Is British TV the first to broadcast 3D?

[Karel Bata]

According to the SKY website:

 

Sky's 3D preview channel will be available to Sky+HD customers on Sky World with HD pack, and who have a new 3D-ready TV from 3 April. Customers who meet these requirements should call Sky on 08442 410 092 to request access. Please have the details of your TV, including the serial number, to hand.

Once our customer service advisor has activated the channel for you, you should be able to see the 3D channel immediately, but you may have to wait up to four hours for the channel to appear.

When the channel is activated, all you need to do is switch your TV to 3D mode (please refer to your TV manual for instructions), put on your 3D glasses and enjoy Sky’s amazing 3D previews.

Is anyone else broadcasting in 3D yet?

 

The production technical requirements page is here: http://introducingsky3d.sky.com/a/bskyb-3d-tech-spec/

 

This is a market that is exploding (someone here I'm sure will pick up on my choice of phrase there! :lol: ) and anyone able to supply a stream of 3D content could make themselves rather rich over the next few years.

 

BTW I'm amused at their guidelines on another page:

 

We don't want:

...Ideas targeted at the young which will alienate family audience

Small dark niche worlds

:lol: I can think of several hit series they wouldn't have commissioned!

 

 

p.s. I'm organising a 3D networking evening with the Directors' Guild of Great Britain on June 24 in central London. If you'd like to attend, send me a PM.

[Keith Walters]

As I mentioned before, it all seems to hang on the definition of "broadcast".

What Nine Network Australia claim is the world's first Digital Terrestrial Free-to-air 3D transmission is happening here right now. I don't have access to a 3D TV and although I have a set top box/PVR combo that can receive the special UHF MPEG4 transmissions and show them as two side-by images, I'm too far from the city centre to pick it up reliably.

 

All I can tell you for sure is that the picture quality of the 2D simulcast on the normal 9HD service is downright diabolical! I'm not much of a sports fan but I do enjoy watching the razor sharp 1080i images we normally get from the Rugby League. You can normally pick out faces in the stands, see individual blades of grass etc.

 

None of that tonight. The grass looks like melted green plastic and the pictures are noisy and blocky, almost MPEG1 quality.

I can't wait to hear what the 3-D results were like!

That's if anybody actually watched it in 3-D...

[George Ebersole]

The first 3D broadcast that I know of happened here in the San Francisco Bay Area from the now WB affiliate KOFY TV20. They had a big promo about it their broadcast in the 80s (81? 83?), and were passing out 3D glasses at 7-11's, some gas stations, and other places.

 

The film they showed was an old 1950s "monster" film about a man eating albino gorilla. I can't remember the title (which is probably a blessing).

[Karel Bata]

Well I did mean with the kind of modern technology we've been talking about here lately... :D

 

I've kind of had my answer in an item on the Broadcast Engineering site. I'll quote it, save you going there

 

Panasonic and Samsung have delivered the first models of 3-D TV sets to retail stories, and Sony will release several models soon. As an early adopter who wants to experiment with 3-D, let’s say you buy one.

 

Now comes the problem: What do you watch?

 

For most of this year, and much like the early days of HDTV, the answer is: not much. The reviews regarding 3-D TVs are based largely upon a single demo reel of 3-D content — just clips, not even a entire movie. This was the case throughout the Las Vegas Convention Center during the recent NAB Show.

 

Available 3-D DVDs and Blu-ray Discs weren’t designed for the new crop of 3-D TVs that use active-shutter glasses. Watching these older films on any TV, new or old, will produce a poor 3-D effect.

 

But what about Blu-ray, which is being sold as 3-D-capable? The answer is the same. Even the first release of James Cameron’s “Avatar,” the driving force behind the current 3-D craze, was in 2-D; the 3-D version of “Avatar” won’t be released until 2011. In fact, there will only be a handful of true TV-ready 3-D movies released on Blu-ray in 2010.

 

As for broadcast programs, Comcast’s dedicated 3-D channel, which featured the Masters Tournament in April, is now dead air. ESPN and DIRECTV’s dedicated 3-D channel begin in June with limited programming. Verizon’s FiOS 3-D package of unannounced channels is due around Christmas, and Discovery’s 3-D channel is set for launch in 2011.

 

For those with a 3-D TV, there’s virtually nothing to watch right now. In June, limited programs begin, and the choices will be slim. So make no mistake, when you walk into a Best Buy or other retailer and see the promise of watching 3-D in your living room, those are just promises for the future.

Still, it does seem like a very good opportunity for any enterprising producers to get in there...

[George Ebersole]

Well I did mean with the kind of modern technology we've been talking about here lately... :D

 

I've kind of had my answer in an item on the Broadcast Engineering site. I'll quote it, save you going there

 

 

Still, it does seem like a very good opportunity for any enterprising producers to get in there...

Doh, my bad.

 

I dunno... I'm not really anti-3D, in spite of my postings on other topics, but I just don't see the advantage of 3D films. I'd just assume watch a flick without having to don some glasses.

 

But, I'm an older guy, and maybe the younger dudes and dudettes out there are craving this stuff.