Get more dimension from your TV

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees tosses a screen pass and you instinctively raise your hands to catch it, momentarily forgetting it is an illusion created by clunky dark glasses.

That is the "ooh-ahh" element that has elevated 3-D television to the status of the next great electronics attraction now that surround sound systems and high-definition TVs have become widespread at discount prices.

It was hard to miss companies selling something having to do with 3-D on the exhibit floor of the National Association of Broadcasters convention, which concludes Thursday at the Las Vegas Convention Center. But like some of the other hot technologies promoted at the show, such as merging cable TV and Internet into one device and mobile TV, it has been around for a while but never caught on.

Some very mundane factors could influence how quickly 3-D TV shows up in living rooms.

"What happens if you have people come over to watch the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards?" said Brian Cooley, CNET editor at large, in an overview of new gadgets.

A set may come with the goggles, but additional pairs can cost anywhere from $80 to $200 each, so most people would not likely carry spares beyond what the family needs, he said. Future watch party invitations might not just advise guests to BYOB, but also to BYOG if they want to see anything more than a blurry picture.

In addition, the amount of programming available for 3-D might not grow major levels for years. Although sports and certain programs originally shot in 3-D will look impressive, Cooley said, older shows such as "Seinfeld" and "Friends" reruns will continue to look better in 2-D.

Griff Partington, an independent-filmmaker and representative of NetBlender, said converting standard productions to 3-D is much harder than dipping into libraries of analog productions and remastering them in digital form. NetBlender, based in Alexandria, Va., puts out 3-D programs on Blu-ray discs but has only one title to date.

By next year, Cooley projected that 3-D would become a $200 to $300 option on regular TVs. Still, 3-D has already made inroads among serious computer game players.

Another product front -- merging Internet, broadcast TV and on-demand movies and shows, a trend sometimes called convergence -- has already started to take hold and may progress at a much quicker pace than 3-D. Microsoft Corp. and others have tried in the past to push products that merge the Internet and TV but never made much headway.

However, Cooley gives convergence strong backing this time because it appeals to a broad spectrum of people, not just techies.

"This cuts across a lot of generations because it gives people choice, voice and control," he said.

Already, major cable company Comcast Corp. has built a Web site that streams thousands of shows for its customers, moving closer to the a la carte system that cable industry critics have long advocated. A la carte would allow viewers to pay for the programs and networks they want, rather than have their choice restricted to a handful of packages.

Cyber International Technology Corp., based in Trumbull, Conn., chose this year's NAB show to formally unveil its system for channeling all types of video and voice, including phone calls, through one unit called Tivia.

"Our goal is that a person will never leave the Tivia system," production manager Giovanni Capalbo said.

He added that the company plans to have its products on shelves within a year and perhaps in time for next Christmas, with boxes that could be attached to existing TVs or regular-looking flat screens with all the circuitry built in. The boxes would retail from $199 to $499, depending on the features, but the TVs have not been priced yet.

Other companies have also moved in this direction.

Attempts at mobile TV have drawn little consumer interest since Sony Corp. rolled out its Watchman in the early 1980s due to small screens and spotty reception, Cooley said. However, computer maker Lenovo has announced it will being selling a device the size of a small notebook that could pick up TV signals clearly at highway speeds, using a system developed by Flo TV, a subsidiary of San Diego-based Qualcomm. Flo already sells a mobile TV of its own with a 3.5-inch screen, but did not say when it will send signals to the larger Lenovo.

The NAB show, which is closed to the public, experienced an uptick in attendance to an estimated 85,000 from 83,800 last year, spokesman Kris Jones said. But that ran well below the 100,000 typical before the recession. The number of exhibitors remained stable at 1,500, including about 200 new ones.

Contact reporter Tim O'Reiley at toreiley@lvbusinesspress.com or 702-387-5290.