3D is still a difficult sell for TV

When 3D TVs were introduced in 2009, it seemed only a matter of time until we would all be wearing sunglasses at night.

But things change at laser speed in the $190 billion-per-year consumer-electronics industry.

Now, despite steep holiday discounts, the enhanced 3D models are struggling to hold on to market share.

The special-effect sets - which sell for $1,000 to $4,000 - are prisoners of their own technology.

"As the prices have come down, the new barriers [for customers] are the unavailability of 3D content and the fact that people think the glasses are expensive and inconvenient," says Andrew Eisner, director of content for Retrevo, a consumer-electronics review website.

Both issues are being addressed, albeit remedially.

The Blu-ray release of Avatar kick-started 3D TV sales, as viewers rushed to reexperience the film the way Eywa, the Na'vi deity, intended.

The subsequent trickle of 3D events has made it difficult to justify the expense of buying a set, but that is changing.

This month, for instance, ESPN's 24/7 3D channel will carry four college football bowl games.

And the all-3D channel, 3net, a joint venture of Sony, IMAX, and Discovery, is offering Fields of Valor, a four-part Civil War documentary that may be the most ambitious 3D made-for-TV program to date. (In the Philadelphia area, 3net is available only to DirecTV subscribers.)

Both ventures present headaches.

ESPN has only two of the superexpensive production trucks needed for 3D transmission, which puts a lot of wear on their tires as they crisscross the country.

"The logistics . . . it's like playing three-dimensional chess," says Bryan Burns, vice president of strategic business planning at ESPN. "We've learned how to be very efficient at what we're doing."

Fields of Valor stockpiled enough unusable footage to build its own full-size replica of Fort Sumter with it.

The cameras used for 3D are equipped with two lenses that shoot the same image simultaneously. If anything disrupts one or both of the shots, it ruins the depth of field and can literally give the viewer a headache.

Try maintaining precise equilibrium during a massive Civil War battle reenactment.

"Say you're shooting someone 30 feet away and someone runs in front of the camera. You have to eliminate that shot," says Dave Less, a film editor at Tower Productions who worked on the documentary.