Opinion: 3-D TV can't make your kids sick. . . can it?

3-step plan to prevent a potential 3-D disaster

NEW YORK — "Is my 3-D TV going to be safe?"

This is the last question anyone in the consumer electronics industry wants to hear right now — especially as the industry's fortunes for the next few years seem to be riding on a wide-range of 3-D-this, 3-D-that gadgets that are aimed directly down consumers' throats.

Nonetheless, Samsung has begged that unwanted question by posting a 3-D TV health hazards warning on its Australian website.

It's not entirely clear why Samsung is only posting a 3-D TV warning in Australia. But every new Samsung 3-D TV set -- sold today anywhere in the world, the United States included -- bears the very same health hazards warning, according to Chris Chinnock, President of Insight Media.

Call me naive, but I couldn't help wondering why such warnings are popping up now. After all, sales of 3-D Blu-ray and 3-D TV are already out of the barn.

If someone already knew of the even remote possibilities that 3-D TV viewing could cause an epileptic seizure, why push 3-D TV so hurriedly to the mass market? More important, how does this sort of warning guide your typical soccer mom contemplating the purchase of a 3-D TV for her kids this fall? Does she swear off 3-D forever, or does she merely put her local seizure clinic on speed-dial?

Insight Media's Chinnock suspects that this is a Samsung's "CYA (cover your ass) move." It's entirely possible that someone could sue Samsung in the future, claiming that 3-D TV made him pitch a fit. As a vendor, "you have to think of every possible scenario, and be prepared to say that you are not liable," said Chinnock.

Proving a negative

OK. So, is the 3-D industry saying that the verbiage on the TV box is all legalese that bears little relationship to any actual consumer health issue?

Not exactly. "It's a tough one," said Chinnock. "There has not been enough research out there" to prove or disprove the case for 3-D TV health hazards.

When I was talking to Koji Hase, president of worldwide consumer electronics at Real D six months ago, he pointed out that not a single health problem has been reported among hundreds of professionals who've been working, many years, in an environment where similar visual 3-D tools are used.

The problem in any science, though, is that proving a negative is always much more difficult than proving a positive.

But first, let's step back a little.

One thing Chinnock made clear, and it did make sense to me, was that "in almost all cases, factors that influence eye strain, nausea or headache in 3-D viewing are neither 3-D displays nor 3-D glasses. But they are [related to] content creation, post-production and mastering processes used in 3-D video production."

In other words, anyone serious about promoting 3-D has to take some precautions —especially on the front-end of 3-D content creation.

Obviously, individuals have different tolerances for the varying degrees of 3-Dness in video. When human frailties and the expansions of artistic creativity are both taken into consideration, making hard and fast rules about 3-D movie production specs won't be easy.

However, Chinnock insisted, "I have a few good ideas that I think we can move things forward." Calling it a three-step plan, Chinnock laid out the following:

Step 1: Identify all the factors that influence eye strain, nausea and other discomforts. Such factors include: alignment of imaging, vertical and horizontal misalignment, color differences, luminance differences, the amount of parallax, fast scene cuts, etc. Chinnock said, "Cutting from scene to scene, quickly moving from front to back and back to front in 3-D, for example, can only slam your eye balls back and forth."

Step 2: Identify safe parameters and safe ranges. Keep color mismatches or image misalignments to a tolerable level; set parameters and ranges to create "safe zones."

Step 3: Write guidelines and best practices for content creation and post-processing. Then, set up a rating system that can automatically record various factors in a 3-D movie — such as a depth transition and its duration — and note how often such factors venture beyond the so-called "safe zones." Because everyone has a different personal taste and tolerance for different levels of 3-D video, it's only natural to expect a number of commercial enterprises to pop up and offer different 3-D ratings in the future, predicted Chinnock.

This is not a bad plan, but how close are we to actually setting up any rating system?

Unfortunately, not very. Those in different 3-D industry consortiums appear to support the idea, said Chinnock, but "it takes the industry's leadership to unify these concepts and codify the system."

Chinnock said, "There will be bad 3-D movies. It's going to happen."

The way to prevent a potential 3-D disaster is not just stamping a list of 3-D health hazards on a carton. The industry needs to give content producers tools, while offering consumers rating systems to recognize the intensity of the 3-D experience they are about to watch. Junko Yoshida(04/20/2010 1:52 PM EDT)

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