Football in 3 dimensions
On Saturday morning I decided to peel myself from my bed and make the journey to my local town to watch the Manchester derby. Sounds like any normal Saturday to some people but I was going to see what the fuss was with this 3D business Sky are currently showcasing.
3D technology is nothing new, in fact it was originally invented well over 100 years ago but did not really take off until the late 1970’s / early 1980’s with prominent movie hits such as Jaws 3D and The Amitiville Horror 3D, but the novelty was soon to wear off.
With the incarnation of high definition TV and cinema the 3D market was to be exploited yet again with such movie smashes like Up and Avatar. Sky Sports jumped on the 3D bandwagon to bring the viewer closer to the action, and the first match that was used as the experimental guinea pig was the Arsenal v Manchester United clash at the Emirates earlier this season. Although the 3D viewing was to be limited across the country it was deemed to be a success by some quarters, so I wanted to find out if it was worth the hassle.
As myself and my mate arrived in the pub we asked for our 3D glasses from behind the bar. The girl gave us what looked like the 1970’s NHS prescribed spectacles and pointed us towards a screen to the right which appeared to quite small. We took our original seats towards the front but as the teams were being announced we soon realised we may have been a little too close as the images were slightly blurred, so we found seats about 20 feet away from the screen as the game began.
I enjoyed the fact Sky used a different camera angle to try and enhance the viewing pleasure, I prefer the pitch side level more so than looking down at an angle, however the watching of the actual game didn’t seem to make that much of a difference for me. What impressed me though with the 3D technology were the close up shots of players and managers, it really made the person in view stand out with the crowd behind them, but do we really watch football for that? No, of course not.
Every now and then I felt the need to take off my glasses as not only my eyes were starting to feel strained but I wanted to compare watching the game on the normal TV screens. I found myself wanting to go back to the 3D in the end as it was a much clearer and crisper image.
Overall my own 3D experience was an enjoyable but novel one, I don’t think I would make the effort to watch every game in 3D but it was quite fun to watch the game with a different aspect.
One final thought is that I was glad I took my glasses off before Gary Neville planted a smacker on match winning Paul Scholes’ lips, that is an image that no man should see, let alone in 3D.