Crimson Red Sports

So I've watched  some college football in 3D now, including Auburn v. Virginia and currently Nebraska v. South Carolina, on ESPN3D on an LG 3D TV, in anticipation of potentially watching Bama v. LSU in 3D.

The Verdict:  Cool dimensional viewing adds depth of perspective to football viewing, but gradient grey passive lens darken colors and diminish the sharpness of view.  So basically, there are positives and negatives. With some camera angles and views, mostly close-ups, or where there are shots of players huddling together on the sidelines, or fans in the stans, cheerleaders, etc. the 3D is awesome.  (Slow motion replays are really, really good.)  With most wide-angle views (like the standard start-of-play view), or when the action is fast-paced, the quality of picture is compromised with 3D, in terms of sharpness and clarity, and picture is better without 3D.  Overall, still a novelty act with potential for improvement, but considering amazon.com sold this set for the price of non-3D, worth the free upgrade.

Probably 3D would work better with basketball, where the field of play is not so large and therefore there should be less degradation of picture with 3D.

Good info, CP. You will be our 3D eyes for the BCSNCG.

Thanks. They are advertising something special for the BCSNCG on ESPN3D, so here's hoping for it.  

Really, the easiest way to describe the passive 3D and how regular viewing is impacted, is like watching a game through light grey sunglasses (which is pretty much what you are doing).  So you lose some color and definition, just like wearing the sunglasses.

One thing I just noticed that is really cool is when they diagram the play in yellow over the players.  The yellow lines stand out away from the screen.  Awesome.  The score block also stands out, away from the play.

Another cool, although telling, thing is that there are less advertisers on ESPN3D, perhaps due to a lack of 3D commercials, so they fill the space with extra coverage and replays of the game, as well as showing clips from other ESPN3D offerings (X-games).  Additional game footage in high quality slow motion 3D is called ESPN 3D "Extra Access."  Wish the entire game could look this good.

LG TV allows adjustment of 3D depth of perception.  Factory setting is 10 (ft?), but if you sit close to your TV you can reduce that field so the 3D isn't too intrusive, down to 1 (ft?).  In my opinion, due to the smaller screen size (TV v. Movie Theater) and opportunity to reduce depth of field, the problems one might encounter with watching movies in 3D at the movie theater (the item appears too close and become blurry @ the movies) is reduced.  I think the television 3D is better than the movie theater version, especially for watching sports.

It seems like they could automatically brighten the colors somehow to compensate for the glasses.

They might already do that.  That was just my convenient way to describe it as accurately as I could.  The truth is probably that, because they use two distinct views to create the 3D effect, the 1080p detail is divided into two 540p pictures, so some of the HD sharpness is lost.