I was at my parents' house over the past weekend, and my mom was geeking out over her new copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth, and she was telling me all about how cool the 3D effect was. I told her that i saw it at the theater with my kids and the 3D was in fact pretty good. So, we all had to don the funky glasses and watch it. Hell, my dad was even lauding it.

So you will understand my confusion when I saw that the glasses were the typical old fashioned red and blue lens glasses. And when the movie started, when looking at it without the glasses, it was the typical old fashioned multicolor video.

"What is this?" I thought. "This isn't the way it was when i saw it on the BIG screen!", I continued to think.

So, I ask here, why? Why couldn't we watch it the same way it was displayed in theaters? The DVD is digital, the connection to the tv is HDMI. When i was watching it in the theater, i cheated and removed my glasses momentarily, and i didn't see anything happening on the screen that appeared very hi-tech or spectacular. Will we not get to view ANY new 3D movies at home the same way we can at the theater? And if not, I think that's a crock.

Today, as Brendon says, the cinemas use systems called Real-D, or Imax 3D, which instead of using colored lenses, use lenses with glass or plastic cast in two different light polarities. Two projectors throw two different images onto the screen, one taken with a camera for the left eye perspective and one taken by a camera for the right eye. perspective. The interesting thing is that the lenses of both the projectors are polarized to correspond with the polarity of the glasses. When the two images are projected together, then combined in your brain using the special lenses, you are tricked into percieving "depth" in the screen.

The problem with today's TV's is that they only project one frame at a time. They don't have the ability to display two simultaneous images, which essentially forces us to resort to the old method of creating a 3D effect on a flat surface using the red and blue technique. Which explains why Journey to the Center of the Earth and The Polar Express 3D both come with the silly glasses.

Viewing the true, modern 3D effect at home will be tricky for quite some time. Currently there are very few technologies on the market that facilitate 3D TV, and the ones that exist are sold at prices that put them beyond consumer applications like watching movies. But several major electronics firms are busy working on the next genreation of TV that will include the ability to project images in 3D both with and without the need for glasses.

As an interesting note, there is theoretically one TV technology that currently has the potential to simulate 3D. As I mentioned earlier, instead of using a cathode ray gun or liquid crystal, DLP uses mini LCD projectors to back-project images onto the viewing screen. If two projectors were to be employed instead of just one, each with lenses of different polarities, it might be possible to view 3D programming on future DLP screens using the same polarizing technology used in Real D today. Hope this explanation helps.

If you want more information on the processes, check out this site:

http://tinyurl.com/6hov6g http://tinyurl.com/6ra2b8

So, if two projectors aren't needed, and the two frames are not projected or displayed at the same time, then again I ask why we can't have this at home now.

I think if we had to project a few years down the road, it'll be the Real D technique or some derivitave of it that ends up becoming the basis for 3D TV. I too saw Bolt a couple weeks back, and although the director didn't go out of his way to create lots of eye-popping moments, I thought the depth perception was quite impressive. The only problem I could see was a little bit of strobing during the action sequences, but I'm pretty sure that'll get worked out in due time.