CBS Research Head Says Consumers Plan to Wait to Buy 3D TV
CENTURY CITY, Calif. -- Giving what he called a 3D “reality check,” David Poltrack, president of the CBS Vision research arm, thinks consumers have a “wait-and-see approach” toward 3D and are willing to endure “delayed gratification” to experience 3D at home, he told the Television 3.0 conference in a keynote Tuesday. It could be two, three or four years before consumers buy 3D TV, he said, due largely to “increased knowledge about how products come to market.”
Poltrack cited findings from research CBS has conducted with Nielsen and CTAM including “the first-ever large scale quantitative research with consumers actively viewing 3DTV content” at Sony’s 3,000-square-foot 3D Experience Lab in Las Vegas. Respondents experienced 3D first-hand in various genres, including a cinema and living room settings, he said. Respondents were generally positive toward 3D, with 43 percent saying they were likely to buy a 3D TV, 17 percent said definitely likely and 16 percent very likely, he said, though the following question regarding a timetable “tempers our enthusiasm a bit.” Only 14 percent said they'd buy 3D TV within a year and 42 percent said they'd likely buy in one to two years. Thirty-four percent said they'd hold off for three or four years, he said. “That’s the challenge for 3D,” Poltrack said. “Consumers love and appreciate the technology, but they're not ready to buy."
Reasons consumers cited for not buying a 3D TV now included cost (68 percent), the need for glasses (57 percent) and lack of content (44 percent), he said. With more than half of those surveyed citing glasses as a roadblock to 3D, Poltrack said Toshiba’s announcement of glasses-free TV has been “a major disservice” to the industry. Currently that technology is “limited to a very small picture size and only works when you have a dead on view of the set,” he said. “At this stage we are very far away from having this product.” The consumer reaction to the Toshiba news, however, was, “if I wait, I won’t have to wear the glasses,” he said.
Poltrack said results from the NCAA basketball tournament last March showed the first sign of potential with sports programming. Half of the people who viewed the game on a cinema projector said it improved the experience of watching the Final Four, he said. “That was a very positive reaction and it told us that 3D sports is potential big business¸” Poltrack said. Respondents had a slightly less positive take on the Masters Golf Tournament a few weeks later, which Poltrack partially attributed to the higher age demographic associated with golf.
Other findings included: 57 percent of respondents said 3D made them feel like part of the action, 48 percent said it made them more engaged, 48 percent felt closer to the characters in 3D, and 47 percent said it made them want to watch shows they wouldn’t normally watch. He said most felt 3D would be good for viewing special events, sports and movies versus everyday programs.
Poltrack said glasses are “definitely a problem,” with consumers calling them uncomfortable and impersonal. More than half said glasses required time to refocus eyes, 45 percent experienced eye strain or fatigue, 20 percent had headaches from the glasses and 15 percent experiences nausea or fatigue, he said. Poltrack said the outlook for 3D for the near term will be driven by gamers, early adopters and movie viewers, with sports, movies and nature programming driving TV viewing.
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Panasonic’s bundle deal combining 3D TVs with a Blu-ray 3D copy of Avatar, two pairs of glasses and a Blu-ray 3D player has been “very strong for us,” Jim Sanduski, Panasonic senior vice president of home entertainment sales, told Consumer Electronics Daily. In the week after the launch of the exclusive Avatar bundle promotion Wednesday, supplies of the VT series TVs are “constrained” and “we may run out,” Sanduski said. He said it’s too early to tell how many copies of the Blu-ray Avatar 3D have sold, but the “Avatar buzz” has generated “a lot” of interest at retail.