Hannah Montana in 3D: Never Again

Well I finally got around to watching this Disney concert film opus in 3D. Now, I will not debate the quality of the music, nor the show. I will not even begin to dissect the influence this girl seems to have on the tween population of girls in our country. That is not what this blog is about. This discussion is about the terrible idea that it was to put this out on DVD, in anaglyph format, and on VOD systems.

Now I know this concert film made a shit load of cash during its two week showings in 3D (Real D) theaters. I personally think that it would had made a ton of money being in 2D. I’m sure the Real D version does not have the problems I saw, but mark my words, Hannah Montana would had made allot of dough even if it was in 2D. In fact if it was in 2D it could had played in more theaters and made more. Fans of Mylee love her, and didn’t see it because it was in 3D, but flocked to it because it was a very limited engagement.

Now here is my big problem, anaglyph, red/blue glasses are terrible when used improperly. In order to have great anaglyphic 3D, you need to do a few things. For one, you need subject matter that lends itself to the process. A concert film with lots or RED and BLUE lights is a very poor choice. No attempt to desaturate the color levels were made. This caused severe ghosting, and made almost the entire film unwatchable. Also a poor bit rate will cause the colors to encode in the wrong color space. The Starz on demand VOD version of this was completely useless. I could vomit a more coherent version of this film. Who thought this was a good idea? You have to have a good encode of the data, and you have to compensate the colors to properly encode an anaglyphic movie. They should had encoded a dual stream that could had been viewed cross-eyed or free view. Then you had a mini tutorial on Starz showing people how to make their own 3D glasses out of plastic wrap and magic markers. You have got to be kidding me. Make your own glasses? I used a pair of high quality Anachrome glasses which are the very best optics and color for anaglyph, and this film was a total wash. I also watched the Blu Ray version which had better encoding, but still has blue and red stage lighting fighting with the anaglyph process.

Releasing this in 3D was nothing more than a gimmick. It was totally useless, and the only true way to watch it is in 2D. Trying to watch this in 3D will only make you swear off 3D as a gimmick, and a headache inducing nauseating experience. Bleaeeeeeach! I’m so disappointed. Not that I’m a fan of Hannah Montana, but a fan of 3D. This does not promote 3D in a positive light. This is old 3D. Not the new digital 3D everyone is talking about. They should had released this in Dual stream format or at least in the HQFS format that you can find for SpyKIds 3D, at least then you could watch it properly. 3D at home has a very long way to go.