Good Riddance: 3D TV is dead
A report on Cnet suggests that 3D TV won't be the next big thing after all, as the last two major TV makers of 3D TVs announced that they would stop producing 3D TVs in 2017.
The revival of 3D in home entertainment began with the release of Avatar back in 2010, but the technology never really took off.
It required a TV capable of 3D playback, special glasses for every viewer, and a player supporting 3D as well.
Even if you made those expenses, you were stuck with limited options to use the 3D capabilities. Not all movies were released as 3D versions for instance, and the few TV channels that were offered in 3D were canceled early on when networks realized that viewer counts were lower than expected.
Sales of 3D home equipment have declined since 2012. In 2016, 3D home video gear accounted for merely 8% of TV Sales, down from 16% in 2015 and 23% in 2012. Blu-Ray players capable of playing 3D content dropped from 40% in 2012 to 25% in 2015 and 11% in 2016.
If you are interested in 3D TV at home at this point, you are stuck with purchasing hardware from 2016 or earlier, or investing big in home theater projectors.
TV manufacturers have moved the focus away from 3D towards 4K and HDR, and adding smart TV features instead.
It seems unlikely that the decision will have an impact on theater releases. What is likely going to happen though is that fewer titles will be released as 3D versions for the consumer market.
There is also the question of whether 3D TV will see a revival in the future. I don't think that this is likely, unless technology changes significantly. This does not necessarily have to be the same setup as of today, as new tech, virtual reality or holographic projections for instance, may offer a better user experience.
For now though, it seems unlikely that manufacturers will start to produce new 3D TVs in 2018 or beyond.
Now You: What's your experience with 3D TV?
Why not make use of the mplayer.conf?
Huh, I have never even seen this “font cache” pane; videos play at once for me, using VLC & XP SP3.
Mike, in theory this should have only been displayed once to you, at the very first video that you played with VLC. The time this window is displayed depends largely on the number of fonts in your font directory.
huh, I lucked out for a change?? Amazing!!
Apparently VLC keeps this info through version updates, but I didn’t see this message after a fresh OS install about 8 weeks ago, & a new VLC.
yes, yes, i have the same problem. sometimes, VLC crashes when it is playing .mov file.
Error:
Buidling font Cache pop-up
Solution:
Open VLC player.
On Menu Bar:
Tools
Preferences
(at bottom – left side)
Show settings — ALL
Open: Video
Click: Subtitles/OSD (This is now highlited, not opened)
Text rendering module – change this to “Dummy font renderer function”
Save
Exit
Re-open – done.
Progam will no longer look outside self for fonts
Source – WorthyTricks.co.cc
Great tip, thanks a lot Kishore.
@Kishore, I’ll try your tips, but does this mean it will no longer show subtitles either?
I do use subtitles, but the fontcache dialog box pops up (almost) everytime I play a file.
Could this be related to the fonts I have installed? Or if I add/remove fonts to my system?
I’ll try to do a fresh install also, if your tips does no work. I’ll post back here later…
/thanks
/j
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,
@ Javier, The trick i posted will show up subtitles too. If not,Dont worry, VLC is currently sorting out this issue and the next version will be out soon.
No probs @ Martin !! Its my pleasure
Try running LC with administrator privileges. That seemed to fix it for me
I am using SMplayer 0.8.6 (64-bit) (Portable Edition) on Windows 7 x64. Even with the -nofontconfig parameter in place SMplayer still scans the fonts. Also, I have enabled normal subtitles and it is still scanning fonts before playing a video. Also, it does this every time the player opens a video after a system restart (only the fist video played).
Does that mean that only instrumental versions of songs will be available for non-paying users?