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by Jeffrey Hill
Intelsat CEO David McGlade told Via Satellite that the only obstacles left for breaking 3-D TV in the consumer market are technical issues in the hands of broadcasters. “These are the most significant challenges, especially if 3-D TV will take the same path as HD did to the consumer market — through sports. Broadcasters have to make sure that the programming doesn’t make people ill or cause vertigo. There also has to be an established standardization and compression technique,” said McGlade, adding that standardization will most likely occur in a little more than a year.
International Datacasting Corp. (IDC) COO and Vice President Gary Carter and Sensio President and CEO Nicholas Routhier talked about some of the live 3-D satellite digital broadcasting components that are available and may provide opportunities to broadcasters. Sensio, has been developing 3-D products for the live event market. “Sensio is trying to create a standard for real-time 3-D encoding and decoding through visually lossless stereoscopic compression and decompression products. The Sensio 3-D compression technique reduces bit-rate by 50 percent and compresses the left eye and right eye into a single channel suitable for MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 compression,” said Routhier.
Carter explained that compressing 3-D’s second broadcast stream, or channel, can be an expensive DVB-S/S2 investment. “Satellite and fiber bandwidth can be expanded to carry the extra channel, but it doubles the space segment cost, and there are some cases, like ATSC or DVB-T, where the channels cannot expand,” said Carter.
Technical issues aside, ESPN Executive Vice President Chuck Pagano agreed that the content side is ready and waiting for a suitable delivery method. “We believe that our 3-D TV programming is going to drive the sale of 3-D HD-ready sets. This 3-D push from the consumer electronics world is a function of what manufacturers can produce at higher frame rates. They will be in all TVs in three years, regardless of whether you want it or not. There will be a natural evolution of people playing in the 3-D TV space. There are going to be 3-D personal video cameras, so people will be experimenting here from a personal perspective,” said Pagano.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa may provide the ultimate opportunity to debut 3-D TV to the largest international audience possible. The situation could not be better for satellite, as there are no fiber links to the event stadiums. ESPN already has made 3-D investments in the event. In January, the broadcaster revealed plans to launch ESPN 3D, a dedicated 3-D HD network, which will showcase a minimum of 85 live sporting events during its first year, including the first World Cup soccer match featuring South Africa and Mexico. “One can only imagine the ramifications a broadcaster would face if the football matches in South Africa watched around the world suddenly were interrupted due to a fiber cut. There is no restoration potential for moments lost from a live event,” said Jackson.
In Europe, BSkyB is planning its own 3-D sports preview with its upcoming Sky 3D channel, which will broadcast a U.K. Premier League soccer match to select pubs in the United Kingdom and Ireland and, possibly, World Cup programming. Sky 3D, scheduled for launch in April, will work with existing Sky+HD boxes and initially will be introduced at no extra cost for customers who subscribe to Sky’s top TV package and the Sky HD pack. “2010 is the year for 3-D TV. People have already embraced 3-D cinema, and because Sky’s 3-D service uses the same kind of technology, we’re confident there will be demand for sport, movies, concerts and drama in 3-D,” Gerry O’Sullivan, Sky’s director of strategic product development, said in a statement.
McGlade said that popularity of the recent Hollywood blockbuster Avatar has made the general consumer more aware of the abilities of 3-D TV, however, the technology has had its share of missteps. “The Dallas Cowboys NFL game that was recently presented in 3-D wasn’t up to par in terms of quality. Sporting events will be the most difficult thing to get right for this type of presentation. Audience members were handed cheap 3-D glasses. It was the same situation this year when the Grammy Awards were shown in 3-D. But these mistakes aren’t all that bad. Every new technology goes through these steps and for every attempt, the consumer becomes more aware of its existence,” said McGlade.
Of all the end-to-end technical components involved with delivering quality 3-D HD television to broadcast consumers, satellite operators and content providers are ready and willing to roll out the next-generation entertainment service, according to executives on SATELLITE 2010’s panel, “3-D TV Long-term Play or Fad?”
