Looking at TV in a bit more depth

As much as I'd love to claim otherwise, I'm pretty easily confused. 3D TV is causing me to scratch my head today. Let me tell you why.

Samsung were the first to market last week, releasing their 40-inch 3D TV - a snip at £1,799. This despite there being no 3D channels (yet). Although there are a handful of 3D Blu-Rays available. And I have to admit that I did really enjoy Monsters Vs Aliens. Whether I'd pay a quid shy of eighteen hundred quid to watch it in 3D is another question.

But let's not forget that in 1876, Alexander Graham Bell only had his trusty sidekick Watson to speak to through his new discovery, and think of where the phone is today. Indeed, Sky TV trialled broadcasting 3D football matches in pubs and clubs in January this year, and have a bunch of 3D channels in the pipeline that the Sky+ HD box is ready for. So it's on its way.

The first choice buyers will have to make, it seems, is between 'active' and 'passive' TVs. The current Samsung model on the market is the former. It uses 'shutter' glasses which essentially block the view of either your left or right eye at speeds so fast it's impossible to consciously detect, and these coordinate with rapidly flickering alternate views on your active TV.

Sounds a bit more high-tech than red and blue specs with cardboard frames, right? And this is reflected in the price tag. The glasses cost about £50 a pair when bought separately. So if you want a set for your whole family, then the price starts to stack up. And one wonders how easily lost or breakable they might be.

The first commercially-available passive TV is expected to come from LG this summer. These sets will have a polarising filter to split the display into left eye and right eye, and this image is then 'decoded' by the same type of glasses you get at the cinema currently, which gives the 3D effect. And LG says that they will be giving them away for free (or you could just keep the ones you got with the wonderful How To Train Your Dragon). The passive TVs are expected to be 15 per cent more expensive, but then you might not be paying the extra whack each time you need a new pair of glasses. The picture quality is said to be better with active TVs, but there are a percentage of people who probably won't notice the difference.

I find this all a bit brain boggling. Literally, as well as figuratively. 3D TV works by tricking your brain* and giving the impression of depth perception where there is actually no real depth to be perceived.

Is tricking your brain in this fashion good for you? Not according to virtual reality developer Mark Creese, who tells a cautionary tale of failed experimentation in a similar field here. He expresses concern about binocular dysphoria, which - in essence - causes that weird disoriented feeling you get after watching a 3D film. It takes a little while to readjust, right? So how long might it take to re-adjust to the real world if you're glued to your dazzling new 3D gogglebox for an extended number of hours a day?

It's worth noting that there isn't any peer-reviewed evidence of such a condition. But it's triggered quite a lot of debate on the net. Is the guy right? Or is he a crank? Who knows?

For me, I wonder how necessary all this is. When I watched Avatar, I found it really enjoyable. And what did I think of the 3D? Well, to be honest, I didn't really notice it. Conversely, when I watched My Bloody Valentine (the first film I saw of the current run of 3D movies), I was wowed by the 3D for the first fifteen minutes, but it could never really mask the fact that the film was rubbish. If it wasn't for the novelty of seeing ridiculous cartoony violence and extended nudity seemingly coming out of the screen at me, the film would have had nothing.

What I guess I'm trying to say is that if a piece of entertainment is genuinely engrossing, doesn't the 3D take a back seat? I don't watch football, but I imagine that - after the initial "woooo!" you'd get from the first couple of minutes of watching a 3D match, if it's a properly cracking game then the 3D factor won't make much of a difference. I am guessing here, so please correct me if you've experienced otherwise.

So what are your thoughts on 3D TV? Will you be rushing out and buying a £1,799 set? Or waiting for a few years until the price drops to something more affordable? Perhaps it doesn't grab you in the least? Or maybe you're one of the many folk for whom 3D TV doesn't work anyway, so it's all academic. In which case, rejoice - you don't have to fork out a princely sum in order to keep up with the Joneses.