It's been a slow summer for new 3D sporting events on ESPN 3D, but boxing continues tonight with Friday Night Fights.  If you haven't seen boxing in 3D yet, it is worth a look, even if you aren't a fan of boxing.

Tonight, Sebastian Lujan takes on Mark Jason Melligen in San Antonio at 11pm EST.  As it's a late night bout, set your DVR's now to record it!

Don't miss out on game 5 between the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat tonight at 9pm EST on ESPN 3D.  With the series tied at 2-2, the winner of this game has a great chance to take the title.  Will it be the nationally hated (except in Miami) Fab 3, or Dirk and his Mavs?  I personally just want to watch for the 3D monster dunks!

Have you always wanted to go on an African Safari, but just couldn't find the money or time?  The 90 minute journey that 3D Safari: Africa takes you on is great alternative and probably the closest thing that you will find to being out in the middle of the African plains admist thousands of animals.

Content Review

Your host, Hunter Ellis, is your guide as you journey on the 3D Safari documentary through Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda in Africa.  Scenic Africa provides a wonderful backdrop for the multitude of African animals in their natural habitat.  Some of the animals you will see include warthogs, leopards, cheetahs, giraffes, elephants, rhinos, lions, water buffalo, hyenas, vultures, crocodiles, birds, monkeys, and hippos.

It's been over 4 decades since man first landed on the moon.  It's been so long in fact, most people have it only in the back of their minds or the younger generation doesn't even realize the accomplishment.  At this point, most of the novelty of moon exploration  has waned.  Travel to the moon has been conquered - on to the next thing.

Content Review

Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the moon, narrated by Tom Hanks, looks to bring back some of the excitement of the many moon landings and all of the preparation that went into them.

The Oklahoma City Thunder will try to even the series with the Dallas Mavericks tonight at 9pm EST on ESPN 3D.  After losing the first game of the series earlier this week, Kevin Durant looks to lead his Thunder to a victory over the Mavs and Dirk Nowitzki who set an NBA record for most free throws without a miss in a playoff game in the first game of the series.

Check out the action!  NBA basketball in 3D, especially the NBA playoffs is worth tuning in!

In addition the 2011 Masters Tourament being broadcast in 3D, the famous Par 3 tournament will also be broadcast this afternoon on ESPN 3D at 3pm EST.  I'm actually excited about watching this as I've never seen the par 3 course before.  Augusta is such a beautiful course it will be cool to see it in 3D!

Get those glasses ready to catch the NBA tonight, March 23rd, on ESPN 3D.  The game will feature the San Antonio Spurs, who sport the best record in the NBA, against the Denver Nuggets who are currently 5th in the West and on a roll lately.  Only bummer is it's on late for most of the US at 10:30pm EST.

This is the last 3D NBA game for the month, with the next one scheduled on Friday, April 1st pitting the Boston Celtics against the Atlanta Hawks.

I started watching Dinosaurs Alive! 3D with my 9 year-old son this past weekend figuring he would be the perfect age to give me a good opinion about this TV show.  After about 15 minutes in, he asked if he could leave to go play nerf hoop.  I felt the same way, but decided to stick it out and watch it in its entirety so I could write it up.

Content Review

This hour long documentary, narrated by Michael Douglas, is obviously about dinosaurs but really focuses on the paleontologists and their search for dinosaur fossils around the world.  Different and new types of dinosaurs are introduced in addition to the evolution of certain types of dinosaurs and how they might have behaved in their environment with other creatures.  The latter scenes were done with very cool 3D animation which made you feel as if you were there.

There are definitely facts and information that is not widely known, so it was certainly educational from that perspective, both about dinosaurs that you probably haven't heard of before as well as how paleontologists work.

I will be the first to admit that I'm not one for cooking shows.  Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love to cook.  I just never seem to get the urge to watch a cooking show.  That has changed, however, now that there is a cooking show available in 3D - "Guy's Big Bite," which normally airs on The Food Network.

