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Comment by vidarh | Hacker News Reader

"Only 20-30% penetration" (according to the article) apparently means it is "dead". 20-30% in that short timespan sounds amazingly high given how long a typical TV lasts, and the wide range of form-factors (presumably "nobody" cares about 3D on the lower sized screens that are rarely used for movies).

And it explains the de-emphasis on 3D somewhere like CES: You won't easily sell lots more new high-end TV's if you emphasise on something all of your competition has, including the low end. And when I went to Amazon to check right now, the cheapest 42" screen on offer in their UK store is a 3D tv...

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The problem with market share stats is that they don't always correspond with usage. People with 3D TVs don't simply seem to be very interested in watching 3D content on them.

Case in point: in the UK 27 million people watched the Olympic Games opening ceremony on TV, but only 0.4% of that audience (just over 100,000 people) watched it in 3D[1]. For a technology with 20-30% penetration this is pretty dismal.

[1]:http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/46728/3d-tv-viewing-update-b...

> The problem with market share stats is that they don't always correspond with usage. People with 3D TVs don't simply seem to be very interested in watching 3D content on them.

This is true of my parents. I've never seen them use their 3D TV as one, the rather pricy viewing glasses are still sealed in the box.

Indeed. Most new TVs seem to support 3D [1]. It could be that roughly 20-30% of people bought a new TV in the last 2-3 years, and those TVs just so happened to support 3D, even if the consumer wasn't purchasing a new TV specifically to get 3D.

[1]: At least that was the impression I got when shopping for a new TV ~6 mos ago.

I have a 3D TV and would probably watch some TV in 3D if it was available (I'd certainly give it a try, at least), but my content provider doesn't offer any 3D channels. I'm curious how many of the audience you mention could watch it if they had a 3D TV.

I think that's a poor metric. Why in the world would the Olympic opening seremony be something worth caring about 3D for?

Also note that the numbers in that article does not mesh with 20-30% penetration - according to Ofcom there was ca. 60 million TV's in the UK end 2011. The article cites 1.3 million 3D TV's sold in the UK at the time of writing.

So rather than a mismatch with usage, it seems prudent to question where the 20-30% number the article cites comes from....

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