Within six months, consumers awareness levels of 3D TVs and Blu-ray players has grown, according to leading market research company The NPD Group.
Consumers aware of 3D LCD TVs went from 28 percent in September 2010 to 36 percent in February 2011. 3D plasma TV awareness jumped from 21 percent to 32 percent, and 3D Blu-ray players went from 15 percent to 26 percent, the research company found.
With awareness of the technology also comes awareness of some of the inhibitors to making the switch to 3D. Two of the major pain points for consumers are still the price of the TV and the need to wear glasses. According to the report, price and glasses are becoming more of an issue for a greater percentage of consumers.
"Concerns about price and an aversion to 3D glasses both saw relative increases as inhibitors to adopting 3D televisions," said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis at The NPD Group. "However, as prices and price premiums for 3D TV decline, glasses are becoming a more prominent inhibitor, and are poised to overtake price."
The price gap between 2D and 3D TVs, while still significant, has come down considerably in the past year.
There are some obstacles the industry is working to overcome. For example, the percentage of consumers citing a lack of content as an inhibitor decreased slightly from the monitor's first wave to the second wave. Sixty-eight percent of consumers interested in 3D TV identified Blu-ray movies as far and away the most popular type of content they were looking forward to using with their TVs, with slightly less than 40 percent expressing interest in sports and cable or satellite programming.
"Both movies and sports were important content drivers in the HD transition," said Rubin. "However, while feature films provided a large library of content that could be readily converted to HD, there wasn't packaged media that delivered on the promise of the entertainment experience as Blu-ray now provides for 3D."
