In recent articles at Guardian Unlimited and at Movieweb, Lucas and Star Wars producer Rick McCallum are quoted saying that they'll start converting the Star Wars series of movies to digital 3D in 2007.

They also mention that they're waiting for the cinemas to catch up. Once HD DVD comes on the market, you will have a situation where the resolution and sound quality of home cinema will rival the quality of today's ubiquitous analog cinema. A digital HD DVD experience will be consistent, sharp, with none of the analog glitches and wear that an over-run movie has today.

Apparently, episode 3 of Star Wars (the one being released this month) was originally intended to be shot in 3D. Lucas says that converting a movie to 3D will take only about 5 million dollars. I find this price rather low, as I would imagine it requires 3D modeling of the entire movie, but there must be some well-automated process for doing it. In fact, a company called In-Three Inc. offers a 3d-ization process for any movie, that they can do after-the-fact.



I wonder what else, besides IMAX and 4K digital, cinemas can do to compete with HD DVD besides a large screen and the sentimental smell of rancid butter.