[By Sean Williams, www.arabianbusiness.com]
It’s funny: sometimes something is so lauded, so hyped-up and sung about, that no-one has an idea what the truth actually is. Welcome to the world of 3D. Since James Cameron launched Avatar into the public eye the format has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue: there’s even a whole series of 3D keynote speeches, debates and masterclasses at this month’s NAB Show in Las Vegas.
But ask any three people what the future holds for the third dimension and you’ll likely get three different answers. On one hand there are the 3Dphiles; those who can’t help but see it as HD’s fast-approaching heir apparent. On the other, the vast majority of broadcasters are yet to take the 3D plunge: most haven’t even dipped their toes in the water. Even the vanguard of satellite services, such as YahSat’s forthcoming YahLive, has actively positioned itself firmly within the HD bracket. If most broadcasters are preparing for a 3D assault, they’re hiding it pretty well.
That said there have been breakthroughs, and big ones at that. As with most cutting-edge technology, Rupert Murdoch’s BSkyB has been instrumental in bringing 3D from the silver to small screen, and its Sky 3D channel regularly broadcasts top sporting events to customers in the UK. Likewise German branch Sky Deutschland. Last month at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit, News Corp Europe and Asia chairman and chief exec James Murdoch told an audience that while he admitted 3D TV production was difficult, its growth was worth the trouble. “Customers will not want big events that are not in 3D at some point in the future,” he said, “because it is such an exciting and immersive experience.”
In the Middle East, progress has been slow. However OSN became the first channel in the region to offer a 3D service in December, and du’s video on demand (VOD) offering is allowing Middle Eastern viewers the chance to view selected content in 3D with the help of the On Demand Group (ODG), a subsidiary of SeaChange. “SeaChange’s ODG has been leading in availing 3D VOD content in Europe and the Middle East, demonstrating our extensive content handling capabilities, as was the case to deliver titles such as StreetDance 3D, the U.K.’s top grossing dance movie,” says ODG general manager Georges Dabaghi. “This started on the 25th December 2010 on du’s VOD service, and was a 3D first for the Middle East. In France ODG is currently confirming availability of further premiere titles from main studios Paramount and NBC Universal in 3D, and others are planned for availability over SFR-Nuef’s VOD service shortly and within the course of 2011.”
GlobeCast has played its role in the development of 3D content, from coverage and management to aggregation and distribution. Last year’s FIFA World Cup presented the industry with a mouth-watering catalyst, says head of global distribution Simon Farnsworth. “When we first started out with 3D we did some Burberry fashion shows about 18 months ago,” he says. “Back then 3D was a concept that people put into reality and I think 3D started out in the States. Where our involvement in 3D really kicked off was the FIFA World Cup last year, where Sony was one of the sponsors of the tournament and wanted to create a theme to its sponsorship, which was 3D. And as part of that, and a value-inclined deal with FIFA, they put a lot of money behind 3D production and prior to that developed the camera technology that allowed 3D depth budgets to grow in a live environment. So Sony took the view that essentially, to sell their 3D TVs in the consumer market, they had to develop the technology behind live production. And the World Cup was a great launch pad.”
However the World Cup coverage was beset with image quality issues, something Farnsworth believes came down to the lateness in choosing which technology to implement. “There were essentially two kinds of technology used in cinema projectors that could deal with live 3D feeds, Sensio and RealD, which are side-by-side anamorphic encoding techniques. And both of those parties claim that they have the bigger market shares. So prior to the World Cup there was a bit of a box war going on between the two parties, and FIFA were unclear as to who had the best market.
“In the end they went with Sensio,” adds Farnsworth. “And Sensio’s side-by-side was the one that was delivered to broadcasters. Since then the general consensus was that because this was done very late on, we weren’t giving enough bandwidth to give the quality the picture deserved.”
Following the struggle, Farnsworth claims that there has been a marked shift in the philosophy behind presenting 3D content. “We’re thinking much more logically now, because cinemas generally wanted to take a 720p picture and broadcasters wanted 1080i. When you broadcast 1080i on such a large screen you’re still getting a ghosting effect that was giving consumers headaches. With 720p you’re not giving as much quality, so the data is given a better chance to deal with the motion of the pictures. Now what we’re thinking of doing, in order to retain maximum quality, is to encode and transport two video streams, which is essentially the left eye and the right eye. So when you deliver to these cinema networks they can make it their choice whether they want to broadcast in Sensio or RealD, 720p or 1080i. As a production and delivery mechanism, we’re giving them the best source video quality we can.”
Since the World Cup, however, the industry has struggled to keep up with the pace, and Farnsworth feels that last year’s push has not energised broadcasters enough to upgrade from HD facilities so soon. “Sky has pushed very hard on its 3D channel in the UK. And I know that the Premier League is now delivering 3D matches internationally. But that’s more being driven by the Asian market to be honest. Outside of that there’s been very little movement in the 3D market, firstly because it’s immensely costly to produce: all the OB vans need to be completely refitted with 3D technology provided by Sony or other providers.
