Sony's 3-D Dreams

LAS VEGAS--By the standards of the International Consumer Electronics Show, Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer is a big star. But he's got nothing on Tom Hanks.

Stringer's keynote address at CES Thursday opened with an appearance by the Oscar-winning actor, who has a new Sony Pictures film, Angels and Demons, coming out in May. Hanks launched into a funny naughty-child routine, reading marketing text off the teleprompter in a disinterested monotone and sniping at overenthusiastic copy. On an assertion that Sony digital video technology allows anybody to pick up a camera and shoot and edit his own TV show, Hanks said, "And what a gem of a program that must be."

Hollywood dreams dominated the nearly two-hour presentation. Stringer demonstrated "Flex OLED," a thin, bendable, full-color digital video screen. He trotted out Walt Disney (nyse: DIS - news - people ) and Pixar animation head John Lassetter to testify about how Sony's Blu-ray discs improve the at-home movie-watching experience. And he showed off wonky-looking prototype spectacles that can superimpose movies inside the wearer's field of vision.

"Oh look, they're so cool and hip," joked Hanks. "I think these are the best glasses Sony's ever made."

But the real star of the show--at least, the technological star--was digital 3-D. During a demo, the audience was asked to put on black plastic sunglasses with polarized lenses. The specs, from 3-D technology maker RealD, look more like Buddy Holly's eyewear than the old red and blue glasses used in 1950s movie houses, and provide a much more startling experience. Stringer showed off a Pixar-animated clip of anthropomorphic cars racing through a digitized Tokyo, as well as footage captured last week during the FedEx Orange Bowl. Both segments popped out at viewers, even in the less than ideal viewing conditions of a conference center ballroom.

If they catch on, 3-D movies could be a boon to companies like Sony (nyse: SNE - news - people ), which have watched movie revenues fall, thanks to inexpensive home theaters that keep consumers out of multiplexes. But the technology required to display a digital 3-D film is so complicated it can't realistically be replicated at home, which could send interested viewers back to the silver screen.

"I think that 3-D represents the opportunity to actually re-energize our audiences worldwide about the film medium and give them an experience that can only be seen in the movie theaters," said DreamWorks Animation (nyse: DWA - news - people ) Chief Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who joined Stringer onstage. DreamWorks has completely retooled its studio to make 3-D movies, he said, and starting this year, every one of the studio's films will be produced in 3-D, beginning with the very first storyboard.