Snake oil??

Yes, even the latest OLED screens I’ve seen from Sony and Panasonic are cartoonish and chocolatey I’d say.

Purely a setting and demonstration model issue. They ship to look good in the store, not to be critical viewing devices. Most people are impressed by shiny things at first, overblown colors, sharp edges, high contrast. When they get it home, they complain about lack of shadow detail and artifacts, just a press of a few buttons away.

noromance ...

• "Maybe The Gate is messing with your TV!"

That it is. In a very good way. :-)

 

Video improvement with ECT is very much like what you describe between digital and film. Video with ECT looks a lot more like film.  

The best film is 70mm. The video equivalent of a direct to disc 45. I've seen Lawrence, My Fair Lady, Hamlet, and The Hateful Eight, all in glorious 70mm. Tarantino outdid himself filming The Hateful Eight in Ultra Panavision 70.

None of these is anything like reality. Which is the whole point. Reality is vastly overrated, at least when it comes to art. We are after all immersed in reality 24/7/365. (Well, some of us, anyway;)

The new theatrical 3d format coming out is 'glasses free'. Apparently the image is 3d from any seating position.

It is also going to be done with a scanning laser technology, for a near infinite contrast range - in some ways.
In the same way that commercial theaters fought back via innovation, when TV was introduced... that entire industry and all of it's connected interests...is doing so again....

@cd318

This question of authenticity, or objective v subjective doesn’t seem to trouble movie fans or cineastes the way it might with some audiophiles.

This is an interesting observation. It may get more into aesthetic philosophy than the typical board discussion. While I'm a bit of an audiophile, I work in film.
I think there are quite a few movie fans who care a great deal about the presentation of image, but the question of fidelity is about the preservation of the intentions of the filmmakers who made it. Years ago, we wanted a film shot in 1:1.85 aspect ratio at 24 frames per second to play back that way, rather than at the old TV standard 29.97 fps with the sides chopped off to fit the screen. Filmmaking and film exhibition is not typically about recreation of the reality in front of the cameras-- you don't often hear people brag that it was like Brad Pitt was in their living room...shooting a laser rifle at aliens.
There are limited areas where a fidelity to reality might be prized-- think IMAX nature films or certain kinds of virtual reality. Or, on a slightly more mundane level, a concert film that promises "you are there." 
There are people interested in evolving filmmaking technology towards a fidelity to reality. Aside from VR, there's the push for ever higher resolution (8k+ cameras and lenses to match, 8k TVs) and high frame rates (60-120 fps, as seen in recent Peter Jackson and Ang Lee films). And then there are people like Tarantino and P.T. Anderson, who remain committed to shooting on film at 24 fps.
As you suggest, it may well be that the distance from reality helps us experience the films as stories. Or it might simply be a matter of convention. But it's an ongoing discussion. 

Sorry-- drifted far off topic. So yeah, I think the 3D enhancer fluid would meet my definition of snake oil.