3D-TV: Societal Concerns

3D displaying technology is more and more popular in recent years, although at this moment it is mainly applied in the film industry. It is foreseeable that it will soon go deep into society and houses and influencing people.s life. Among these impacts, some are positive while some are not. In this critique, few societal issues concerning introducing of 3D-TV into daily basis will be discussed.

Although 3D-TV gives viewer a fantastic experience, not all people can enjoy this technology. Those who are poor cannot really get a grasp of this technology. The first problem is money, currently the minimum spending for installing a 3D-TV set in Hong Kong is around HKD$20,000 ("3D",2010), including at least a displaying unit and "3D Goggle". How could people expect those who are getting financial assistance from the government can have a 3D-TV set? Another problem is space, the recommended viewing distance, for a common 40 to 55 inches 3D-TV, is 9 feet to 12 feet and 6 inches (D. Briere and P. Hurley, 2007). For those who are poorer, they cannot find such a large empty space in their common tiny houses. This will lead to a further differentiation between poor one and the rich one because the poor one can.t enjoy the better televisions, which is just the basic equipment in modern world.

The second issue is about the usefulness of 3D-TV in the daily basis. Since the release of the film <Avatar> in 2010, many people start appreciating the magnificent visual effect created by 3D technology. In order to take advantage to this enthusiasm of 3D displaying technique, many new films used 3D filming techniques, but turn out the visual experience of those films did not differentiate too much with the common filming techniques. In fact, 3D displaying works better in the cartoons film because the images are more simple that those human-casting films. The first difference is the background of images, for those human-casting films, they usually filmed under natural setting, which caused too much object to be displayed on the screen at one time. Another difference is that some scenes in 3D cartoon films could be specially design to fit the 3D effect while the human-casting films cannot. This shows that 3D displaying technique is not always that useful in enhancing visual experiences. This leads to the result that the broadcasting companies and film producers are not willing to produce all programmes using 3D technology as the cost is very high. With this little amount of programmes available, it seems it is unnecessary to get a 3D-TV at home.

Another issue is concerning the biological aspect of users. Many people feel dizziness("健康", 2010), nausea and headaches after watching. Moreover, according to Samsung (2010), watching 3D-TV may cause impended visual ability, directionless, unconsciousness or even apoplexy. For the children, since watching 3D-TV requires a ※3D goggle§ , which force the eyes to focus in an abnormal way, this could lead to the loss of depth perception of those children (Xin Hua Net, 2010, as stated in "叫好", 2010). Depth perception is extremely important for human to survive as this could let us know the distance between object so that we know how far the object we want to take is , or we could know walking forward 1 step more we would fall down to the hill, for example. Also, according to a survey done by Nielsen (2010, as stated in "健康", 2010), 50% of the responders feel uncomfortable in wearing the 3D goggle. We can see that watching 3D-TV affects our health, both in short-term or long-run.

The fourth issue is fear of abuse. Given that the visual effect generated by this 3D technique is that fantastic and great. It would seem like .real. for the viewer. However, the production of these films actually undergone computer processing. During this process, additional object are easily added to fake people, just similar to the problem of digital imaging. It is extremely dangerous as television programme play an important part of human.s life. It is an important channel for us to know the things happening around the world (passively). If someone actively and purposively alters the film, for example, for political or illegal use (like to slander someone or to attack the government), the public may support their act as the film act as an "evidence". Therefore, it is very important for the public to bear in mind that the film is not always real and we must not trust them entirely and try to get a wider picture through other channels.

The final issue is concerning the use of 3D technology in medical field. Having talked about few less positive issues of 3D-TV, it could actually be used in medical imaging. Like HDTV, combined with a suitable camera it can be used to show a clearer image of inside our body (Yang, 2003). In the future, 3D-TV could also be used in the field to display 3D view of our organs inside our body. This could help health care practitioners to get a clearer picture of how is going on inside our body.

In conclusion, at this instant, when 3D-TV is immersing into the society, it is great to see that 3D-TV could become a useful tool in medical field that could be beneficial to the public. At the same time, there are few issues that the public should concern, including whether the poorer can afford the cost and enjoy this technology, the health issues, the low amount of programme available, the misleading content that may be displayed. It is hoped that with more improvement on this technology, these drawbacks can be diminished in the foreseeable future.

 

References

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