“At the moment I just don’t think there are economies of scale where there are distinct returns on revenue to make it happen,” adds Farnsworth, “because broadcasters have recently invested huge amounts of money in HD infrastructure upgrades, and are still probably trying to recoup that cash. And to go to them again and say, “Ok, now we want to move to a 3D environment,” there is still debate as to how they will monetise that 3D content, and whether they can charge more for the 3D content than the HD content.” Sky has decided not to charge its HD customers more for 3D content. So why would broadcasters bother with the format? Farnsworth thinks that any pay TV operator brave enough to enter the 3D market now would be doing it to protect from the onslaught of IPTV; to show that it is keeping ahead of the game.
The Middle East has its own issues where 3D is concerned. “Existing infrastructures for cable, satellite and broadband distribution of 3D content are limited in bandwidth,” says Dabaghi. “3D content typically requires twice as much image data to be delivered compared with 2D. While this may be less of an issue for fibre-based broadband deployments, bandwidth remains one of the biggest infrastructural challenges. In addition to that, many if not all of the existing customer premise equipment (CPE) terminating the video stream, namely set-top boxes, are not equipped to handle two separate image streams required to enable 3D.”
Mashood Ahmad is the Middle East’s regional managing director for network specialist Ciena. His firm recently upgraded core networks in Riyadh to carry up to 100GB/s capacity with telco Mobily, the first commercial network in the region to break three figures. He reckons that this could be the bandwidth breakthrough that enables widespread use of 3D in the KSA and beyond. “One of the issues often overlooked is the role of networks, where we fit in behind emergent 3D services,” he says. “To give an example, a standard SD channel on an IPTV-type network compression is only around 2Mgs bandwidth per second, whereas a 3D channel broadcast in HD can consume up
to 30Mg/s. That requires 15 times more capacity.
“Essentially what Ciena does is provide networking equipment in the core, and also in the access to support the various layers of applications or network layers that operators have. We are in the core of the network,” adds Ahmad. “If an operator wants to build a 3D, IPTV, voice or broadband offering on top of that, we’re pretty much agnostic to whatever traffic we carry. What we specialise in is being able to carry whatever type of traffic that may be, all as wavelengths that can have the highest capacity.”
As with most leading-edge broadcast ventures, the GCC is leading the way in the Middle East thanks to its push for fibre. But 3D is essentially hamstrung by its own technology, and broadcasters are increasingly having to address a chicken-and-egg scenario. “Do we create 3D content then enable the consumer segment to access it, or do the reverse?” asks Georges Dabaghi. “As VOD is in its infancy regionally it’s difficult to answer, but availing a few quality and premiere titles helps to gauge the market, and the initial uptake, albeit with a few titles, beats expectation. From a user interest the appetite is there, and consumption is definitely made higher by the falling price of 3D TV sets – in the UAE I note a significant decline of approximately 40 per cent in the price of a 3D TV set from the beginning of 2010 – and by the infiltration of broadband into the homes.”
Mashood Ahmad’s opinion certainly runs towards the higher end of optimism: “We’ve seen a large adoption of 3DTV and HDTV, and next-generation video content, for the last couple of years. Certainly 2011 has become the year of 3DTV, the natural successor of HD. Across the industry, several firms have launched their product ranges; TV stations have started broadcasting their major events in 3D, and we’re starting to see new 3D movies coming up as the emerging format. It’s not sufficient just have an HD experience.”
Yet Simon Farnsworth is far more cautious. For him, there are simply too many unknowns floating around the market for anyone to tout this year as a breakthrough. However, he does feel that the move towards 3D will be led by consumer manufacturers such as Sony. “Eventually mainstream 3D will happen because the technology is there, and if you look at the model that Sony is taking for example, for Wimbledon, whereby they’ve bought the out-of-home 3D viewing rights worldwide, they are deciding that it’s time to take matters even further into their own hands.
“But broadcasters and cinema networks are concerned about their return on investment,” he adds. “Right now I just don’t think there are enough 3D television sets out there to make this work. But if the likes of James Murdoch want to do something they’ll do it, because they have control over so many markets. If he has Sony on his back saying, “Keep doing this, because we will sell more TVs and will spend X amount of money advertising on your networks,” then clearly he will do it.”
So is 2011 the year the breakthrough year for 3D? Probably not, says Farnsworth – mainly as the uptake on consumer 3D technology is based around major sporting events like last year’s World Cup; something which won’t be happening until the European Championships and Olympics kick off next summer. “This year we’re in an ‘off’ year, with the Cricket World Cup not being produced in 3D. I don’t think the Rugby World Cup will be produced in 3D either,” he says. “Next year, however, we’ve got the European Championship in football and the Olympic Games. If those host broadcasting organisations decide to produce content in 3D then you might see a bit of a rush. The movie market will obviously continue to grow in 2011. But I’d be surprised if the consumer market moved a great deal this year.” As far as 2011 is concerned, it looks like being another year of hyperbole and posturing. 2012 on the other hand – now that might just be 3D’s year.
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