3D catch on if we had full-size monitors and HDTVs that were glasses-free. These smaller displays could be an interesting start though. I'm not so sure people would be willing to pay extra on top of the cost of a regular monitor for one that supports something like this though. Money better spent going towards screen size, resolution, refresh rate, HDR support, and overall image quality than something like 3D.
As for 3D movies in the movie theater, I've only experienced that a couple times or so, and can barely remember what that was like. I know that the experience was inferior to that of either active or passive 3D HDTVs (on top of movie theater screens already being crap compared to modern HDTVs). I saw that PoS
Avatar in IMAX 3D (what an astounding waste of money that was) cuz a friend wanted to check it out, and I also saw
Avengers: Endgame cuz the only available showing at the time I wanted to go was in 3D. That was during a period of a couple years where I actually went back to movies theaters just because a theater not too far from me had $5 tickets on Tuesdays or something like that (conclusion at the end of that experiment: f*ck movie theaters still, watching at home is still better). So I checked out a few of the MCU movies in theaters. Back in the older days when I did actually go to movie theaters, I always went on a weekday in the morning, to reduce the chances of annoying people (and people in general) being in the theater. But I guess a lot of people wanted to see
Endgame at release. I'm usually a wait-for-BD-rip guy, but I was going with a group of friends and the ticket was cheap so why the f*ck not. Anyways, the movie theater actually forgot to run the 3D version of the movie, so it was just the regular version, and I and my friends were just fine with that. But some dude complained cuz he wanted the 3D, so they did end up turning the 3D on, and yeah I definitely preferred 3D off. I don't even remember what it was like with
Avatar, or if I was actually impressed by it. I can't recall if I have seen any other movies in 3D in the theater. Probably not. Usually the 3D tickets cost more than the regular tickets, and I already hated movie theater prices, so there's no way I would choose to pay extra for what I considered an inferior experience.
But naw, I see how it is Cameron. I'm not a film geek like you, that's why I don't like 3D. I just don't appreciate the visual art that is filmmaking. If I gave even one tiny sliver of a d4mn about films, I would be riding that 3D train hard. Cameron is an artist of the highest caliber (and a great explorer), that's why he knows the truth about 3D. People who hate 3D hate movies, and they hate art.
Wearing the glasses was bad enough but even when things may have had 3D cameras on set many things would get post converted as those cameras were merely used for reference imaging and not actual filming of the whole project. You can easily distinguish post conversion from real when it comes to ghosting and lack of depth. I just got tired of the crappy authoring being done on top of wearing glasses. I do hope a glasses-free alternative does happen (basically holovision) but doubt it'll be something properly done in my lifetime.
You had a very interesting history with 3D, and the only person I've heard of who rather enjoyed it, or stuck with it for any real length of time. I didn't even consider the crappy authoring, that was indeed a big issue as well. Most movie makers phoned it in with that sh1t. I too wonder about a good glasses-free solution happening in my lifetime.
