Holo scene

3D TV is so 2010. People may not be saying this just yet, but if researchers at MIT continue their progress with holographic TV, we'll be wondering what all the fuss was about pretty soon.

What's the difference between 3D TV and holographic TV? 3D only comes out at you in one direction, while your location in the room directly impacts what you see with holographic TV - or 'holovideo', as those in the know like to call it. In other words, watching holographic TV is like having the events happen right there in the same room with you - instead of just having things come out of the TV at you.

While there have been previous developments in holographic TV, they've typically required visual data from a lot of sources. What makes the MIT developments so exciting is that they've created holographic TV from a single Xbox Kinect camera.

Here is Michael Bove, Group Head of Object-Based Media at MIT, explaining this development:

And for those who enjoy reading technical jargon, here's the team's recent research paper on the subject.