Courtesy Los Angeles Daily Breeze

(September 11, 2009) The plan is to cram about 8,000 wide-eyed, free-ticketed fans into USC's Galen Center on Saturday afternoon - with thousands more simultaneously at venues in Columbus, Ohio, and Dallas - to witness a 3D version of the Trojans' football game at Ohio State on the big screens, everyone allowed to be wowed and carried away while wearing the Drew Carey glasses.

The chances of us joining in on the fun: Cloudy, with a chance of meatballs.

Wait, that's the name of the 3D movie we're looking forward to when it comes out next week. There's a little better track record for cartoonish food flying off the screen for personal enjoyment than a piece of pigskin launched 30 yards downfield into a mesh-mash of blurred colors.

Much of this opinion, granted, is based on our first (and only) experience of seeing a live 3D football game - the NFL Network's presentation of Oakland at San Diego last fall.

We got a rise out of the sight of Darren Sproles looking so small in that huge Chargers' huddle, then squirting out of the backfield and into the Raiders' secondary. The sideline shots of the cheerleaders were also very, very, very impressive. Anything front-and-center, with little to no movement, was as cool as the first time looking at a picture of Niagara Falls through a View-Master.

Otherwise, there was too much left to be desired, and the logistics of the football gridiron were much to blame.

The audience's judgment of yards gained on a play, and whether something as simple as a first-down was achieved, was short-sighted from the more visual field-level cameras. The valuable overhead shots of the snap weren't much different from a standard telecast - but even less crisp than high-definition.''

Taking that into consideration, as well as responses by those in nearly 30cities who lodged complaints after paying $20 a head to see last January's BCS title game in 3D theatres, Anthony Bailey, ESPN's vice president of emerging technologies and a company employee for 14 years, has been assigned to push this 3D envelope for his bosses.

This is the second 3D football test for ESPN, and the production crew has learned more about how to use their stereopticon cameras to make things hopefully mesh more effectively.

Again, remember, this is an on-going experiment. Those of you in the audience are the lab rats.

"I can't say if this will be different or better (than previous 3D football telecasts), but we're just going at it the way we believe would should attack a 3D broadcast," Bailey said. "When we did our first test, we went in thinking, `Football may not benefit from 3D, but let's try it out.' We learned that while low-angle stuff is compelling, we need to shoot high to give people a sense of what's going on. With different equipment, we came out of it believing football can benefit, if there's a good mixture of high and low shots."

Meaning, the success of this will be more in the hands of the producer and director in the truck rather than the heavy machinery out there on the field bringing back the pictures, beaming them up to a special 3D satellite, and sending them back without it looking like a scrambled mess.

Exit polls conducted by a hired research firm at all three locations will gather data about the viewing experience and how to move forward because, as Bailey says, "We're at a point where we need to understand more from the consumer side. Sure, we'd still like to tinker with things on our end. But we want to know how to better produce a game for the viewer."

Just don't move so fast. Bailey isn't sure how fast 3D could be in demand for home viewing. It may all depend on how much an audience like the one at Galen Center on Saturday embraces the concept and starts a buzz about it.

At a tech expo in Berlin this week, the groundswell has begun as companies start to roll out "3D-ready" TV screens since so many 3D-produced movies, including one on ESPN's XGames, are moving from theatres into DVD and Blu-Ray rental.

"Over the coming years, we expect consumers to migrate to this as the television-viewing experience changes from being something very passive to something that immerses you, said Bob Perry, executive VP of Panasonic Consumer Electronics.

One thing Bailey won't be passive about on this ESPN 3D telecast is how, from a technical end, to incorporate graphics into a telecast.

Especially ones that sports viewers come to expect. Particularly, the virtual first-and-10 line.

"That won't be in 3D," Bailey said. "We don't want it to look like a player is going to trip over it."

But if he did, and the football were to look like a giant meatball, then maybe.

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