A common complaint nowadays about 3D is that the bar of entry is rather high. The average price of a 3D-capable HDTV should at least set someone back by $500, which obviously is not a small amount of money. The required glasses for viewing aren’t exactly cheap, too. Movie tickets are no exception, either. Coupled with rising basic prices, watching a movie in 3D these days adds about 30-50% more on top of the basic cost one pays for a ticket.
Fret not, though. As is the rule with new technology, it starts out really high-priced for early adopters, and then gradually decreases as it becomes more accessible and more manufacturers enter that particular market.
Let’s take a look at two good recent examples:
DVD players are a ubiquitous part of pretty much anyone’s home entertainment setup nowadays. Still, there were days back in the late 1990s to early 2000s where they were actually considered expensive. In fact, when Sony’s Playstation 2 game console came out in October of 2000 in the United States, it was considered as one of the cheapest DVD players available for the mass market. That really puts things into perspective, looking back on it from where we are now.
Another more recent example is HDTVs. When they first became widely available, a decent LCD set would usually cost an arm and a leg, somewhere around $2000-3000 and more so for a plasma display. Fast forward to today, and though they still might not be considered cheap, these once pricey sets are now priced more reasonably, usually at half of their cost five or six years ago.
Given the rate of adoption of 3D technology by a wide array of fields and industries, it won’t be long before prices drop and 3D-capable displays become available to a wider market than the one it they have right now.
3D technology has also moved in to other bigger stuff such as 3D renders and 3D floor plans in the realm of architectural firms and business. 3D renderings are being used in order to paint a better picture of what the clients would be seeing upon the completion of the project that they are investing in.