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Turner Tours 3D Links

Will air two days of PGA Championship in new format

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By Glen Dickson — Broadcasting & Cable, 7/28/2010 7:55:07 PM

Turner Sports, which aired its first 3D broadcast with the NASCAR Coke Zero on July 3, is following it up by teaming with The PGA of America to offer 3D coverage of the 92nd PGA Championship on Thursday, Aug. 12 and Friday, Aug. 13, from Whistling Straits golf course in Kohler, Wisc.

The stereoscopic 3D coverage, which will be carried by pay-TV operators Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox Communications, DirecTV and Time Warner Cable and also streamed on PGA.com, will focus on the par-3 12th and 17th holes at Whistling Straits from 3:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. ET each day. The 3D coverage will be hosted by Vince Cellini, and 2002 PGA Champion Rich Beem will provide commentary and analysis.

While the Coke Zero 400 production used 3D rigs from 3ality Digital, the PGA production will use PACE 3D rigs supported by NEP’s new SS32 truck, which handled ESPN’s coverage of the MLB Home Run Derby and Fox’s coverage of the All-Star Game earlier this month.  PACE and NEP also collaborated on ESPN’s 3D production of The Masters golf tournament this spring.

Whistling Straits is a links course set alongside Lake Michigan, and the two par-3’s were selected for being particularly picturesque, says Tom Sahara, senior director of remote operations and IT for Turner Sports. The PGA production will use four 3D rigs on each hole, with two located near the tee box and two alongside the green. One camera near the tee will be placed behind the golfer to capture the traditional look toward the green, while the other will probably be placed low and to the side, to give the 3D viewer the effect of standing in the gallery.

“The idea here is to really bring across the experience of being there in the gallery and taking in everything around you,” says Sahara, who expects that the rolling mounds and pot bunkers typical to a links course like Whistling Straits should really stand out in 3D.

One of the other two cameras will likely be mounted near the back of the green, to give a low shot of balls approaching and landing on the green; that angle was particularly dynamic during The Masters coverage. The other will be mounted on a crane that will allow for lateral movement for the most effective 3D shots once golfers are on the green.

“You actually need to have a little bit of movement so can see how much space there is between things,” says Sahara. “You don’t get that sense in 2D, but in 3D you can really see that the ball is three feet towards the viewer from the hole, while in 2D it looks like it’s two inches away.”

Internet-Enabled TV Trumps 3-D TV in 2010 (iSupply forecast)

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July 28, 2010

RIDDHI PATEL

While the consumer electronics headlines this year have been dominated by 3-D television news, the real story in 2010 is about Internet-Enabled TVs (IETVs), according to iSuppli Corp.

Global shipments of IETVs—i.e., TV sets with built-in Internet capability—will amount to 27.7 million units in 2010. In contrast, 3-D set shipments will total only 4.2 million this year. While 3-D television shipments are set to soar in the coming years, iSuppli’s forecast shows the biggest near-term growth story is in IETV.

“Despite aggressive promotions from the industry and intense consumer interest generated by the blockbuster Avatar and other titles, the 3-D TV market in 2010 will be limited to a small pool of enthusiastic early adopters,” said Riddhi Patel, director and principal analyst for television systems at iSuppli. “In contrast, IETV is entering the mainstream in 2010. This is because 3-D is still dealing with a number of barriers, including cost, content availability and interoperability, while IETV provides immediate benefits by allowing TV viewers to access a range of content readily available on the Internet.”

Shipments of IETVs in 2010 will rise by a remarkable 124.9 percent from 12.3 million units last year. Significant growth will continue during the following years. All told, IETV shipments will expand at rates north of 50 percent for the next two years, and then continue to increase at solid double-digit rates until the end of 2014. By then, global IETV shipments are anticipated to reach 148.3 million units, accounting for 54 percent of the total flat-panel TV market.

