I recently went to see the third Avatar film, and, of course, I saw it in 3D, since Jim Cameron’s blue space cats are the pinnacle of 3D filmmaking.
Unlike the people who think it’s cool to hate things that are extremely popular, I love the Avatar movies. I also love quality 3D movies, but you don’t really see home 3D movie systems anymore. That doesn’t mean 3D movies at home are a thing of the past! Hardcore fans are keeping the dream alive until the mainstream gives 3D another try again one day.
3D didn’t die, it just lost the mainstream
You can still find it if you know where to look
3D movies aren’t dead at all; you can still watch 3D movies at your local cinema, but it’s likely that not every theater is showing movies in 3D the way it was at the peak of the 3D cinema craze. So, at least, we know movies are still being processed for 3D if not always shown in true 3D.
But it’s in the home media market where things aren’t going too well for the format. 3D never got its own 4K format, so any 3D Blu-ray you see today is still a 1080p film. That said, you can still get recent films on 3D Blu-ray, such as 2022’s Avatar: The Way of Water.
The problem is that the hardware needed to play these discs can be hard to find. As CNET reported, starting in 2017, Sony and LG both dropped 3D support from their TVs. That does mean there are still some 2016 4K OLED TVs with 3D modes out there, but as you can imagine, finding one won’t be cheap.
Projectors and VR became the new 3D displays
Hidden in plain sight
But you don’t need to buy a decade-old TV in a parking lot to get 3D hardware, nor do you have to pay a fortune for it. While TVs have dropped 3D video support, some modern projectors and all VR headsets support 3D.
Getting a 3D Blu-ray player might be tricky, but you can use a standard PC Blu-ray drive to rip those discs into a digital format that can be played on these devices. Plex, for example. I use a paid Plex client called Movie Deck for Quest that supports common 3D formats, and you get to sit in a nice virtual cinema with an enormous screen.
You can watch Plex in the headset’s browser for free, but I don’t like that, so I spent a few bucks. There are other options too, such as Bigscreen for the Meta Quest series of headsets. If you don’t want to stream movies from your Plex server, that might actually be the better option. The video below details how to get 3D Blu-ray into a format that these players can use.
If you have a 3D Blu-ray player, then you can of course just connect it directly to your 3D projector. The 3D projectors on the market today are the active type, so they need active shutter glasses. Sadly, if you want passive 3D projection like in theaters, you’ll have to go through this convoluted and expensive process Linux Tech Tips did in this video.
The Hisense M2 Pro is one good example of an affordable ($1,300 isn’t bad in this context) modern 4K projector that supports 3D. You will have to buy the optional active glasses, though, and they are rather pricey. Also, some of the reviews I’ve read make 3D Blu-ray player support seem hit-and-miss, although it should work since the projector supports the frame-packing format 3D BDs use.
- Brand
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Hisense
- Native Resolution
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UHD 4K
An affordable, portable, 4K laser projector ready to provide up to a 200-inch image wherever you need it.
Long live discs!
The big problem here is content. There are still dozens of movies released in 3D on Blu-ray, but if Blu-rays in general are a niche market now, you can imagine 3D Blu-rays are even more niche than that.
Few streaming services host 3D content, and those that do might be doing some gatekeeping. For example, as of this writing, the only place you can watch 3D movies on Disney+ is using the Apple Vision Pro. There’s no reason this wouldn’t work on a far cheaper headset like a Quest 2 or 3, but I suppose this is part of some sort of deal between Disney and Apple.
So, when a movie that was in 3D in theaters is never released in a 3D home format, there’s just no way to get access to that version of the film.
A niche hobby that isn’t going anywhere
Like VR, there have been several attempts to make 3D movies the next big thing. The last one has perhaps been the most successful since 3D is still happening in theaters, and 3D content is still being released on disc, but the big barrier has always been the hassle of the hardware.
A VR headset is easy, though only one person can watch at a time, of course, or you need multiple headsets. As for projection, it can be expensive to get active-shutter glasses for everyone, and some people get headaches from that technology.
The big hope here is the perfection of glasses-free 3D. We’ve come a long way from the Nintendo 3DS, and perhaps one day 3D imagery on a TV will require nothing more than your naked eyeballs, at which point 3D might finally have its day.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
