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CE vendors and some broadcasters hope that the London Olympics will revive the market for 3-D from the doldrums into which it subsided late in 2010. Such once-off show cases have traditionally given a boost for new broadcast technology, but while the benefits of HD, boosted by the 2008 Beijing Olympics, were clear and applied to almost every sport, the case for 3-D is less certain while glasses still have to be worn.

Nevertheless the 3-D industry has been buoyed by various surveys indicating that significant numbers of European viewers, especially in the UK as the Olympic host country, have expressed interest in buying 3-D-capable TV sets for the games. For example, a survey of 2000 people conducted by CE giant LG found that 37 percent of UK residents would be interested in purchasing a 3-D TV for the Olympics. For some people, the temptation to purchase a 3-D TV set will be reinforced by the Euro 2012 football tournament being staged in Spain and Portugal earlier that summer. This is the second biggest football tournament after the World Cup, and given European supremacy of the sport with Spain being current world champions, 27 percent of UK residents said that in turn might allure them into purchasing a 3-D TV set.

At the same time, there has been a general slight revival in 3-D interest in Europe. In the UK, the BBC successfully broadcast the recent Wimbledon lawn tennis championships in 3-D as a kind of dress rehearsal for the Olympics.

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The BBC had no plans to launch a dedicated 3-D channel in time for the Olympics but may now be reconsidering that after the success of the Wimbledon broadcast coupled with signs of growing interest. But the dilemma is that this would be at the expense of HD channels, which are currently available to 8.5 million people in the UK. By contrast, the number of 3-D-capable sets by then is unlikely to be 10 percent of that number. Significantly perhaps though the BBC is planning to spend £300,000 upgrading its iPlayer catch up service for the Olympics (see separate story).

In the longer term, success for 3-D will depend both on standardization and success in developing large-screen 3-D TVs that can be viewed easily at high quality from all angles.

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Read the full story here: http://broadcastengineering.com/news/vendors_hope_olympics_revive_3d_07252011/