IT'S the stinky idea that just won't die.
More than 50 years after its first, and only, silver screen appearance, Smell-o-vision may be about to make a comeback — in your lounge room.
In a two-year experiment, researchers found they could create a small device to attach to the back of a TV set or mobile phone which would release special smells to match what appears on screen.
"It is quite doable," said Sungho Jin, a professor at the University of California's San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
"For example, if people are eating pizza, the viewer smells pizza coming from a TV or cell phone.
"And if a beautiful lady walks by, they smell perfume.
"Instantaneously generated fragrances or odours would match the scene shown on TV or cell phone."
The study, by researchers at the University of California and the R&D division of electronics giant Samsung, was published this month in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie.
The gadget works by heating small rubbery chambers of liquid with a thin metal wire. As the pressure builds in a chamber, it expands and releases an odour through a tiny hole.
Prof Jin said there would be "logistics problems" to overcome for a commercial version of the technology.
For example, if a TV advertiser wanted viewers to be able to smell a new perfume, it would have to be installed in the device beforehand.
"But in specific applications one can always think of a way," Prof Jin said.
Filmmakers and stage directors have been toying with introducing odours to performances since the early 20th Century.
The most famous example, Smell-o-vision, was first shown off under the name Scentovision by Swiss inventor Hans Laube at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
It was later renamed and used in three specially-fitted theatres for the 1960 movie Scent of Mystery, but was widely considered a flop.
In 1999, TIME magazine included Smell-o-vision in its list of the "Top 100 Worst Ideas of the Century".