Everyone’s going “Oooh!” and “Aaaah!” with 3D technology, the newest attraction in the world of home entertainment systems. We know you probably are itching to grab one of those mammoth screens off the store shelves. Having seen the Mad Hatter and Pandora come to life in theaters recently, everyone’s positively thrilled and overwhelmed, and setting up a system like this in your living room is sure to grab a whole load of attention from family and neighbors alike. If established well in markets around the globe, 3D technology could change the way we are entertained forever. Think again! Is this technology practical enough to carry home? Well, before you shove your hand in your pocket and pull out a check to pay for one of these, here are a few turn-offs we came across while checking out the buzz being created by 3D. The Cost! That’s what made us spill our drinks and choke on our pop-corn first! 3D home entertainment equipment can leave a gaping hole in your bank account. Setting up a 3D home theater system should cost you roughly around $3000, going all the way up to $7000. That’s not all. You’ll need to buy a few pairs (so that your whole family can watch the movie in 3D without calling you a selfish self-entertainer) of dorky looking 3D glasses which cost a couple of hundred dollars each. And finally, to actually watch 3D movies, you’ll need to dump your jolly good DVD player and buy a 3D Blu-ray player instead. The costs of 3d TVs depend on their type i.e. LED, LCD or Plasma and a range of sizes that they’re available in. So here’s an estimate as to just how much a 3D setup should cost you. The newly unveiled 46” Samsung 3D LED TV for $2,799.99 (Samsung has a lineup of 3D TVs; this is just one of them). Throw in around $140 dollars for a pair of Sony 3D glasses with a $55 infrared emitter and another $399.99 for a Samsung 3D Blu-ray disk player. That sums up to around $3400. Now that’s a bit too much when you could pay a few dollars to watch a 3D movie theater instead! You could opt out of this, wait a while and buy a 3D TV that requires no glasses, like the one’s prototyped by LG, Samsung and Mitsubishi. However a terribly limited viewing angle (around four feet) will have your family and you huddled together on the couch. Not that great an experience, is it? And no, Chinese made 3D TVs aren’t cheap either.

The Glasses!
Here’s another factor of 3D technology that’ll have a whole lot of people opting out, the geeky glasses. Even if you do manage to somehow accept the way you look in them, there are quite a few other reasons why those glasses take 3D TVs farther from our living rooms. First of all, these glasses can be ridiculously expensive like we said before. And you’ll need one for every member of you family who’ll join you for the movie. Again, purchasing these glasses isn’t as easy as you think. There are two types of 3D glasses on shelves, specially polarized ones, or active shutter glasses that use infrareds that synchronize with the images on-screen. Make sure you read up on the differences between these two types before investing in a pair, to shut out the disappointment.
Wearing these glasses can be bothersome too! You obviously can’t sleep wearing them (incase you’re habituated to lying flat on your couch while watching TV). Eating, drinking and cuddling loved ones can be a pain while wearing 3D glasses. You’d probably need to think twice before having friends over to watch a movie and make sure they turn up with their own glasses, to save the embarrassment of running out of them. The technology isn’t developed enough to entirely do away with the flicker, even with the high refresh rates the active shutter glasses can pull off.
That’s not all. Wearing 3D glasses for too long can lead to headaches. Quite a few people stepped out of Avatar screenings with headaches. Now that wouldn’t be an ideal way to end an evening with your beloved ones, would it?

Eye-straining brain-teaser! Well, like we’ve said before, to set up a 3D system, your whole idea of home entertainment will need a major overhauling. You’ll need to chuck out that delightful HDTV you brought last Christmas, and the DVD player that sweetheart gifted you, and do away with any emotional attachments to your old stuff too. Also, buying a system like this can be a cause of a mental breakdown. It isn’t rocket science, but it’s new. And like every other new technology in the market, you’ll need to scratch your brain trying to decide between available setups. Fickle minded are you? Choosing between a 46” and a 50” is sure to rack your brain. And then again, the choice between LEDs, LCDs and plasma screens can be difficult too, owing to the technology being new, without a lot of feedback from consumers. Now choice isn’t such a bad thing, but for a product this new, it can be bewildering.

Maybe you might suffer a small heart attack looking at just how much a system like this will cost. Besides that, 3D viewing can cause a great deal of strain to your eyes. If you already suffer from problems with your vision, 3D TVs can aggravate it. As we’ve said before, the glasses can also result in headaches, something that you’d rather do without. You’ll also have to bear with the glare, which actually makes the whole 3D experience a bit disappointing. You’ll need to make sure your room is completely darkened to reduce the glare.
You’ll need to focus constantly to what’s happening on-screen. Forget about looking around to see what your friend’s up to with his beer can with those annoying glasses on. So all you can do while watching a 3D movie is, sit and stare at the screen, which obviously will result in eyestrain. You should probably just ignore the 3D TV shelf in the electronic store if you suffer from myopia or long-sightedness. Besides having a potential effect on bad eyesight, wearing 3D glasses along with your specs can be difficult, and you will have to come up with some ingenious way to wear them together.
For now, watching the upcoming Transformers 3 in 3D in a theater is a better option than buying a system like this. Perhaps 3D TVs might meet a slow death, or improve on technology and do away with its predicaments. Patience is the key to any good purchase after-all.