Consumer Pull, Brand Push for IETV
With IETV, Patel noted, viewers can connect to the Internet at all times by using their TV’s built-in feature, bypassing the need for a bridge device such as a set-top box, game console or Internet media adapter like Apple Inc.’s TV console. Such connectivity allows viewers to access content from a wide spectrum of providers—ranging from movie peddlers like Netflix and Amazon, to content aggregators such as Hulu, to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

At the same time, TV brands and manufacturers are working aggressively to create partnerships with the content providers in order to keep consumers interested and happy with continually updated material, Patel added.

“The arrival of Internet-enabled TV models is part of the ongoing evolution and enhancement of TV sets,” Patel said. “Because innovation is a must in order to drive consumer adoption and replacement, the TV industry has embarked on a path of enhancing the consumer experience through interaction with their TV sets.”

Among regions, North America and Western Europe will make up the largest consumption market for IETVs from 2010 to 2014. Japan will lay claim as the third largest market only until 2012, after which it will drop to fifth place, ranking behind both China and the collective area designated as Rest of Asia-Pacific—two distinct territories counted separately in the tallies.

Semiconductor Grows Because of IETV
From a semiconductor perspective, IETV will represent a strong growth opportunity for a number of component types in the TV semiconductor space, including multi-format decoders, DRAM and interface Integrated Circuits (IC), according to Randy Lawson, principal analyst, display electronics, for iSuppli.

Combined revenue from sales of these semiconductors will rise to more than $2 billion by 2014, up from just $222 million in 2009, iSuppli figures show.

The increased semiconductor content will be needed to support various complex IETV features, including network interface capability via Ethernet to link the television to the Internet—through either a wired connection or wirelessly—Bluetooth solutions for advanced remote controls and greater video graphics support.

Collectively, the new features and capabilities needed by IETVs will provide the TV semiconductor market with a much-needed lift in the general outlook affecting the core audio-visual processing and interface IC solutions, according to iSuppli. The prospect is encouraging, given that the general trend of integration and cost-reduction pressure has slowed growth of the market in this space in recent years.

Overall, IETV will represent the second-best growth area for the TV semiconductor market, next only to LED backlighting.

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Specification for Naming VFX Image Sequences Released

ETC’s VFX Working Group has published a specification for best practices naming image sequences such as plates and comps. File naming is an essential tool for organizing the multitude of frames that are inputs and outputs from the VFX process. Prior to the publication of this specification, each organization had its own naming scheme, requiring custom processes for each partner, which often resulted in confusion and miscommunication.

The new ETC@USC specification focuses primarily on sequences of individual images. The initial use case was VFX plates, typically delivered as OpenEXR or DPX files. However, the team soon realized that the same naming conventions can apply to virtually any image sequence. Consequently, the specification was written to handle a wide array of assets and use cases.

To ensure all requirements are represented, the working group included over 2 dozen participants representing studios, VFX houses, tool creators, creatives and others.  The ETC@USC also worked closely with MovieLabs to ensure that the specification could be integrated as part of their 2030 Vision.

A key design criteria for this specification is compatibility with existing practices.  Chair of the VFX working group, Horst Sarubin of Universal Pictures, said: “Our studio is committed to being at the forefront of designing best industry practices to modernize and simplify workflows, and we believe this white paper succeeded in building a new foundation for tools to transfer files in the most efficient manner.”

This specification is compatible with other initiatives such as the Visual Effects Society (VES) Transfer Specifications. “We wanted to make it as seamless as possible for everyone to adopt this specification,” said working group co-chair and ETC@USC’s Erik Weaver. “To ensure all perspectives were represented we created a team of industry experts familiar with the handling of these materials and collaborated with a number of industry groups.”

“Collaboration between MovieLabs and important industry groups like the ETC is critical to implementing the 2030 Vision,” said Craig Seidel, SVP of MovieLabs. “This specification is a key step in defining the foundations for better software-defined workflows. We look forward to continued partnership with the ETC on implementing other critical elements of the 2030 Vision.”

The specification is available online for anyone to use.

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