01.05.10 DISCOVERY, IMAX, & SONY TEAMING UP TO MAKE 3-D CHANNEL

A joint venture between Discovery Communications, Sony, and Imax will lead to the creation of a 3-D channel, according to industry insiders. The channel, expected to be announced sometime today, would launch in 2011.

Discovery Communications, which operates the Discovery Channel, TLC and other cable channels, will distribute the channel… It is expected to showcase a mix of 3-D content, including entertainment and sports. It will also show some of the natural history programming that Discovery is well known for…

Companies like Discovery, Imax, Sony, and the Walt Disney Company, which controls ESPN, are trying to place themselves at the forefront of an emerging technology, much as media companies did in the HDTV arms race. 3-D televisions may not be mainstream for many years, but “every TV manufacturer is putting on a 3-D push,” Jason Oxman, a spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association, told the BBC. [NYT Media Decoder]

I like new technology just as much as the next blogger with an iPhone, but I’ve never been all that enamored with 3-D. It’s never the wonderful “immersive” experience it claims to be, and as a rule I’m not impressed by anything that was cool in the 1950s. Except accusing people of being communists.