I went to a 3D movie recently where the person operating the project was clearly unfamiliar with the technology. This was apparent in several ways. For one thing, for the first ten minutes of the movie, there was no polarizing filter over the projector.
When this happens, you always see two images whether or not you are wearing the 3D glasses. In fact, until the projectionist puts the filter on, there is no point in putting on the glasses. You might as well enjoy the much brighter view you get by watching the movie without the glasses.
Because I am a basically positive person, I would like to think that at least some of the very high ticket price (3D movies are expensive!) will go to remedial training for this hapless projectionist.
After about ten minutes, someone in the projection booth finally put the filter on the projector. So I put on my 3D glasses, and then everything started to look really funny. Near things looked far away, and far things looked near. The filter was on backwards!
Since I know a little bit about 3D movie technology, I know that the two images are each polarized at 45o — the left image slants to the right, and the right image slants to the left.
So I figured that if the glasses were turned upside down, its two filters would each slant the other way, and everything would look ok. I tried it, wearing the glasses upside down, and suddenly the 3D movie looked just fine. I’m sure I looked silly wearing upside down 3D glasses, but fortunately movie theaters are dark.
I told the friend I came with to flip her glasses upside down. Then we told our neighbors in all directions, and suggested they spread the word. Eventually this inverted fashion spread throughout much of the theater, and many of us watched the movie with our 3D glasses turned upside down.
After about half an hour, somebody in the projection booth figured out that there was a problem. They took out the filter, flipped it around, and put it into the projection path the right way. So I turned my 3D glasses right side up and kept watching.
But here’s the weird thing: Most of the people around me never turned their 3D glasses right side up again. They just continued to watch the rest of the movie the wrong way.
What on earth were they thinking?
I suspect they were thinking, like most people presented with new technology that doesn’t seem to be how they expected, ‘maybe I’m not seeing/doing it right’. I must be the problem here. So they muddle on until a new expert directs them to a new answer.
I think the main value of postgraduate education is to create in the mind an arrogant demand that all should be understandable, that everything everyone else does is questionable and possibly wrong. Most people assume that clever, technical and expert people are right, for far longer than a sceptical grad student would. The grad student eventually learns that nothing is sacred, and all can be questioned, that most things don’t stand up to very much questioning either.
The same thing happened to me, but in a cinema with active shutter glasses. It was the movie Gravity and while extremely bad in my opinion, it has some nice 3d effects. My view was inverted from the start, took about 5 minutes to realize and another 5 to try to remedy the problem until i just flipped my glasses upside down. I also tried covering the optical sensor to make them re-sync but it didn’t work. I tried swapping glasses with my gf and hers were ok the normal way so it was probably just my bad luck to get a bad pair. So I exited the cinema to find someone to help me, and outside the door was a bucket with extra glasses. I swapped my glasses with a new pair and the new ones were ok. I have a master’s degree – In cognitive science so, yes things should be done correctly or not at all 😉 Good point by PhilH