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CableLabs® Publishes First 3D Content Encoding Specification

Download spec here

CableLabs® announced today that it has published a new specification as a guide for producers, programmers and aggregators of stereoscopic 3D programming. This new specification, called Content Encoding Profiles 3.0 Specification (OC-SP-CEP3.0-I01-100827), can be found on the CableLabs website, www.cablelabs.com, under OpenCable™ Specifications.

This new specification details exact requirements for formatting or “panelizing” the 3D content into a frame-compatible format for use by cable television systems.

“This spec release marks a great step in the commercialization of 3D TV because it is the first public specification that fully describes the coding and signaling for these top-and-bottom and side-by-side 3D video formats,” said Tony Werner, CTO of Comcast. Michael Kazmier, CTO of Avail-TVN, said: “Ensuring that content from all programming sources and cable systems is prepared in a uniform way will enable a nationwide footprint for 3D programming and enable interoperability with STBs and 3DTVs in the home.” “A key part of this specification includes the definitions for signaling 3D content over existing digital video infrastructure that uses either MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 (AVC/H.264) coding,” said Jim Occhiuto, Vice President of Technology and Engineering, Showtime Networks. “This signaling is critical for the receiver/decoder to enable automatic format detection and simplified user experiences when going between 2D and 3D programs,” he added.

“This new CableLabs specification was developed with support from cable operators, programmers and equipment vendors and will be publicly available for any industry to use,” said CableLabs President and CEO Paul Liao.

The new CEP specification replaces the previous VOD-Content Encoding Profile 2.0 specification that was widely used within the industry. This new specification builds upon the existing 2D coding framework defined by the previous version of this document and will be used as the reference for both 2D and 3D video coding going forward. It represents the first step in a continuing process to define 3D formats for cable television that works with existing equipment and infrastructure. Work continues at CableLabs on the development of standards for the delivery of future 3D delivery systems that will expand the resolution and the quality as new equipment becomes available.

Founded in 1988 by members of the cable television industry, Cable Television Laboratories is a non-profit research and development consortium that is dedicated to pursuing new cable telecommunications technologies and to helping its cable operator members integrate those advancements into their business objectives. Cable operators from around the world are members. CableLabs maintains additional web sites at www.cablenet.orgwww.ebif.tv andwww.tru2way.com.

Louisville, Colorado, September 1, 2010

link to original post from CableLabs

ETC @ USC Announces World’s Most Complete 3D Content Resource

ETC @ USC Announces World’s Most Complete 3D Content Resource

LOS ANGELES (August 17, 2010) –, In response to industry and media demand, The Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California (ETC@USC) announced today that it has created a living, online resource dedicated to stereoscopic 3D. For the last two years the center’s Consumer 3D Experience Lab has housed a world-class collection of 3D displays and demonstration materials, and has been the site of meetings and conferences related to the emerging art, technology, and business of stereoscopic 3D.

“The current surge of interest in 3D content and consumer electronics devices has led to a flood of requests to our Lab for information about 3D,” said Consumer 3D Experience Project
program manager Phil Lelyveld. “With the support of our member companies, we have established an online resource that we hope will become a key source of information for anyone
interested in learning about and keeping up with the latest developments in stereoscopic 3D.”

The resource center called the “Consumer 3D Experience Project” at http://3D.etcenter.org links to current information related to the rapidly evolving 3D entertainment landscape; which includes movies, sports, and video games. The site provides 3D news, information about upcoming events for 3D professionals, content release and broadcast information, links to training and education resources, and a database of information about market research reports. The information, which is available to all, is updated on a daily basis. The site is a great starting point for industry, press, and consumers interested in 3D.

“Because of our expertise in 3D, our access to research, and the ETC@USC’s Consumer 3D Experience Lab, we are able to not only track the latest news and events on 3D, but also offer
up the history and context for 3D moving into the future,” said David Wertheimer, executive director and CEO at ETC@USC. “Our new consumer 3D project site is one of the top places to go if you are looking for the latest information and pointers to the wealth of resources available on 3D content.”

While the information offered by the Consumer 3D Experience Project is accessible to anyone tracking the developments within this area, sponsors of the Entertainment Technology Center are provided with additional exclusive information and analysis. In addition, the ETC@USC works closely with other leading organizations in this field, such as the CEA, Variety, SMPTE, Sports Video Group, the International 3D Society, NAB, etc. to create influential conferences and events about stereoscopic 3D.

