The third dimension

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3D has conquered the cinema and has taken its first steps toward finding its way onto the TV. Digital Broadcast looks at how the format may develop and assesses its prospects in the region.

This year’s NAB show featured the usual array of technologies covering the full spectrum of innovation from those with minor updates to those offering an entirely new approach to a problem. As with all technology trade shows, there were also demonstrations of innovations still to come, or at least still to enter the realm of commercial viability.

The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) presented its 3D home master standard at the event, which lays the technical foundations for both image formatting and multiplatform delivery. This step could mark the point where 3D TV made its first stride toward becoming a mainstream technology.

“The NAB announcement was extremely significant,” says Wendy Aylsworth, VP engineering, SMPTE and senior VP of technology for Warner Bros. technical operations. “The SMPTE’s role was to define a standard so that content producers could work to a single, deliverable format.

“This format must be easily transformed into the various packages required for different distribution channels. Then of course you have to consider display technology and ensure that these can decode and present this common format.”

SMPTE is now in the process of distributing the report of its work on the 3D home master format to all the relevant standards bodies and organisations involved in the process of moving 3D content from the creator to the viewer.

“We believe this to be the first important technical document on standardised methods of delivering 3D content to the home. All of the members who took part in the SMPTE 3D to the home task force – from content producers to consumer electronics manufacturers – agreed on the need for a home master standard and its basic parameters,” says Aylsworth.

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