Next weekend Jeffrey Katzenberg will appear at an international broadcasting conference in Amsterdam to talk about how 3-D is the hot new thing in American cinema, with companies such as his Dreamworks Animation and other Hollywood bigs, including Robert Zemeckis, James Cameron and Steven Spielberg, making groundbreaking films using new digital projection technologies.

To emphasise the point, Katzenberg will join via a live satellite feed from Los Angeles in three preternaturally crisp dimensions on a big screen. Thanks to the cheap plastic glasses that the attendees will be wearing, you can bet there will be oohing and aahing about how it seems like he is there in the room (this despite the fact that, in stature and style, Katzenberg is no Kung Fu Panda).

In doing so, Katzenberg may be inadvertently offering a glimpse of a use for the technology that could well turn out to be an even bigger media revolution - live broadcast TV in 3-D. That's right: Journey to the Centre of Your Living Room.

Now, before I go on, I know this may sound a little pie-in-the-sky, but stick with me: sure, the idea of sitting around the telly wearing special glasses may sound cumbersome and right now there are only a handful of 3-D sets for sale in the United States and elsewhere, but no programming to speak of. Plus, let's face it, it's hard to get jazzed about yet another new format of TV when consumers are still wrapping their heads (and wallets) around high-definition sets, DVD players and TV channels. And for how many decades have we been hearing about 3-D without it really taking off anyway?

Yet - forgive me, gods of neologism - seeing is 3-lieving. A few weeks ago I found myself in a warehouse in Burbank, California, where a rig housing two cameras shot my image and transmitted it on to a flatscreen TV on the other side of the room. Donning polarised glasses, I saw myself virtually leaping out of the television at ... myself. I was visiting a small company called 3ality Digital, one of the leaders among a bunch of players trying to push ahead with what is called stereoscopic broadcasting. The company's calling card is that it made the U2 3-D movie that wowed audiences last year. While it is working on other film projects, 3ality Digital is focusing on the much bigger potential market for live TV.

In fact, demos of live 3-D have been quietly gaining buzz around the TV world, particularly in sport: last year a basketball game was broadcast in 3-D on a closed-circuit feed and this March the BBC and some partners ran a test broadcast of the Calcutta Cup. “This is similar to where we were in 2003 with high-def, only we haven't announced anything yet,” Chuck Pagano, executive vice-president of technology at ESPN, the US television sports juggernaut, told me. “This is a big win for TV in general, because it is jaw-dropping when you see a football or basketball game in 3-D.”

Indeed, one thing the first wave of Hollywood 3-D blockbusters has clarified is that 3-D can't make a crummy movie good but it might make a good movie better. There is a presumption that big special effects and computer-generated graphics go hand in hand with 3-D and, to an extent, that is probably true. But with television, 3-D is much more of a no-brainer, because it enhances already proven programming. Events such as the Olympics and the widely watched speeches at the US electoral conventions would have packed even more punch with the illusory sense of depth that 3-D creates. As The Times's reviewer noted of the U2 film: “Fans will be flung into thrilling proximity with their heroes; those rather more resistant to the band will have their worst fears of sanctimonious posturing realised.”

Unsurprisingly, the porn industry is drooling over the potential for this new technology, as it may represent a reason for people to start buying its wares again rather than downloading them free online. But, as with all new gadgetry, the big questions are which standards will prevail, and when: there are already several “3-D ready” displays on the market from the likes of Samsung and JVC, requiring different types of image coding and viewing glasses. These are mainly for commercial purposes and video gaming. Yet in Japan one broadcaster is airing an hour a day in 3-D and Philips has a 3-D monitor for sale that does not require glasses but is, for now, too pricey for mass rollout.

“I think the glasses are a necessary evil for the next few years,” says Wendy Aylsworth, a Warner Bros executive who is heading an entertainment industry group's efforts to set technical standards for the pristine images known as “stereoscopic” 3-D. Still, expect more and better 3-D TVs to be the buzz at next January's big consumer electronics show in Las Vegas, where the “next big thing” can quickly become the “must have” gizmo of the next holiday season.

Pagano estimates that the first 3-D broadcasts in the US are three years away. But they might be sooner if Hollywood's 3-D craze gathers steam. Last month in America, Walt Disney's Hannah Montana 3-D concert film featuring the teen pop sensation Miley Cyrus was released on DVD, after a surprisingly strong run in US cinemas. But the DVD uses the old-time 3-D format known as anaglyph, which requires those funky glasses with one red and one blue plastic lens. That format is what works on current TVs - sort of.

Unlike the crisp stereoscopic images seen on the big-screen version of Katzenberg's speech, the colours through anaglyph are pretty brutal. Similarly, Warner (which, like Fortune, my employer, is owned by Time Warner) is planning to release its recent 3-D film Journey to the Center of the Earth in DVD, but also using anaglyph. That's the 3-D equivalent of releasing a colour movie in black-and-white for home viewing. And for 3-D aficionados, that won't do for very long.

— Richard Siklos is an editor-at-large for Fortune magazine

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