It all started with cinema madness. When James Cameron's “Avatar” conquered the box office in 2009, TV manufacturers saw their opportunity. SamsungLG, Sony and other electronics giants have started producing 3D receivers. The industry was sure of success – since viewers loved the three-dimensional image in cinemas, they would certainly want to bring this experience to their homes.
Glasses that spoiled the fun
The problem is that home screenings have different rules than going to the cinema. No one wants to sit for hours wearing special glasses, especially when they are also browsing the phone or talking to family. Manufacturers offered two types of glasses – active and passive. The former provided great image quality, but were expensive and required charging. The second one – cheaper and simpler, but lowered the resolution. Additionally, people wearing prescription glasses had to put one on top of the other.
Exorbitant costs and little content
The TV itself was only the beginning of the expenses. The set also required a few pairs of glasses (because we wouldn't be watching movies alone) and a player Blu-ray 3D and of course the movies themselves. And there weren't many of them – apart from “Avatar” and a handful of other productions, most 3D films were created by adding the effect in post-production, which gave poor results.
Streaming has conquered technology
The final blow to 3D TVs was the development of streaming services. Netflix and its competitors offered huge libraries of movies and TV series at a fraction of the price of Blu-ray discs. Viewers clearly voted with their wallets – viewing comfort turned out to be more important than spectacular 3D impressions.
In 2016, Samsung was the first to announce the end of 3D TV production. A year later, the last companies joined it – LG and Sony. Today, manufacturers are focusing on 4K resolution, HDR technology and improving OLED, QLED and Mini LED panels. The three-dimensional image remained the domain of VR goggles.