ETC’s Thursday morning discussion on 3D to the home started out with optimism about the spread of 3D in 2010.
“We have every reason to believe with the major success of ‘Avatar’ in the theatre, that we will have the same success with 3D in the home,” said Wendy Aylsworth of Warner Bros., who moderated the discussion.
The panel of industry technologists then got down to the nitty-gritty of challenges facing the industry as they seek to deliver 3D via Blu-ray, cable, digital broadcast/satellite, and the Internet.
Benn Carr, VP new technology at The Walt Disney Company, said he remains concerned about compatibility, but he was encouraged by what has seen on the show floor at CES.
“A concern is always that we have a successful launch and consumers get the proposition and are not confused. With 3D now, there are a lot of areas where a consumer can get confused… It’s very important that consistency exists so consumers do no have to worry about mixing and matching this set-top box with that device and so on… We are trying to be conscious of that,” he said.
Carr also said a lot of work remains in ironing out the workflow process from shooting all the way to distribution. “We need to keep working on buttoning up the whole supply chain all the way through to the consumer,” he said.
ESPN’s EVP technology/CTO Chuck Pagano also said a lot remains to be learned through experience about producing and distributing 3D to the home.
“From a production standpoint, the book has not been written yet. [Launching ESPN’s new 3D network in 2010] is a living breathing science project, but it is one we are comfortable going forward with. The tsunami of 3D TV products we are seeing right now makes it a great time to be in this business,” Pagano said.
David Broberg of CableLabs reflected some of the focuses of the cable industry: “We’re working to find the best way to convey 3D content through the plant. With the tsunami of of 3D projects, there seems to be a short-term urgency to get it through the cable plant with as little impact as possible, doing it with the STBs we have today. The most obvious solution is frame-compatible, because it works through the existing infrastructure. But in the long-term, we’ll have new set-top boxes and new codecs, so as we migrate to the new services we really need a smooth migration plan between them.”
Brian Lenz of BSkyB said his company launched their 3D exploration in the UK with efforts to fit a quality 3D experience through the existing HD infrastructure. “We’re all looking to pay back the initial HD infrastructure investments. We saw 3D as a great way to do that,” Lenz said.
In order to maximize that existing infrastructure, BSkyB started with side-by-side frame-compatible formats, production and acquisition, and is moving toward plans to launch a UK 3D channel in 2010. “It’s true frame-combatible doesn’t give full HD resolution for each eye… but we’re comfortable that the quality you see, if you give it just a little more incremental bandwidth, we’re confident the experience itself is absolutely what consumers want right now,” Lenz said.
An audience member asked the panelists whether active-shutter or passive glasses would win out with consumers. Broberg of CableLabs responded that there are different advantages to each type, but overall the competition between them is good for the marketplace, and the cable industry will continue trying to deliver an image that works for both formats.
Benn Carr had a similar view: “The key point is that the transmission and storage format should be display agnostic. The consumer should decide what kind of display they want to use and what kind of glasses, whether active, passive, or perhaps glasses-less in the future.”
Mark Ely of Cinema Now/Sonic Solutions said he thinks gaming will be an important avenue for exposing consumers to 3D. “In the short term, a lot of consumers will interact with 3D through gaming, and I think gaming in combination with live sports environments will be a big way people get excited about 3D,” he said.
The panel agreed that 2D-to-3D conversion would not be big in the next year, although Broberg suggested it could have valuable applications for short-form content like commercials. “In a 15-30 second spot, then you’re sensing depth and it’s interesting, but it doesn’t have to be accurate,” he said. “For long-term exposure, though, it just gets tiring on your eyes.”