Before Avatar, only 39 per cent of respondents indicated they were aware that they may soon be able to watch 3DTV at home. After Avatar, awareness rose to 60 per cent - a dramatic increase that can also be attributed to the heavy 3DTV buzz at CES 2010 earlier this year.
Regardless, the study saw a 20 per cent increase in the number of consumers who said they are ready to buy a new TV to get the 3D experience.
However, the study also found that an overwhelming number of respondents - 65 per cent - said they'd be willing to pay no more than $10 per pair of active shutter glasses required to watch 3DTV movies and programming, with 35 per cent saying $25 was their spending limit.
Currently, the first generation crop of high tech 3D glasses from both 1st and 3rd-party vendors cost at least $50 if not $100 - $200 or more per pair. Extra 3D glasses for Samsung's new 3D LED-LCD HDTV, for example, list for $149.99 each, as do the spare eyewear for Panasonic's Viera 3D Plasma HDTV.
Of course, prices of the peripheral devices are expected to drop as 3DTVs are more widely adopted.
So while Avatar and CES 2010 did a lot to increase awareness if not demand for 3DTV, and with more 3D movies, sporting events and games expected to appear over the course of this year, and even with substantial consumer willingness to buy a new TV to get 3D in their homes, the future of 3DTV will only look bright if/when those darn glasses become reasonably affordable.
- Data for this report came from a survey of more than 1250 randomly selected Retrevo users. A first random sample of users was surveyed between Dec 8-18, 2009 before Avatar was released. A second random sample of users was surveyed between January 5-12, 2010. The sample was distributed across gender, age, income and location in the United States. Most questions had a confidence interval of 4% at a 95% confidence level.
This article originally appeared on Retrevo.com. Andrew Eisner is the Director of Community and Content at Retrevo.
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