Having lived through the 3D craze of the 50's, I'm underwhelmed by the idea of 3D TV. Stereoscopic (but not holographic) 3D has the fundamental limitation that the view is geometrically correct ("orthoscopic") from only one point in space. At any position off axis, the picture exhibits Conical Distortion, so called because a cone filmed vertex-on seems to point directly at you, no matter what your position.
Even more peculiar, depth of objects depends on viewing distance. The film is made with a particular "sweet spot" in the theatre in mind. If you are viewing from this position, everything looks fine, but if you are closer, objects seem too thin, and too thick from beyond this distance.
A few years ago I attended a showing of some 3D films at a Baltimore art house. It included a Three Stooges cartoon with quite amusing effects, like a mad doctor lunging at the audience with a hypodermic needle which hung over the audience and caused everyone to duck.
Less amusing, was, amazingly, a 3D version of Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window".
http://This was filmed at the beginning of the craze, which had subsided by the time the film was ready for distribution.
I was familiar with the above issues from work on scientific displays, so I moved around the theatre during the film to observe their effects. When I tried sitting behind the sweet spot, but nowhere near the most distant seats, the depth distortion was all too evident: Grace Kelly had thickened noticably from front to back. I found the effect quite disturbing; in fact it made my skin crawl. In my opinion, even without these optical difficulties, 3D did nothing to enhance the film's dramatic qualities.
I expect that 3D is a powerful effect in computer games where none of the geometric distortions apply, but if an attempt is made to apply it to the usual film fare, I expect it to fail just as it did 50 years ago.
