Haven't You Got Ready for the Third Dimension?

This is it, the movie that documents Michael Jackson 's final rehearsals for his never-to-be O2 residency, includes 3D movie sequences originally intended to be used in his comeback shows. It's part of a new generation of 3D movies designed to tempt recession -hit movie-lovers back into the cinema - and it follows this year's string of 3D successes, including Coraline, Monsters vs Aliens and Bolt. For all the hype, 3D is nothing new at the cinema. The technology - which involves wearing a pair of glasses to make your left and right eyes see different images, thereby creating the illusion of depth - was developed in the 1930s and saw brief periods of popularity in the 1950s and 1980s. But this time it's different: 3D technologies are set to leap from the big screen into your living room. Next month, Channel 4 will air a week-long season of 3D shows including a Derren Brown spectacular and rarely seen 3D footage of the Queen at the time of her Coronation. And next year, Sky is planning to launch a 3D channel. While Channel 4's 3D venture will rely on your existing television and blue-and-amber glasses given away free at Sainsbury's, Sky is being far more ambitious with its plan to launch Britain's first 3D TV channel in 2010. The new channel will feature a mixture of 3D films, documentaries and live 3D broadcasts of sporting events.The good news: Sky's 3D channel will use the existing HD set-top box. The bad news: to get the 3D effect, you'll need to invest hundreds of pounds in a new '3D-ready' TV - and you'll have to wear special glasses. To present 3D movies in HD, Sony and Panasonic are planning to launch TVs that work with 'active shutter' 3D glasses. This system will work with 3D Blu-ray movie discs and games, too, but is incompatible with Sky's 3D channel. Amazingly, there are already products that work without glasses. Fujifilm has just released the world's first 3D digital compact camera. The Fujifilm Real 3D W1 has two lenses that capture two images - but the real magic happens around the back, where the images are combined on a special 3D screen. The screen uses the same lenticular technology as those novelty postcards that appear to move when you hold them at different angles: tiny ridges have multiple versions of a picture on them, angled so that your left and right eyes see a slightly different image. TV manufacturers have tried lenticular technology, too. Philips' 42in lenticular 3D TV drew huge crowds at trade shows, but few were convinced by the £8,000 asking price and Philips pulled the plug on its lenticular development to focus on 3D-ready TVs that require glasses but cost little more than conventional LCD TVs . For now, 3D may still seem like a bit of a gimmick. Before too long, though, we may be doing all our viewing in the third dimension.

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