RG Specs

Before Warner Bros.’s CLASH OF the Titans hit theaters this spring, after the smash success of Avatar, the two-dimensional film was converted to 3D in just 10 weeks — and it showed. Reviewers likened Clash’s 3D effects to a pop-up book.

“We’re never going to do anything that fast again,” said Rob Hummel, CEO of Prime Focus in North America, which handled the postproduction conversion of Clash of the Titans.

As the TV industry’s appetite for 3D programming escalates, there’s a seemingly quick fix available to programmers with libraries of ratings-proven content: 2D-to- 3D conversion.

The immediate benefits are compelling. Conversion quickly fills a market demand, makes the most of content libraries and might be a boon for 30-second ads.

But executives agree there’s a crystal-clear certainty emerging in the 3D world: There is no quick fix. Moreover, conversion can be prohibitively expensive — shooting in 3D is cheaper in some cases — and results are unpredictable. In worst cases, poorly rendered 3D can make people sick. “The mistakes can be horrendous,” said David Broberg, CableLabs vice president of consumer video technology.

via DepthCharge – 2010-07-12 04:01:00 | Multichannel News.