It’s no secret in the industry that 3D production is expensive, but, at Sports Business Journal’s Sports Media Technology Conference this week in New York, attendees found out just how much it costs.

“It was about six times the cost of a normal game,” Ray Hopkins, COO of the YES Network, reported. “And we do 14 cameras for a normal Yankees game. From a cost perspective, it’s somewhat prohibitive. You need a separate truck, separate technical personnel, announcers, cameras.”

Added Jerry Passaro, SVP of network operations and distribution for MSG Media, “the biggest deterrent is the cost.”

Alternative Production Methods
To alleviate some of those costs, ESPN is working toward being able to use one production team to produce both a 2D and 3D broadcast of a game, and the NBA has done some experiments with single-camera 3D.

“At that point, our intention is to give you a courtside seat, with everything that comes with that,” explained Steve Hellmuth, EVP of operations and technology for NBA Entertainment. “You’ll see the referees walking in front of you, the play going down to the other end of the court and coming back to you. I’ve watched entire NBA games from a single 3D camera, and it’s a great experience. That’s one way people can experience 3D without the huge fees required for multiple-camera events.”

Such a solution also works for events where the main cover camera — say, on the 50-yard line in football — does not offer much depth because it must be placed so far away from the field of play. Another option to bring costs down is to incorporate selected 2D cameras into a 3D broadcast. For CBS’s production of the Final Four, the production team used a 2D aerial camera that gave a big-game look to the broadcast and was upconverted to a makeshift 3D using the switcher.

“From overhead, you don’t really get that 3D effect anyway,” explained Ken Aagaard, EVP of engineering, operations, and production services for CBS Sports. “I mixed that into the 3D feed because you want to make the event look important. The dilemma that we all face is, you have to be able to show the three dimensions but also show the ball going into the hole. There’s an interesting dynamic there that we all struggle with.”

Is 3D Like SD to HD?
Mark Hess, SVP of advanced business and technology development for Comcast Cable, said the good news is that, this time around, the distributors are 3D-ready; with HD, they were not. However, without turning 3D into a business, Passaro said, the medium has a limited future.

“Affiliate revenue will make it a business,” Hopkins added. “We’ve seen this movie before, in HD. When the parent companies call and say we want games in 3D, that’s when we’ll get it done.”

Although some are quick to liken the SD-to-HD transition to today’s HD-to-3D jump, others are not sure that the parallel is quite equal.

“I don’t see 3D being like SD to HD,” Aagaard said. “I see 3D being more of a niche. Hopefully, it will be a big niche. For us, the manufacturers have been paying for the party as it relates to production costs. When that well goes dry, where is that revenue really going to come from?”

Varied Demand for 3D Content
The other important question to ask is where does the demand for 3D come from?

“When I grew up, I was my dad’s remote control,” Hess said. “We all sat there as a family and watched TV. Now my wife’s doing something on her laptop, my daughter’s on her phone — it’s difficult to get a group of people together and really enjoy a 3D experience.”

Internationally, however, there may be additional opportunities for 3D production.

“We’re starting to engage with our international licensees about delivering 3D,” Hellmuth said. “Canal Plus did a six-camera 3D telecast of FC Barcelona versus the Lakers, and it looked really good. There will be some interest in cinemas for the NBA, especially in Asia, some distribution via computer, and then potential for the league for compilation DVDs. There’s no single wow factor here, but it’s just beginning.”

Added Chuck Pagano, EVP of technology for ESPN, “once you get more of a complement of programming together, you start to create business models that make sense.”

by By: Carolyn Braff, Managing Editor

source: http://sportsvideo.org/main/blog/2010/11/17/sbj-smt-the-business-of-3d/

USC SCA and Michael Peyser mentioned /

Following the eye-popping success of Avatar in China and the recent flop of China’s latest homegrown 3D film, Don Quixote, Ellen Eliasoph, the former head of Warner Bros. China and Bai Qiang, the founder of a new company called 3D-China, have teamed up to explain and promote the technology shaking Hollywood to the China’s burgeoning film industry and the growing masses of Chinese middle-class moviegoers.

Together with the government of the biggest city district in China’s capital, Eliasoph and Bai on Thursday launched the 1st 3D Creation Expo in the 250-seat state-of the art 3ality 3D theater at the Chaoyang Museum of Urban Planning.

Free to the public through Sunday, the expo will feature rock concert film U2 3D, a 3D promotional video from the U.S. Air Force, a 3D U.S college football game from ABC Disney’s ESPN between Indiana and Michigan and a film about a Chinese fashion show called Catwalk 3D.

The expo comes at a time when China’s box office, up 86% in the first half of this year, is boosted in large part by Hollywood blockbusters such as Avatar, which grossed $204 million here, more in China than any territory outside the U.S. Much of that film’s success was on China’s some 800 3D screens, where tickets went for upwards of 100 yuan ($15) each.

After the failure of Chinese director A Gan’s 3D movie Don Quixote, which was pulled from screens quickly after its Oct. 15 premiere, Bai said there was much work to be done for Chinese 3D to catch up with Hollywood. “It somewhat shakes the confidence of Chinese movie industry in doing 3D,” Bai told The Hollywood Reporter. “The pure domestic attempts on 3D have not been very eager.”

To encourage the development and domestic use of the technology, the 3D Creation Expo also will feature a short film called Hi from Hollywood, produced by film students at the University of Southern California now taking the classes of professor Michael Peyser, producer of U2 3D, among other films.

The expo, which initially drew about 175 guests, mostly young Chinese film producers, filmmakers and students, was scheduled to kick off with talks about 3D technology and the potential growth in the industry. A talk on the importance of storytelling to any film, 2D or 3D, was set to include Creative Artists Agency China president Peter Loehr, City of Life and Death director Lu Chuan, Greg Basser, CEO, Village Roadshow Entertainment Group and Qian Chong Yuan, director of the film department of Beijing Forbidden City Film Co.

Other guest panelists included Chen Xiaowei, CEO of Chengtian, the company that recently bought a stake in Hollywood’s Legendary Pictures, and Billy Wu, CEO of Technicolor China.

“Everybody’s interested in 3D production, but the workflow is not yet standardized so we have lots of room for improvement,” said Zhang Jianlong, who goes by Stego, general manager of new Beijing-based 3D production company d+. D+ is now doing the 3D work on Hong Kong director Tsui Hark’s Bona Film Group remake of the classic martial arts film The Flying Swords of Dragon Gate, starring Hollywood crossover star Jet Li.

China’s overall ticket sales soared 86% to $714 million from January through June and are sure to shatter 2009’s record box office take of $909 million.

“Twenty years ago when I started working in movies in Asia, Japan was the important territory,” said Eliasoph, now managing director of law firm Covington and Burling. “Now, it’s China and 3D is an important part of this industry’s growth.”

source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/3d-expo-seeks-explain-technology-46765