It seems only a few years ago that Sky TV introduced High Definition into the UK, but today’s it’s announced that it’s going to be launching 3DTV next year.

Interestingly, it won’t require a new set-top box and the current Sky HD box will carry the service. But what it will require is 3D TV - so just as an HD TV is required for HD - a 3D TV is required for 3D TV, which makes sense. These will become available on our shores around the same time, most likely initially from Panasonic.

From what I can gather, you’ll need to pop on a pair of glasses to watch the content in 3D though, but that didn’t bother me too much when I saw Monsters and  Aliens in 3D at Dreamworks.

Now while I’m normally, a huge fan of any new technology that comes along,especially 3D, which I’ve been impressed with both in the cinema and on the PC gaming side of things.

However, I’m actually slightly peeved that it will be arriving on our shores so soon. I’ve so far not made the jump to HD but was planning on getting something large and high-endish very soon.

But if I do, I might be plunging into into expensive obsolescence, which considering my current TV is about to reach its 10 anniversary, would disappoint me somewhat.

It’s a classic tale I guess - when should you jump onto that technology bus. There’s always something better around the corner.

This afternoon I attended a Samsung Display division briefing, where a number of its latest and greatest monitor and projectors was on show.

With my IT PRO hat on, (you know, it’s all blue and spangly), I was of course there to see its new business range of displays, such as the very fascinating SyncMaster F2380 with very exciting 16:9 aspect ratio, pivot and height adjustment.

But they also had on show its very new and, really exciting Samsung 2233RZ – a monitor designed for 3D! The 2233RZ is a new display that runs at 120Hz – which is double the frequency of conventional displays. Normally 60Hz is all you need for an LCD, but the reason for doubling it is because of its 3D display prowess.

The 2233RZ is compatible with Nvidia’s new ‘3D Vision’ glasses, which in compatible games gives you a real, actual, 3D image. While we always talk about games running in 3D, of course, it’s still the illusion of 3D as it’s running on a 2D surface. With the Nvidia glasses, the image is turned into true 3D, with real depth information.

I popped on the glasses – which are not the naff red and green lensed affairs you may remember from yesteryear – but a reasonable looking black pair that sat comfortably over my glasses. The effect – using Burnout Paradise - is immediate and impressive, but interestingly as it’s using the depth information already in the game, the 3D starts at the front of the screen and moves back into the distance. Thus the game overlays, showing your score and health and such like, appear to hang in space in front of you - with the game in the background.

It’s not quite as startling a 3D effect as I saw when I watched the 3D movie Monsters and Aliens at the Dreamworks movie theatre near L.A. – but it’s still pretty darn great.

In fact I’d say that the experience mainly suffered from the 22in display just not being large enough. I was told that a 24in model is on its way and that the 22in version is just a taster from Samsung, to test the market.

The 22in monitor costs £450, which seems pricey, but does come with the Nvidia glasses bundled.

Oh, and it does work as a normal display as well, so you can use it for regular Excel spreadsheets and Word.

With my IT PRO hat back on I enquired about real business applications, and the best I got was that companies were interesting in using the display in digital signage, with the 120Hz refresh ensuring a smoother scrolling of advertising text.

Yeah, great – now give me the 3D games!

A couple of days ago I found myself sitting excitedly in the on-campus cinema of Dreamworks – the world famous animation studios  - about to watch its new film Monsters and Aliens in 3D.

Indeed, as you can see, the well known studio boss Jeffery Katzenberg happened to be there at the time, and personally introduced the film, which was pretty cool.

The reason I was there was that I was on a press trip with HP, who are about to launch, well, something I’m not allowed to talk about as it’s under NDA – but come back to the IT PRO home page on Monday evening at 8pm and all will be revealed.

As I wrote here, HP and Dreamworks have a long working history and an obscene amount of HP’s computing horsepower is used to create these monster (if you’ll excuse the pun) CG animations.

What was great was that before the movie started we were treated to a technical demo from Dreamworks’ slightly bonkers, but fascinating 3D technical guru Phil McNally, a man so obsessed with three dimensional images he has, literally, changed his middle name to ‘Captain 3D’.

The demo started off with a flat image with a sphere at its centre, and as Phil pulled some switches the sphere suddenly and magically gained some real depth.

There was also words floating on the screen and he gradually made one move closer and closer towards us, until eventually it actually started to become uncomfortable to view.

Phil explained that a 3D image is made up of two frames overlayed and placed slightly apart and that the depth is created by moving the distance between these two frames. Effectively our eyes are like two cameras and the brain creates the image the same way.

The discomfort comes when the distance between the two images exceeds the distance between the left and right eye – making the eyes actually look in different directions. McNally explained that 3D artists were learning how far they can push the 3D depth to strike the right balance between depth and flatness.

What some might not realise is that while the technology has come on in leaps and bounds, glasses are still very much necessary to create the 3D image, telling the group that this was still the most effective way of creating an image. However, there are screens that can create a 3D image without the use of glasses.

I actually got a chance to ask McNally if films created for viewing with glasses would work in the future on these screens or whether they’d have to create a new version of the film and his view was that they would.

As for the film itself, the 3D effects, using Real D technology, is absolutely eye popping and though it’s fun, if truth be told, in my opinion the script lacks the charm and wit that rival Pixar manages to infuse its screenplays with. Even so, it’s still fun and from a technical standpoint I’d say it’s worth the price of a ticket to see this simply amazing looking film.

On the way out, there was also a large TV connected to a Blu-ray deck also showing a 3D version of the film though the blurriness immediately showed that like in the cinema, special glasses are again required to view. . The Blu-ray play appeared to be standard but was connected to a box with a Real-D label on it that was feeding the screen. This external box is clearly processing the image, applying the 3D effect and sending it to the custom 3D screen.

This is clearly a prototype system and while there was genuine 3D depth, it did lack the pop and sheer impact of the movie version. Of course, I had just walked out of Dreamworks’ own custom movie theatre and nothing is going to top that, so I’ll put the difference down to one of scale. Even so it was a fascinating glimpse into a possible future for home cinema.