It’s been a landmark week for 3D television in Australia, with Foxtel claiming Australia’s first commercial 3D broadcast on Monday and the State Of Origin offering a 3D broadcast this evening. But while it’s early days for 3D broadcasting, it’s worth pointing out that there’s some evidence that prolonged 3D viewing experiences are bad for you.

3D television is still very much in the experimental phase: only a handful of people have purchased sets, and the number is so low that official ratings weren’t even measured for Monday night’s experimental Socceroos broadcast on Fox Sports. Nonetheless, 3D television has been heavily promoted as the next major evolution in television, prompted in part by the success of 3D movies such as Avatar and the insatiable desire of consumer electronics manufacturers to convince us to continually replace gear.

Leaving aside the argument of whether we really want to see everything in 3D, and whether large families want to invest in multiple pairs of 3D glasses, there’s a simpler reason to be wary of extended 3D TV viewing sessions: it can seriously mess with your head.

The most interesting summary of the problem I’ve run into is by Mark Pesce, who worked on developing 3D technology in the mid-1990s. It’s well worth reading the full article on the ABC’s Drum opinion site, but here’s the crux of the problem — 3D television only uses one of the cues (parallax) which the brain uses to interpret the real world in 3D, which can cause problems once you stop watching:

When the movie’s over, and you take your glasses off, your brain is still ignoring all those depth perception cues. It’ll come back to normal, eventually. Some people will snap right back. In others, it might take a few hours. This condition, known as ‘binocular dysphoria’, is the price you pay for cheating your brain into believing the illusion of 3D. Until someone invents some other form of 3D projection (many have tried, no one has really succeeded), binocular dysphoria will be part of the experience.

This doesn’t matter too much if you’re going to see a movie in the theatre – though it could lead to a few prangs in the parking lot afterward – but it does matter hugely if it’s something you’ll be exposed to for hours a day, every day, via your television set. Your brain is likely to become so confused about depth cues that you’ll be suffering from a persistent form of binocular dysphoria.

Now, if you’re only going to watch the occasional event (such as the State of Origin), that might not matter too much. But if you’re consistently watching 3D content, either via a dedicated channel or through a set which does on-the-spot conversion, it could be a major cause of concern. If you’re only planning to occasionally watch 3D content, investing several thousand dollars in a new set and associated headgear seems pricey. Those prices will inevitably fall if 3D is successful, but that could be some time off.

It’s worth noting that Pesce’s argument stirred up a fair degree of debate on the ABC site, and the issue certainly isn’t resolved. But 3D can be problematic in other ways: I personally fall into the category of people who have stereo blindness and basically don’t enjoy 3D content. If nothing else, that’s going to save me some money on TV set upgrades.

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A better use of the spectrum would be to auction 100MHz for 4G services, and reserve more than 20MHz that could be auctioned later for digital television services such as 3D TV, the company argues in its submission on the so-called "digital dividend".

More than 100 submissions from companies including free-to-air commercial broadcasters, the ABC, SBS, Foxtel, News Limited and telecommunications carriers were received -- some of which were made public last week -- in response to a green paper the government released in January.

The green paper indicated 126MHz of UHF spectrum could be freed up as a digital dividend -- which the government expects will bring between $1 billion and $3 billion when it is auctioned -- while still allowing for up to six in-home digital television channels.

One of the former Howard government's two channels (channel A and channel B) reserved for datacasting or mobile TV would be rolled into the dividend to enable 126MHz to be auctioned.

Broadcast Australia argues that after the free-to-air TV networks switch to digital broadcasting by 2013, allowing the spectrum to be re-stacked, the freed spectrum could be used to provide seven national digital TV channels, the extension of digital radio services (which are currently only offered in metropolitan markets) to regional areas, and a new block for future digital TV services.

This would be achieved partly by limiting any immediate auction for 4G services to 100MHz.

Managing director Graham Barclay says the government's plan to auction 126MHz of spectrum would "lock the free-to-air operators into their current services" and exclude them from offering new services such as 3D.

"Under our preferred plan, 21MHz would be allocated to future-proof TV and give them a pathway to deliver new services.

"We think that five plus two (national digital TV channels) is possible," Mr Barclay said. "The plus two can be used for more digital multichannels, it could be used to carry mobile TV services, and we think within that band there are three TV channels that should be earmarked for digital radio in the regional markets."

The extra bandwidth could be auctioned at a later date, potentially attracting hundreds of millions of dollars from any successful bidders.

"If and when TV does transition to new services it provides the opportunity for a second digital dividend," Mr Barclay said.

The commercial broadcasters, under the umbrella of Free TV Australia, also argued for spectrum to be set aside to offer new services such as 3D TV.

The ABC said it was "of critical importance that a migration path to future broadcasting technologies be assured", ensuring broadcasters would be able to compete with developing new internet TV-style services.

News Limited, which owns The Australian, said the free-to-air broadcasters should compete on the open market for any additional spectrum. "Should they want more spectrum than their allocation for their existing digital services, they should compete in the open market with other potential users of the public resource," its submission states.

It also called for no restrictions to be put on the use of the digital dividend spectrum for broadcasting services.

In their submissions, telcos such as Telstra and Optus urged the government to set a firm date for the sale of the spectrum.

SBS argued for more spectrum to be allocated in the same band as other broadcasters, ensuring people who could not receive its signal were able to do so.

Meanwhile, Broadcast Australia's suggestion of a seventh national digital TV channel is contentious, as it could bring back the option of allocating a fourth commercial TV licence, in addition to new digital services.

Mr Barclay said if broadcasters did transition to new technology, such as the MPEG-4 compression used by broadcasters in other markets, extra bandwidth would also be needed to allow both services to be simulcast.

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Sky 3D launching April 3rd 2010

Sky will launch Sky 3D, Europe’s first 3D TV channel, with the Premier League clash between Manchester United and Chelsea on Saturday 3rd April.

Following the channel’s launch this April, Sky will then show at least a further five Premier League games - to be announced - before the end of the current season and the Coca-Cola Football League Play-Off Finals from Wembley Stadium at the end of May, all live and all in 3D.

Over a thousand pubs and clubs across the UK and Ireland have already signed up for Sky 3D, meaning that from Saturday 3rd April, hundreds of thousands of fans will be able to watch live 3D Premier League matches this season. More pubs and clubs are expected to sign up in the days and weeks ahead.

Outside of the live games, a showreel showcasing the best of Sky 3D - which will cover a wide range of different programming - will run on Sky 3D during selected hours of the day. This programming, which will run from launch, will also be available to residential customers who subscribe to Sky’s top channels and HD pack.

Later in the year, Sky 3D will offer a range of movies, sport, documentaries, entertainment and arts content. The channel will initially be introduced at no extra cost for customers who subscribe to Sky’s top channels and HD pack.

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The most common method for producing consumer 3D is called Anaglyph ( an-a-glif )