Link to the Resource Center.

Link to the PressRelease-PDF

Insight Media 3D Studies overview

Insight Media’s 2D-to-3D Conversion Report Hits the Mark!

When Insight Media published the “2010 Real-Time 2D-to-3D Conversion: An Overview of the Market for 2D-to-3D Conversion in the Home” report, we noted that real time 2D-to-3D conversion would move beyond the 3DTV and into Blu-ray players, set top boxes and even migrate up the food chain to the broadcast level. The report provided forecasts and a good “heads-up” as to where the market was going. Recent activities are confirming these trends.

For example, a recently published Stockopedia article reported that real-time 2D-to-3D conversion technology provider, DDD (Santa Monica, CA), recently broadened the scope of its licensing agreement with Samsung Electronics. The five-year license agreement, originally announced in February 2008, involved DDD and Samsung collaborating to implement DDD’s TriDef real-time 2D-to-3D conversion and 3D image processing architecture in the embedded 3D processing chip developed by Samsung for their next generation 3DTVs. As a result of the revised agreement, Samsung is now licensed to include the embedded 3D processing chips containing DDD’s 2D-to-3D conversion technology in Blu-ray players, LED and LCD monitors and large format displays. DDD said it expects that Samsung will begin shipping the first of these new product categories in early 2011.

Videonet recently reported that one of the main themes to emerge from last month’s 3DTV World Forum in London was the relative merits of shooting native 3DTV content versus up-conversion from 2D to 3D material. The most popular view was that creating native 3DTV is the best approach, but it was also clear that 2D/3D conversion also has its supporters.

In other news, Videonet recently reported on the comments of Jose Dias, Director of Multimedia R&D Department at TV Globo , the Brazilian content producer and broadcaster. He spoke at the 3DTV World Forum in London where he said, “We are very interested in the market opportunity for 3D, but we need a continuous flow of 3D content if we want to open a television channel. I believe conversion of 2D into 3D could be a key factor in opening a channel fairly soon. TV Globo has 2,500 hours of production every year. If we were to show our soap operas in 3D, the cost would be maybe 30% higher and we would also need a large investment in equipment. So we did some trials to convert our soap operas from 2D to 3D.” The content was converted in real-time and the effect is what Dias calls ‘negative 3D’ meaning that all the depth is behind the screen. Dias offered a number of 2D-to-3D conversion demonstrations at the conference, including a sequence from a soap opera that very effectively combined studio shots with computer generated images of the background.

The objective of Insight Media’s 2010 Real-Time 2D-to-3D Conversion: An Overview of the Market for 2D-to-3D Conversion in the Home report is to give product planners and technologists involved with 3DTV in the home the information they need to make decisions about the incorporation of real-time 2D-to-3D conversion technology in future products. In addition, by looking at near real time and off line conversion techniques, we can offer a view of the development path this technology will follow. The report is organized to provide a detailed look at the need for real-time 2D-to-3D conversion, the techniques for performing the conversion and a forecast for products including this feature. Additionally, the report provides useful information about the companies involved in real-time 2D-to-3D conversion and the alliances that have formed between them. Click here to for complete report details, including Table of Contents.

This report is delivered as a PDF file under a site license agreement for $1,500 USD for a single-site license.

Additional 3D Products Available from Insight Media
Insight Media has been a leading voice in the analysis of the emerging 3D market opportunities publishing our first report in 2007. Others that have followed since then include:

2010 3DTV Forecast Report: A Comprehensive Worldwide Forecast of 3D Television Unit Sales by Region and Technology provides an authoritative 3DTV forecast for anyone with an interest in this exploding market opportunity. Other 3DTV forecasts already exist, but we wanted to produce the most thorough, well-researched and well-reasoned forecast to date. By providing details of our research, assumptions and forecast methodology, we allow readers to judge for themselves the strength and validity of the forecast. Click here for complete report details, including Table of Contents.

Special Report on 3D at NAB covers all aspects of 3D that were announced and discussed at NAB and the Digital Cinema Summit. The report has nearly 100 pages of 3D news, analysis and commentary from Insight Media’s team of world-class 3D analysts. Click here for complete report details, including Table of Contents.

