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With a record-setting $2-billion in global box office receipts and counting, it’s safe to say that James Cameron’s 3-D film Avatar has exposed a pretty big chunk of the world to the pleasures of perceiving a believable third dimension in movies. Television manufacturers like Sony are hoping that will help create a market for 3-D enabled home theatre hardware.

Last week, Sony unveiled its upcoming 3-D television technology at three of its Canadian Sony Stores in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal (with more demo stations planned for stores in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, and Richmond Hill). Visitors can don a pair of 3-D glasses and check out clips of sports television, documentaries, and PlayStation 3 games running on the soon-to-be-released panels.

I made a trip to the Sony Style store at the Eaton Centre in Toronto last week to check out the demonstration for myself.

Sony BRAVIA LX900

The first thing I noticed was that the picture was brighter, crisper, and more natural than what I’ve seen watching 3-D films in theatres, which always appear just a bit dark and blurry to me. Plus, the images didn’t seem to pop off the screen toward me, but rather had a sense of intense and believable depth.

I mentioned as much to Karol Warminiec, the Sony executive on hand to answer my questions, and he explained that the technologies used by theatre projectors and Sony’s 3-D televisions have surprisingly little in common.

The 3-D images we see in theatres are created by a pair of projectors generating two images; one for each eye. Bulb intensity gets cranked up to compensate for the tinted lenses in the glasses patrons must wear. The resulting 3-D effect will vary based on a viewer’s position and the quality of the projected image.

Sony’s televisions, on the other hand, use active shutter glasses; eye gear with high-tech lenses that are lightly tinted and take turns becoming opaque once every sixtieth of a second, in sync with the alternating images displayed on screen. The resulting effect is that each eye sees a different stream of frames, thus creating the illusion of depth.

I was also told that the technology will be more effective than theatrical 3-D for those who have a limited sense of depth due to vision disabilities. “It might not be the same as what someone with perfect vision will see,” said Mr. Warminiec, “but more extreme effects will be apparent.”

Specifications, details, and pricing aren’t yet available—Mr. Warminiec would only say that his company’s 3-D sets would fall into their line of premium displays—but I was provided a few basic bits of information.

The company will initially roll out a pair of 3-D enabled sets; one that comes with a two sets of glasses and a built-in transmitter (necessary to sync the glasses with images on screen), and a second that will be 3-D ready, which means it won’t come with the transmitter or the glasses but that they can be purchased separately.

The transmitter will facilitate up to eight sets of glasses at a range of 170-degrees and just over three metres, though it’s worth adding that the 3-D effect still seemed to work when I took a couple of steps further back.

The glasses are rugged, featuring wide, rubber-coated arms and frames. They ought to stand up fairly well to a bit of wear and tear—which is good, since consumers won’t want to be forced to replace specs damaged by kids as they toss them around and accidentally stomp on them.

They’re also designed to fit comfortably over prescription eyewear. Put to the test, they fit quite well over my wide-framed black plastic spectacles.

Mr. Warminiec didn’t provide a battery life estimate, but he did say that his people hadn’t needed to recharge any of the glasses since installing the 3-D demo station in the store.

Of course, one of the big questions is whether people are ready to adopt a new viewing habit that involves donning eye gear simply to watch television. Will they think the glasses are too geeky? Will they think the hassle outweighs the benefit? Only time will tell.

Another key factor will be availability of content. If there is little to see in 3-D, there’s little reason to buy.

However, Mr. Warminiec said that one of the reasons why Sony is waiting to roll out its 3-D displays is because they want to ensure consumers have access to adequate content—something he believes his company is uniquely suited to provide.

He noted that Sony’s PlayStation 3 console will receive a firmware upgrade later this year that will make it 3-D capable, and that “lots” of new titles for the system will be 3-D enabled.

He also said that Sony is able to ensure 3-D movies will be available in Blu-ray format via another of the company’s divisions: Sony Pictures.

Sony is also in partnership with networks developing new 3-D channels, including ESPN, IMAX, and Discovery, though there’s no word when these channels will begin broadcasting or when Canadian companies will start to offer them.

Even if the 3-D channels aren’t available, Sony’s sets have the ability to create a sort of faux 3-D effect by up-converting 2-D signals to 3-D (they can apparently detect a scene’s focal points and then split it into a stereoscopic image). Unfortunately, this feature wasn’t demonstrated in the 3-D reels being shown at the Sony Style store displays.

Still, there’s no getting around the fact that it will be a technology consumed at first only by early adopters—especially since many people have just purchased their first flat screen televisions within the last few years and have no wish to upgrade again any time soon. Mr. Warminiec admitted as much, suggesting that gamers and sports TV enthusiasts will be among the first consumers to drive it forward.

Sony won’t say exactly when their 3-D sets will make their debut, but they are promising them some time this summer—around the same time many other manufacturers are intending to release 3-D televisions of their own. Until then, the select Sony Style stores with 3-D demonstration areas represent the only way Canadians will be able to get a 3-D TV fix.