I have never heard of Guy Fieri, the chef that hosts Guy's Big Bite, so I had no preconceptions.  After watching his show, I can see how he has a good following and can appeal to most people interested in cooking.

Content Review

This was a fairly typical cooking show.  Guy used the half hour to prepare two dishes and a mixed drink.  I watched Guy prepare the following dishes in 3D:

• Prosciutto and Peas Orechiette (pasta)
• Garlic Parmesan Crab
• Blood Orange Basil Collins (alcoholic drink)

I have to admit that the pasta looked really good to me, and I might even try it myself.

I'll just come out and say it right off the bat - Forgotten Planet 3D was one of the best broadcast 3D TV shows that I have watched to date.  Although the content is fairly depressing (describing how two of our world's cities became ghost towns), the show was very well done both from a content, direction and 3D perspective.

Content Review

Forgotten Planet 3D tells the story of how Pripyat, Ukraine and Picher, Oklahoma, both thriving cities at one point, became dead and abandoned as a result of major human blunders.   The first half hour focuses on Pripyat, while the second half documents Pricher.

Pripyat was a planned community for workers at the Chernobyl nuclear plant. When nuclear reactor #4 exploded in April 1986, Pripyat became a ghost town within a week. The documentary, interviews and images depict how bad the destruction was and even is today.

Picher was the largetst producer of lead and zinc in the world during World War I

With the new influx of 3D TV show content, I have decided that the time is right to start writing mini-reviews of the 3D TV shows that I am watching on my 3D TV.  Basically what I'm looking to accomplish with these reviews is to let an average watcher know, plain and simple, if the TV show is worth watching or not.  The trick is going to be to keep it simple, but to still be able to give worthwhile information.

I am going to need a rating system of some kind, so I will initially adopt a star rating system with 4 stars being the best.  I will rate the following 3 categories:

Use of 3D:  This will go over how 3D is used in the program and will answer the question - Does 3D make this TV Show better?

3D Quality:  This rates the quality of the 3D rendering.

Although I have them, I rarely wear my eyeglasses.  I also don't wear sunglasses very often, so I'm not used to wearing any kind of glasses.  I wanted to give that background before I go into my thoughts on wearing 3D glasses to watch TV and movies at home, as follows, in no particular order:

Yes, 3D glasses are annoying to wear.  However, I kind of already knew this going in.  I tried them out in several stores and realized that I was going to have deal with wearing glasses while watching movies and shows in order to get this 3D effect.  That was a compromise I was willing to make and still am.  Just because I have to put up with it though doesn't mean I have to like it.

You can't really lay down and watch with 3D glasses.  This one was more of a suprise to me since I don't have glasses, but more obvious after I thought about it after the fact.

Yes, it's true.  The 2011 NBA All Star game will NOT be broadcast on TV in 3D.  While it will be shown in 3D at theaters across Europe, you cannot watch the 3D broadcast in the comfort of your own home.

This disappoints me because:

1. This is a fairly high visibility event and it would bring some much needed premier content to TV
2. I have no interest in going to a movie theater to watch this game (not that I would go to Europe...) and
3. Basketball is fun and entertaining to watch in 3D, especially high flying dunks!

So, why is the All Star game not being broadcast in 3D?  Here's my speculation on what may be some of the reasons:

1. TNT owns the TV broadcast rights and they don't have the technology/capability for 3D.
2. It's a money losing proposition based on what it would cost to produce the show vs. how much money they could make off of any 3D sponsors (which seem to be few and far between at the moment).

I somehow got too busy over Valentine's Day and just now stumbled upon the 3net announcement about new 3D programming.  Very exciting for those of us that have DirecTV!  Now we can watch 3D Content 24 hours a day with new 'premiere' content every night this month.

In addition to Forgotton Planet, China Revealed, and Into the Deep as mentioned in the promo, there is also Magnificent Desolation: Walking on the Moon, a movie documentary from 2005 narrated by Tom Hanks.