2009 Stereoscopic 3D Gaming Report: A Comprehensive Analysis of S-3D Technology for Gaming provides a detailed analysis of Steresoscopic 3D Gaming for product planners and technologists involved with display devices (LCD, PDP, OLED and DLP), display related products (Monitors, TVs, Laptops and Projectors), and those involved in the video game industry, such as console makers, game publishers, game developers and gamers themselves. This report provides details about the various S-3D display technologies, software requirements for game development, a comprehensive overview of S-3D games available today, the perspective of gamers having played hundreds of hours of S-3D games, a description of 3D technologies, and most importantly, a detailed forecast of the S-3D gaming market. Click here for complete report details, including Table of Contents.

2009 Autostereoscopic 3D Displays in Signage and Professional Applications: A Study of the Technology, Infrastructure and Markets for Electronic Autostereoscopic 3D Digital Displays for Professional Use provides product planners, technologists, network operators, system integrators, 2D signage managers, engineers, researchers and content creators with the information needed to fully understand the use of AS-3D displays in digital signage applications such as digital out-of-home advertising, education and public information. The information required to meet this objective includes an overview of AS-3D technology, a detailed look at digital signage infrastructure, an analysis of twenty-one venues where 2D and 3D digital signage will be used, a rich analysis of the total available market, penetration scenarios for each of the twenty-one venues and supporting details on key players throughout the value chain. Click here for complete report details, including Table of Contents.

Contact: Insight Media, Dian Mecca, dian@insightmedia.info. (203) 831-8464.

About Insight Media

Insight Media (www.insightmedia.info ) is a market research, publishing and consulting firm focused on the emerging segments of the display industry. We look for areas where display technology is in the early stages of commercialization, where market opportunities are emerging or where significant business and investment decisions are being made. This strategic focus leads us to several core areas such as 3D Displays, LED or Laser-based Display Systems, Green Display Technology, E-Paper and Large Area OLEDs, where we track the technology, components, products, markets, applications, manufacturing and business aspects of consumer and professional display markets. The company publishes daily and monthly news and analysis as well as in-depth annual technology/market reports. It also hosts industry conferences, provides strategic and tactical consulting services and offers industry education via webinars and on-site seminars.
To be removed from the Insight Media News list, please click here.

Insight Media ©2010 All Rights Reserved. 3 Morgan Avenue, Norwalk CT 06851, 203-831-8464

ETC

Availability of ETC’s new whitepaper, “ETC Marketing Metadata 1.0.” covered by several news groups.

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Entertainment Technology Center at University of Southern California (ETC@USC), a non-profit consortium that brings together top entertainment and consumer electronics companies to listen to and evaluate consumer mindshare towards future technologies, is pleased to announce the availability of its new whitepaper, “ETC Marketing Metadata 1.0.” This document provides a set of best practices for creating descriptive/marketing metadata, based on the combined wisdom of the metadata experts who produce and distribute digital media for the leading Hollywood studios. The ETC@USC is also announcing a new metadata online discussion group open to industry members who are looking to further the discussion around the distribution of metadata. Metadata is information that, in this case, describes what is contained in digital content files. Virtually every content creator or related service company creates metadata, and each distributor/network has its own specification for the metadata it receives with the content. There are a wide variety of implementations, and managing a consistent quality of data through distribution can be a challenge.

“With the explosion and increasing importance of online content, the need for sharing best practices for metadata has become essential. Your metadata is often all you have to get your content in front of the online consumer. The ETC@USC metadata discussion group will bring together those with the interest to further develop best practices for this data,” said KC Blake, director of business development at ETC@USC. “ETC@USC’s metadata project has the support of many of the Hollywood studios and the companies that support them. We are therefore confident that the metadata discussion group will enable industry members to share information, to work together, and to ultimately save everyone in the value chain time and money. Best of all, consumers will be able to find the content they want easier.”

Those interested in signing up for the ETC@USC metadata online discussion group can do so by visiting http://etcenter.org/metadata

Link to coverages
ABC local
AOL DailyFinance
Business Wire
CBS News
CNET News
Market Watch
Yahoo Finance
and many others ..

Link to the Whitepaper
Link to Metadata discussion group