“Tokyo Control” will only be available to about 391,000 subscribers to SkyPerfecTV’s high-def service; only some of them have 3D televisions.

Planes will be popping out of screens in Japan this month as Sony is launching the country’s first 3D television series, a drama about air traffic controllers dubbed “Tokyo Control.”

Sony supplied the 3D technical support for the 10-episode series, which is produced by Fuji TV. It’s set to debut on satellite broadcaster SkyPerfecTV’s 3D channel on January 19.

Starring Ayako Kawahara and Saburo Tokito, the show will include 3D scenes such as a staffer at the Tokyo Air Traffic Control Center imagining dozens of small planes all around her as she works.

Director Gaku Narita apparently traveled to Hollywood to consult with production staff from James Cameron’s “Avatar” before shooting began.

While 3D technology had another big CES showing this year and parts of the World Cup have been aired in 3D, “Tokyo Control” will be the first 3D TV series. It will only be available to about 391,000 subscribers to SkyPerfecTV’s high-def service; only some of them have 3D televisions.

“The 3D era began last year, and this year is its development phase,” Akira Shimazu, Sony’s senior manager in charge of 3D projects, was quoted by The Wall Street Journal as saying.

Original post here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20028369-1.html?tag=mncol

Sigma Designs, a provider of System-on-Chip (SoC) solutions for delivering and displaying entertainment and control throughout the home, has introduced its SMP8910 media processor, what it calls one of the first chips to integrate VXP studio-quality video processing and 3-D video processing into a high-performance media processor.

The new processor chip will enhance the viewing experience and performance for connected media players, Blu-ray players and IPTV set-top boxes. SMP8910 samples will be available to customers in the first half of 2011.

The SMP8910 provides more than 6000DMIPS via a dual-core, 1004K MIPS CPU. The chip’s distributed-processing architecture features task-optimized CPU that manage key processes, including HD multiformat video decoding, 3-D graphics rendering, content protection and security management, and multiformat audio encoding and decoding. This architecture leaves more than 3000DMIPS of available processing to smoothly run middleware, set-top box applications and the latest over-the-top applications.

Included VXP technology creates a rich, studio-grade viewing experience and is proven in demanding applications such as digital cinema projectors, prosumer A/V receivers and processors, broadcast monitors and premium-quality Blu-ray players. VXP excels at upscaling images, eliminating noise and video compression artifacts, and performing numerous image enhancements, such as adaptive contrast and detail enhancement.

The SMP8910 also includes two new VXP features: de-ghosting and adaptive debanding. De-ghosting reduces ghosting artifacts present on most current 3-D TVs by preprocessing the 3-D video before driving the 3-D TV, resulting in a more pleasing and less fatiguing viewing experience. Adaptive debanding reduces color contouring, commonly seen as bands of color instead of continuously smooth shading, resulting in a more pleasing image without loss of detail, especially on large displays.

Original post here: http://broadcastengineering.com/products/sigma-designs-unveils-studio-grade-set-top-soc-3-d-20110111/index.html