Is is end of D?

Last week the BBC became the latest major broadcaster to announce that it was to shelve 3D due to low take up by viewers. The BBC decision came only a month after the US sport broadcaster ESPN announced that it would be suspending its 3D channel at the end of the year, putting its efforts into 4K UltraHD instead.

Many new large screen TVs have been 3D enabled for some time now, and it was thought that sport and films would prove to be the motivators that would get viewers to make the most of those capabilities. However, that hasn't proved to be the case. So why hasn't 3D caught the imagination of the viewing public as much as TV manufacturers and some broadcasters expected or at least hoped for?

The BBC cited a lack of appetite for the technology claiming that viewers found it quite hassly .

Kim Shillinglaw, the BBCs head of 3D, told RadioTimes.com:

I have never seen a very big appetite for 3D television in the UK.

Watching 3D is quite a hassly experience in the home. You have got to find your glasses before switching on the TV. I think when people watch TV they concentrate in a different way. When people go to the cinema they go and are used to doing one thing I think that's one of the reasons that take up of 3D TV has been disappointing.

It seems that, in the home, people just aren't so fussed about having a fully immersive experience when they watch TV, especially, in the age of the Second Screen. They're used to talking to other people, getting up to make a coffee, texting, whatever. The glasses are seen as a barrier, a step too far. Also to many people, they're seen as being slightly ridiculous looking.

Even in the cinema, 3D has tailed off. On an initial wave of excitement that followed the US release of Avatar in December 2009, 3D accounted for a fifth of all US box office revenues in 2010. However, since then 3D's share has fallen for the past two years, despite there being more 3D enabled cinemas and more 3D films released.

In the home, as well as the glasses, there have been complaints that viewers have to sit in a very precise position in front of the screen for the 3D to work, something not always easy in the sitting rooms of Britain and something that again, gets in the way of family' viewing.

Other issues that have been cited are price and a lack of content, something that is clearly not going to improve any time soon.

The main champion of 3D in the UK has been satellite broadcaster BskyB. It has made no announcements yet around its 3D services which launched 3D in October 2010. In the past it has said that it has 500,000 subscribers to packages that include 3D viewing (out of its 10.3 million total TV customers) and that 300,000 people watched some part of the London Olympics in 3D.

The BBCs 50th anniversary of Doctor Who will still be broadcast in 3D, as well as the already-commissioned series Hidden Kingdom. It remains to be seen if those will be the swansong of 3D or if this is just a case of a technology that has come too soon. Manufacturers are already demoing 3D TV that can be watched without glasses and from a broader field of vision. Are they going to be more acceptable to the viewing public or is 3D just the answer to a question no one was actually asking?

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