by Grand Rapid Press

It seemed like it, felt like it, sounded like it and, for the most part, looked like more than 200 college football fans had a rare sideline pass for Thursday night's BCS national championship telecast in 3-D at Celebration Cinema North.

The experimental telecast, which Fox Sports transmitted to 80 multiplexes nationwide, featured stunning 3-D digital images of No. 1 Florida's 24-14 defeat of No. 2 Oklahoma live from Miami.

It put the audience right in the middle of the action.

"It's cool, I like it, it's something different," Justin Oppenneer, 27, of Caledonia, said during the halftime break. "I'd go see something like this again."

Fans paid $20 apiece to see the spectacle.

It came complete with special glasses, but nothing like the uncomfortable red-and-blue cardboard contraptions of the past. No, these were the sort of shades that would be standard issue for Jake and Elwood Blues.

It helped make all the difference.

The shades, from Beverly Hills, Calif.-based RealD, which uses grayish, polarized lenses to filter and separate images for the left and right eyes, represents a fashionable and technological leap forward in the 3-D experience.

The image of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow jumping and completing a 4-yard touchdown pass to David Nelson with 3:07 left in the fourth quarter provided the sort of realism that even high-definition telecasts can't reproduce.

It seemed as if Nelson might burst through the mammoth movie screen after he caught the clinching pass, jabbed his right index finger into the air and sprinted in a direct path to the camera located in the corner of the end zone.

It's that breathtaking at times.

The 3-D experience at its best featured spectacular end-zone panoramas of offensive formations, startling close-ups of players huddling on the field and over-the-shoulder sideline camera shots framed by helmets along the bottom of the screen in silhouette like a rerun of "Mystery Science Theater."

The 3-D experience at its worst is maddening.

The technological glitch that still hasn't been conquered is the repeated refocusing of cameras from different angles that leaves viewers rubbing their temples.

The straight-on angles are all but perfect.

Much of the rest of it, however, is blurred, often to the point of producing a headache or the first pangs of motion sickness due to the constant adjusting of out-of-whack images. Here's a tip: If not stone-cold sober, don't attempt to see a live telecast of a college football game or any other sports spectacle in 3-D.

"I think we're at the front edge of a new technology," said John Loeks, owner of Celebration Cinema North and numerous other multiplexes in the area. "They've figure out a lot of the angles (for 3-D broadcasts), but we're still learning.

"I'm just delighted with the whole experience."

It was, for the most part, a unequaled stimulation of the senses.

Yet, Fox Sports' production did little to enhance the experience.

The telecast was fraught with technical snafus, including the lame broadcast team of Kenny Albert and Tim Ryan, the failure to include clock time in the on-screen scoreboard graphic for all but a few minutes of the second half, and an incompetent director who repeatedly chose poor camera angles for live shots before finally presenting the sharpest images via instant replay.

It still needs some tweaking, but the trend is for more 3-D live sporting events like the national championship game in a theater setting. The next planned telecast at Celebration Cinema North is Feb. 14 for the NBA's "All-Star Saturday night" festivities, featuring the slam-dunk contest in all of its 3-D splendor.

You gotta see it to appreciate it.

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