Some of the students and faculty here are old enough to remember older movies that were shown in 3D. They were full of hands or other objects reaching out of the screen to grab the audience. Well, it seems that fad is back and in a big way, but one should ask themselves: Am I really missing out?

Just like 7.1 surround sound audio tracks, there just aren't that many movies out there made in 3D yet. Why are people flocking to purchase all new 3D television sets and a half dozen of those 3D glasses? Cable or Satellite TV of course. Commercials have popularized the idea that 3D TVs gives that in-your-face experience when in reality most of the 3D create a sense of depth into the screen as if you were looking into an aquarium. Watching all of your favorite shows in 3D would be cool if you don't mind sacrificing picture quality. That's right, programs broadcasted to your set-top box and even movies do not have the full 1920x1080 we have come to know as Full HD. The culprit is bandwidth. Cameras used to create 3D images use two lenses (to simulate the stereoscopic effect of your eyes); this means that you are getting two images slightly overlaid on one another. It is because of this that production crews have shrunk images down to be able to fit through the 10.2 Gbps limit of HDMI cables (or component cables) and the cable line going to your set-top box. Enter HDMI rev. 1.4 with its 15.6 Gbps limit. This has allowed Blu-ray players to pass full 3D-HD images to your TV, or double the resolution of current HDTVs (because making that would be too expensive for manufacturers right now).

The craze over 3D TV has only halted the release of 4k TVs (TVs with a resolution of 4096x2304) and even higher frame rates in movies. So ask yourself: What am I really missing out on?

Below is film critic Roger Ebert's thoughts on the matter.