The consensus of the panel was that 3-D TV is not a fad but should not be considered long-term, either. “I think that 3-D TV will start to break into the consumer market this year,” Intelsat Vice President of Media Product Management Tim Jackson said. “The content is there, and for satellite, we would use the same type of streaming as we use for HD.”
Intelsat CEO David McGlade told Via Satellite that the only obstacles left for breaking 3-D TV in the consumer market are technical issues in the hands of broadcasters. “These are the most significant challenges, especially if 3-D TV will take the same path as HD did to the consumer market — through sports. Broadcasters have to make sure that the programming doesn’t make people ill or cause vertigo. There also has to be an established standardization and compression technique,” said McGlade, adding that standardization will most likely occur in a little more than a year.
International Datacasting Corp. (IDC) COO and Vice President Gary Carter and Sensio President and CEO Nicholas Routhier talked about some of the live 3-D satellite digital broadcasting components that are available and may provide opportunities to broadcasters. Sensio, has been developing 3-D products for the live event market. “Sensio is trying to create a standard for real-time 3-D encoding and decoding through visually lossless stereoscopic compression and decompression products. The Sensio 3-D compression technique reduces bit-rate by 50 percent and compresses the left eye and right eye into a single channel suitable for MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 compression,” said Routhier.
Carter explained that compressing 3-D’s second broadcast stream, or channel, can be an expensive DVB-S/S2 investment. “Satellite and fiber bandwidth can be expanded to carry the extra channel, but it doubles the space segment cost, and there are some cases, like ATSC or DVB-T, where the channels cannot expand,” said Carter.
Technical issues aside, ESPN Executive Vice President Chuck Pagano agreed that the content side is ready and waiting for a suitable delivery method. “We believe that our 3-D TV programming is going to drive the sale of 3-D HD-ready sets. This 3-D push from the consumer electronics world is a function of what manufacturers can produce at higher frame rates. They will be in all TVs in three years, regardless of whether you want it or not. There will be a natural evolution of people playing in the 3-D TV space. There are going to be 3-D personal video cameras, so people will be experimenting here from a personal perspective,” said Pagano.
The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa may provide the ultimate opportunity to debut 3-D TV to the largest international audience possible. The situation could not be better for satellite, as there are no fiber links to the event stadiums. ESPN already has made 3-D investments in the event. In January, the broadcaster revealed plans to launch ESPN 3D, a dedicated 3-D HD network, which will showcase a minimum of 85 live sporting events during its first year, including the first World Cup soccer match featuring South Africa and Mexico. “One can only imagine the ramifications a broadcaster would face if the football matches in South Africa watched around the world suddenly were interrupted due to a fiber cut. There is no restoration potential for moments lost from a live event,” said Jackson.
In Europe, BSkyB is planning its own 3-D sports preview with its upcoming Sky 3D channel, which will broadcast a U.K. Premier League soccer match to select pubs in the United Kingdom and Ireland and, possibly, World Cup programming. Sky 3D, scheduled for launch in April, will work with existing Sky+HD boxes and initially will be introduced at no extra cost for customers who subscribe to Sky’s top TV package and the Sky HD pack. “2010 is the year for 3-D TV. People have already embraced 3-D cinema, and because Sky’s 3-D service uses the same kind of technology, we’re confident there will be demand for sport, movies, concerts and drama in 3-D,” Gerry O’Sullivan, Sky’s director of strategic product development, said in a statement.
McGlade said that popularity of the recent Hollywood blockbuster Avatar has made the general consumer more aware of the abilities of 3-D TV, however, the technology has had its share of missteps. “The Dallas Cowboys NFL game that was recently presented in 3-D wasn’t up to par in terms of quality. Sporting events will be the most difficult thing to get right for this type of presentation. Audience members were handed cheap 3-D glasses. It was the same situation this year when the Grammy Awards were shown in 3-D. But these mistakes aren’t all that bad. Every new technology goes through these steps and for every attempt, the consumer becomes more aware of its existence,” said McGlade.
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