Apr 6th, 2010
What we imagined 3-D basketball might look like on the screen turned out to exceed reality, which is hardly surprising since we expected to be placed on the floor with the players, catching virtual elbows from a virtual Brian Zoubek and hitting our virtual chin on the virtual rim while skying over a virtual Gordon Hayward and then having a virtual Mike Krzyzewski grab us by our virtual shirt and telling us to get our virtual butt in gear and play some virtual defense on virtual Shelvin Mack.
3-D glasses for Duke-Butler game were more attractive than these, but the crowd size was worse
Let’s just say it wasn’t Avatar.
We at JakesTakeOnSports had heard a few days before the NCAA championship game between Duke and Butler that there would be three-dimensional broadcasts of the title game at movie theaters throughout the country. Noting that 3-D televisions were already on the market and fascinated by the possibilities, we wanted to take a peek into the future of televised sports.
The future, as they say, is not now.
For one thing, the phenomenon was not readily availability. We had to search to find the locations where the game would be shown in 3-D, and only two movie venues in the Bay Area had it, one in Petaluma and one in Livermore, not exactly the hubs of the metropolitan area.
It was immediately evident that the 3-D craze had not enveloped Northern California when only 15 other people laid down the $15 apiece to catch the 3-D broadcast in Livermore.
Oh, the 3-D glasses were in demand at the ticket office, but nearly all were taken to view “How to Train Your Dragon,” which attracted a big crowd to Theater No. 4, and “Clash of the Titans” playing to throngs in Theaters 6 and 10.
Few even knew about the cozy, echo-chamber gathering we had in Theater No. 2 to watch Duke and Butler in 3-D.
When the 3-D broadcast began, with Dave Ryan and Steve Lappas doing the announcing, it was intriguing. There was definitely a three-dimensional look to the thing, especially in crowd shots. In fact, crowd shots were frequent throughout the evening, and the reason was apparent – the shots of the people in the stands played better on 3-D than the shots of the players on the court.
The first 10 minutes of the game are a blur because we focused more attention on the technical effects, trying to determine exactly how the 3-D broadcast was different, than watching the game itself. Luckily, the game remained interesting to the end, by which point we had stopped anlayzing the phenomenon and just watched hoops.
It was nice and all, but there was no Wow Factor. The ball looked like a genuine globe as it moved along, and there was a sense of perspective and space you don’t get with regular television. Views from above provided the best three-dimensional effect, and the directors obviously were aware of that because we were served a large helping of the eye-in-the-sky-type views.
It’s hard to describe it other than that.
We did not feel like we were taking a charge when Jon Scheyer drove down the lane directly at us. We did not flinch when a loose ball came toward the camera. We did not feel the pain when players crashed to the floor. The referee’s finger did not seem to gouge our eye when he pointed in our direction. The Blue Devils mascot encroached on our personal space when he came onscreen leaning in and gesticulating for the camera, but that’s not what we paid our money to see.
Players and coaches looked a little like cardboard cutouts, moving around as flat entities in a three-dimensional space, sort of like the old electric football games of the 1960s that buzzed along to the delight of 8-year-old boys who devised complex blocking schemes to lead running backs through the defense.
When Duke and Butler players took shots from the sides, the distance to the basket was distorted, making three-pointers look like 10-foot shots. The backboard itself was little distorted, tilting a bit and looking smaller than it should. The ball itself seemed to go out of focus for an instant on long, high-arching shots.
The surround sound was nice, but that was not what we came to witness.
The appeal of 3-D was supposed to be that it made the viewer feel like he was at the game, and it did that to some degree. But those of us who have been to Final Fours know that watching a game on television gives a more complete view of the game than actually being there. We wanted both – the feeling of being there and a complete picture of the game. We’re selfish like that, but for $15 (plus a $1 for ordering the ticket online, since we expected a full house, which turned out to be a naive notion), we wanted it all. We didn’t get it all.
Don’t misunderstand. It was nice and all, sort of like watching the game on high-definition television, and that’s a pleasant sporting experience. But there was a certain thrill the first time we viewed a game in HD, a sense that TV sports viewing would never be the same. That thrill did not occur with the 3-D broadcast.
The game itself was exciting enough, and 3-D did not spoil that. If Hayward’s final fling had banked in to win the game for Butler, it might have left us in a more favorable mood, and we might now be extolling the brilliance of this 3-D thing. Maybe it was the disappointment of seeing the Duke players dance at midcourt that affected our impression.
We will say this: It was not WORSE than watching on HD television. But the difference was not enough to go ga-ga over.
The problem was simple: Our imagination of what a 3-D basketball broadcast could provide exceeded reality. Pregame hype usually exceeds the actual sports event, of course, so we should not have been surprised.
Maybe a few more years of fine-tuning will make the 3-D experience better, but we aren’t rushing out to buy a 3-D television just yet. When it gives the impressive that Coach K’s nose is poking into our cheek, we’ll sign up.
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[...] – JAKE’S TAKE ON SPORTS went to see the Duke/Butler game in 3-D at a local movie theater and posted this review. [...]
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Avatar had to be the best movie ever.
The search on yourpage doesn't work for me.
Guessing how many March Madness basket ball lovers are making their spouses crazy!