I must admit I was never a big believer in 3DTV. I though it was mainly a gimmick to enhanced poorly written movies and draw people in amusement park’s rides.

Then, last NAB in Las Vegas, a good friend of mine shared with me her experience of the day. She just saw some news footage in 3D and she was literally transported. “It is just as if you watching reality happen outside your window”, she said.

That made me think… maybe the real power of 3DTV is not the big action movies, maybe the power is really to add reality to TV (not the “reality fiction” kind!).

We also should recognize that what feels natural in 3D at home may not be the same as in theatre.

In theatre the screen is very large and the distance is significant. It makes sense to present large scene and it is natural have large objects between your seat and the screen.

At home, the screen is smaller and you are seating closer to it. It may not feel natural to have a car between you and the screen! Maybe the best experience at home is more intimate than in theatre.

How exactly 3DTV will be used and what are the thing we will want to see in it still remain to be seen. But I feel that it has the potential to impact our viewing habits in a significant way.

HDTV was not a change in the media. It did not really affect how we do storytelling and what we are presenting. To this day, a large portion of the population don’t even perceive the real quality difference between SD and HD (I am not talking about digital vs analog transmission of course!).

3DTV build on the HDTV digital infrastructure. There is no significant transmission or distribution means to change to make it possible. People that don’t have yet HDTV sets may well get 3DTV capable equipment without paying much of a premium at all. Once you get that capability at home, you will want to watch some content. At first it will be movies from the small library available today. But I think it may not be that long before some content producers try different avenue and find an audience for it.

Different content, build specifically for 3DTV at home may be the real “killer app” of the technology. In that sense 3DTV may well prove to be a more significant change than HDTV.

What do you think? Have you seen any 3D content that changed your perception?