LONDON , England ( CNN ) -- Picture this : you 're sat down for the Football World Cup final , or a long-awaited sequel to the `` Sex and the City '' movie and you 're watching all the action unfold in 3-D on your coffee table . The future of television ? This image is an impression of what 3D holographic television may look like . It sounds a lot like a wacky dream , but do n't be surprised if within our lifetime you find yourself discarding your plasma and LCD sets in exchange for a holographic 3-D television that can put Cristiano Ronaldo in your living room or bring you face-to-face with life-sized versions of your gaming heroes . The reason for renewed optimism in three-dimensional technology is a breakthrough in rewritable and erasable holographic systems made earlier this year by researchers at the University of Arizona . Dr Nasser Peyghambarian , chair of photonics and lasers at the university 's Optical Sciences department , told CNN that scientists have broken a barrier by making the first updatable three-dimensional displays with memory . `` This is a prerequisite for any type of moving holographic technology . The way it works presently is not suitable for 3-D images , '' he said . The researchers produced displays that can be erased and rewritten in a matter of minutes . To create television sets the images would need to be changing multiple times each second -- but Peyghambarian is very optimistic this can happen . He said the University of Arizona team , which is now ten-strong , has been working on advancing hologram technology since 1990 -- so this is a major step forward . He believes that much of the difficulty in creating a holographic set has now been overcome . `` It took us a while to make that first breakthrough , but as soon as you have the first element of it working the rest often comes more rapidly , '' he said . `` What we are doing now is trying to make the model better . What we showed is just one color , what we are doing now is trying to use three colors . The original display was four inches by four inches and now we 're going for something at least as big as a computer screen . '' There are no more great barriers to overcome now , he said . The breakthrough has made some long-time researchers of the technology believe that it could now come to fruition . Tung H. Jeong , a retired physics professor at Lake Forest College outside Chicago who had studied holography since the 1960s told NJ.com ; `` When we start talking about erasable and rewritable holograms , we are moving toward the possibility of holographic TV ... It has now been shown that physically , it 's possible . '' And what might these holographic televisions look like ? According to Peyghambarian , they could be constructed as a screen on the wall ( like flat panel displays ) that shows 3-D images , with all the image writing lasers behind the wall ; or it could be like a horizontal panel on a table with holographic writing apparatus underneath . So , if this project is realized , you really could have a football match on your coffee table , or horror-movie villains jumping out of your wall . Peyghambarian is also optimistic that the technology could reach the market within five to ten years . He said progress towards a final product should be made much more quickly now that a rewriting method had been found . However , it is fair to say not everyone is as positive about this prospect as Peyghambarian . Justin Lawrence , a lecturer in Electronic Engineering at Bangor University in Wales , told CNN that small steps are being made on technology like 3-D holograms , but , he ca n't see it being ready for the market in the next ten years . `` It 's one thing to demonstrate something in a lab but it 's another thing to be able to produce it cheaply and efficiently enough to distribute it to the mass market , '' Lawrence said . Yet , there are reasons to be optimistic that more resources will be channeled into developing this technology more quickly . The Japanese Government is pushing huge financial and technical weight into the development of three-dimensional , virtual-reality television , and the country 's Communications Ministry is aiming at having such technology available by 2020 . Peyghambarian said there are no major sponsors of the technology at present , but as the breakthroughs continued , he hopes that will change . Even if no major electronics company commit themselves , there is hope that backers could come from outside of the consumer electronics industry , he said . `` It could have some other applications . In training it 's useful to show people three-dimensional displays . Also it would be good to show things in 3-D for defense command and control and for surgery , '' he said .
Researchers have created the first rewritable and erasable holographic images . Holographic televisions could come out of the wall or up from a table . Score: 6