Monsters vs. Aliens

Movie fans will get a chance to check out the state of the art in old-school 3D during the Super Bowl, when DreamWorks will spend the big bucks on a promotion for its tentpole animated feature Monsters vs. Aliens. Current home stereo viewing technology being what it is, the experience won’t hold a candle to getting out to the theater for a digital-3D screening, but DreamWorks Animation honcho Jeffrey Katzenberg told reporters the spot will be broadcast using Intel InTru 3D and ColorCode 3-D, two new technologies that refine the long-standing anaglyphic system for viewing 3D movies.

According to ColorCode, the difference between the two views in a ColorCode-encoded image is represented by “minute variations” in the colors. To a viewer without glasses, this should translate to a slightly higher-contrast image with faint golden and bluish haloes around sharp-edged objects, the company says. That sounds like a step in the right direction from the near-hallucinogenic red-and-blue double vision that’s induced when someone tries to watch a traditional anaglyphic broadcast without glasses.


Apparently ColorCode uses amber and blue filters, rather than red and blue, with the left-eye and right-eye images separated using “complex spectral curves” — read more about the technology here, then tune in on February 1 to see if this really improves on old-style 3D. DreamWorks certainly hopes it will be impressive — Katzenberg said the company is spending “tens of millions of dollars” to distribute some 150 million 3D glasses in a co-promotion with Pepsi/SoBe Life Water, which will offer the gear at displays in 28,000 retail locations across the U.S. And don’t throw them away — NBC will be airing a 3D episode of Chuck on February 2, the Associated Press reports. Could there be more to come?