The Future of 3D TV

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television, grade: 1+, Stenden University, language: English, abstract: This research paper answers the question of whether 3D TV will become a new trend or if it is a hype that will eventually fail to establish itself.The paper is divided into a market research and a target group research. Both deal with the situation within the United States as the US has one of the highest market shares in 3D globally.3D TV was introduced in 2010 and within that year the 3D TV sales made out 4% (3.2mio) of all TV sales. Within the US, 3% of the households purchased a 3D TV so far. According to E. Rogers' book "Diffusion of Innovation" whose theory is used as a guideline throughout the whole research paper, those 3% make out the category of innovators.The 3D TV technology has to face economic, sociological and technological challenges. Those challenges as well as the trends and developments influence the adoption of the technology. Those influencing aspects can be grouped into five categories: relative advantage, compatibility, complexibility, observability and trialability.The research determines how the different aspects concerning the 3D technology influence these categories in order to come up with possible forecast of 3D TV.The relative advantage is mainly influenced by the target group's perception of 3D TV. While 3D TV aims to add an experience domain to the traditional experience of 2D TV, this is not especially valued among the target group. The price of 3D TV sets however does play a significant role - many consider the prices of 3D as too high. However the experience teaches that the prices are likely to decrease due to the price setting strategy called "price-skimming".The most important factor concerning compatibility is the unfavorable launch-date of 3D TVs in the US. On the positive side, the increased production of 3D content that fits the target group's profile makes 3D perfectly compatible with the target group's values.Though 3D TV is a rather complex technology, especially in this time now that there is new technology developed all the time, creating an information jungle.In the end and compared with the target group research, it seems as if the 3D TV technology will actually make it and become a new trend.