Here is the upcoming 3net TV Listings for the Premiers.  All times are at 9pm EST:

This week through Sat Feb 19th:

• Tues:  Ghost Lab (2011 - "The team investigates Deadwood, SD, once home to Sheriff Seth Bullock)
• Wed: Bugs! A Rainforest Adventure (2003, Documentary)
• Thurs: High Octane (2011 - "mountain bikers who pull backflips over huge dirt jumps")
• Fri:  Dinosaurs: Giants of Patogonia

I have DirecTV, which gives me access to a few 3D TV channels - n3D, ESPN 3D, and Cinema 3D. One of the problems that I'm having is trying to find good broadcast 3D content to record and watch, especially with the infrequency of 3D programs. 

If I go to the Guide on my DirecTV receiver, much of the time all I see is "To Be Announced", and only 2 hours worth of programs on the guide itself.  TitanTV also does not show the listings for the 3D channels, only showing "DirecTV Programming". When I had a TiVo, I remember that I could see the entire lineup of one particular channel for an entire day, which is really what I want.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find that feature on my DirecTV receiver, so I had to search a little deeper and thankfully I found a good solution.

Here's how to show the 3D program guide and listings on your DirecTV receiver:

In one more week, on Valentine's Day, February 14th, ESPN 3D is going to a 24/7 broadcasting schedule.  Being a huge sports fan, and incredibly excited by this,  I thought I would check out the ESPN 3D listings on my DirecTV guide for any updates since the date is fast approaching. 

To my disappointment, as of this morning, there still is nothing listed.  It still only says that it's "To Be Announced".  I also checked out the listings on ESPN.com.  Not much more insight there as the next 'new' 3D program is on February 18th - Friday Night Fights.

At this point, I'm wondering why ESPN is going 24/7 at all, with its apparent lack of content.  Will it just be complete reruns of the limited number of old shows, or do they have any new programming up their sleeves?  My guess is that it's the former since I have also seen NO commercials for any upcoming 3D shows.

As I was browsing through the 3D TV listings on n3D, I happened upon an replay of the Harlem Globetrotters from December 2010.  Being a big sports fan, this was appealing to me since I hadn't seen the Globetrotters perform in years.  I also thought it would be a great chance to introduce the Globetrotters to my kids because I have great memories of listening to "Sweet Georgia Brown" and watching the old-time Trotters like Meadowlark Lemon and Curly Neal (who actually made a guest appearance at the beginning of the game). Needless to say, we were not disappointed.

The 3D showing had lots of great angles which really showed off the 3D technology.  Of special note was the beginning of the program which featured the Globetrotters showing off their classic ballhandling skills in a circle around half court.  The picture was clear and really showed well in 3D.

The game itself was as hilarious as ever with many new gimmicks.

I watched a bunch of the X Games over the past couple of days and I have to say that unfortunately, I wasn't that impressed.  When I first turned it on, the picture was actually out of focus and I saw double images (yes, the glasses were turned on).  I had to take the glasses off for a second as I got dizzy.  Not a good first impression.  That one major glitch aside, the action wasn't nearly as compelling as I suspected it would be.  I thought that the SuperPipe with the snowboards going high into the air would produce a great 3D effect.  Although there were a few shots that I thought were cool, overall, I was disappointed that more of it wasn't like that. 

I think that one of the reasons why I was disappointed is that I'm finding that 3D works really well when there are things in the background that are far away while something else is in the air.

I am very excited to start watching the X Games in 3D starting today!  While I'm not necessarily a huge fan of the games themselves, I'm looking forward to watching the SuperPipe snowboarding competition and how it looks in 3D. It starts tonight at 9pm EST on ESPN 3D.

Here's a link to the first day TV schedule for the X Games competition.

I'll let you know what I think after I watch some of the action.  Stay tuned!