It's like 1974 all over again! I was working in a stereo store & got caught up in "Quad fever"... stereo was good, but this was utterly immersive - not to mention a handy way to nearly double hardware sales. All the big record labels got behind Quad - each in their own way of course. There were 3 major vinyl formats, plus a number of small fringe techniques to cram a quart of content into a pint container. There were incompatible 8-Tracks & Reels, and talk of a technical group to draft standards for Quad-FM.

Unfortunately, it was chaos. There were too many parts that wouldn't play nice with others and content was often terrible. Maybe swirling horns or guitars darting from corner to corner would impress a newbie like a game of "got yer nose" captivates an infant. But you can't build an industry on a facile gimmick. Well recorded surround sound was indeed immersive and could enhance the listening experience, yet it's extra clarity made every link in the recording/production/distribution chain that much more critical. When done properly, it was an evolutionary technology. But that kind of subtlety didn't move product.

The 3D TV fad seems startingly similar. Many different means to the same dubios end, a paucity of content, and much of what is out there immature and gimmicky.

I'm not knocking the underlying idea of making the presentation more realistic by adding another real-world perception - depth - to the process. I just get the feeling this is strictly about selling gear through gimmickry, the folly of which, sadly, seems to be a lesson the consumer electronics & content publishing industries have still not learned.

All that said, I'd love to see a medium for distributing stereoscopic content, from campy old chestnuts like "House of Wax" to NASA's stereoscopic survey data. But none of that will fuel a major trend in consumer electronics. Like colorwheel TV in the early 50s, I get the feeling this is just a future footnote in the history of home entertainment.