Technicolor lost popularity because it involved three separate strips of black and white film whirring through a camera at once, basically three cameras bolted together connected by a beam splitter, making a large, complex, very noisy and insensitive camera. Add the blimp to silence the clatter and the old cameras were huge (there is a photo half way down this gallery). Technicolor labs also had a fairly prescriptive approach to how the technology was used. Black and white cameras were smaller, cheaper, more sensitive (no beam splitter) and generally more agile. Film makers could do more with less - but without colour.

Then along came Eastmancolor, which put the three colour strips one on top of the other in a single roll of film and swiftly Technicolor was gone in production along with black and white.

3D cameras are two cameras bolted together through a beam splitter and a precision rig making the package large and cumbersome. The effects of divergence (eyes forced outwards through careless background distance) and potential for a jarring sensation from careless rapid cuts between subjects at different apparent distances make current 3D an expensive, restrictive and relatively slow process in a world where film makers have got used to hand held, location (restricted space) filming and being able to improvise on set without storyboards.

Come to think of it that does sound like Technicolor (or the introduction of sound for that matter). It will be very interesting to see the effect if and when the Eastmancolor of 3D comes along and what on earth the technical leap will be!

Incidentally, Eastmancolor stock was very prone to fading over time, which I understand is a big reason why colour films from the seventies often need major restoration for BluRay/DVD releases. Technicolor master prints are three strips of black and white film so made brilliant archive sources.

The vinyl is better comparison is a bit unfair. To me the 24fps (or 25 for TV here is the UK) is more of a psychological shorthand. Cinema started out hand cranked, then settled on 18fps then on 24fps and has stayed there for decades. TV, for years based on tube cameras and CRT screens went for technical expedience reasons to 25fps in Europe and 30fps in the USA but with two interlaced fields per frame; effectively 50 and 60 fields per sec. Expensive dramas and high-end documentaries until recently were always shot on film then telecined to video so the two fields were effectively the same moment in time.

For pretty much the lifetimes of every viewer today big budget and classy = 24/25/30 fps; news, soaps, current affairs, live events and home videos = 50/60i. As a cameraman ironically the stutter is a very easy way to add to the perceived production value for the viewer. There was huge uptake of video DSLRs after the Canon 5D, partly for the shallow focus, but also for the ability to shoot 1080p rather than 1080i.

My father in law bought a rather expensive TV a couple of Christmases ago featuring some clever optical flow tricks to upsample 25p to 50i. I didn't know about this at first and The Mummy was on. Something seemed odd, mundane and the camera wiggles and effects looked unconvincing and 'low budget'. I realised that it was too smooth and had dipped into an uncanny valley so psychologically I had lost the suspension of disbelief and a big budget movie looked like a student film.

A side note is the use of narrow shutter angles (or fast shutters if using electronic shutters on video). Since Saving Private Ryan a popular trick is to use narrow or fast shutters to remove motion blur and make action feel faster. I've got mixed feelings about this and think that it has been massively overused (as most new tricks do in movies and TV) but it inherently does make pans really juddery. Maybe that is what distracts you or have you really never seen a movie with people moving across frame that doesn't bother you?

The flip is 360 shutters. When digital HD video cameras were first launched they had trouble interlacing the progressive picture for live viewing. The viewfinders were horrible and on the live monitor really juddery. Combine that with video people who were disparate to shoot progressive like movies but used to working with interlace and the recurring requests would be 'must shoot progressive but take out the judder'. That meant take out the shutter so that the picture was taken for a 25th second rather than a 50th of a second. The result is swooshy blur that I have always hated and reminds me of 70s tube cameras. Thankfully that trend for 'smoothness' has faded but you still see it occasionally and sometimes for night shoots where directors want an extra stop without adding gain.

Long story short - 48fps looks cheap in a big budget movie, then you get used to it, think what did I ever see in 25fps, then don't think anything about it and then filmakers at all levels have lost a simple way to shiny up their film.

from http://www.codeweavers.com/site/account/download_b eta/

"Look, let's be honest. We wanted to release the full version of CrossOver in time to announce it for the LinuxWorld Expo. We didn't get it done in time - it still has problems and issues we're working on. However, for marketing reasons, we wanted to announce iTunes support at LinuxWorld. (This isn't as awful as it sounds, we've made the public Wine tree run iTunes, and we wanted to get credit for that before someone else discovered that and publicized it)."

Has anyone discovered how to do that yet and publicised it yet?