News Stories

10 More 3D Blu-Ray Titles, Including ‘Clash of the Titans,’ Going On Sale

“A Christmas Carol,” “Open Season” and “Cats and Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore” among the titles released Tuesday. /

3D Blu-ray stakeholders will no doubt be pleased that 10 titles in the new format go on sale Tuesday — the largest number to hit market in a single day, since the format was released less than a year ago.

That takes the number of 3D Blu-ray titles available through retail to 15, according to the Blu-Ray Disc Association. Four additional titles are available through bundling agreements with consumer electronics hardware makers.

“It becomes a chicken and egg situation,” said Andy Parsons — U.S. chairman of the BDA promotions committee and senior vp, product planning, Pioneer Home Entertainment Group — of the 3D Blu-ray rollout, pointing to consumer electronics equipment sales versus available content. “Having new content available for everyone who has already bought the players should be a very welcome thing.”

The 3D Blu-ray titles that will be released Tuesday include: Disney’s A Christmas Carol; Sony’sOpen Season; and Warner Bros.’ Clash of the Titans, Cats and Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore,and Robert Zemeckis’ 2004 film The Polar Express, which was an Imax 3D release. Three additional Imax titles go on sale tomorrow via Warners, which are Space Station 3D, Under the Sea 3D and Deep Sea 3D.  Paramount debuts The Last Airbender in 3D Blu-Ray, through a Best Buy exclusive. As well, Sony Pictures is releasing The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Film in 3D, a movie the encompasses the 3D lensed during the soccer World Cup, held last summer in South Africa.

“It is a content-driven business,” Parsons said. “When you have important titles coming out, it shows a real commitment on the part of the studios.”

BDA research suggested that as of September, roughly 25% of Blu-ray players sold in the domestic market had 3D capabilities. To view 3D at home, a 3D-capable TV is also required.

by Carolyn Giardina

source: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/10-3d-blu-ray-titles-45490

MUSCADE 1-day 3DTV Workshop, Dec. 16, Sevigne, France

The last 5 years have seen the successful re-introduction of 3D stereoscopic content in movie theatres, with high peaks of interests shown by spectators in 2009. Consequently, the manufacturing of 3D TV sets and the deployment of 3DTV infrastructures have started in 2010, as it is widely accepted that the next step of entertainment evolution in the home is going to be a transition from HDTV to 3DTV. All the solutions that are envisaged so far are based on similar concepts than the ones used in cinema, that is to say using glasses (polarised or shutters). It is then natural to foresee that, for home application, there will be a trend in the coming years to improve even further the level of immersion of the spectator into the scene by suppressing the need of glasses (e.g., through the use of auto-stereoscopic displays, light field displays), so as to introduce new 3D audio experiences and more compelling 3D interactivity platforms.

To support this action, the MUSCADE Consortium organises a 1-day 3DTV Workshop targeting the production, transmission, rendering and display of more immersive 3D content than just 3D-Stereo. This workshop will take place in Rennes, France close to the R&D Centre of Technicolor, one of MUSCADE’s partners, on 16th December 2010. In addition to keynote and paper sessions, some demonstrations illustrating the concepts described above will be presented. This event is envisaged to provide a great opportunity for disseminating and promoting the accruing MUSCADE technologies among the attendees.

Location: Supelec, Rennes Campus-Avenue de la Boulaie-35510 Cesson Sevigne, France. Close to Technicolor’s R&D center.

Date: December 16th 2010

Click here to access the program of this one-day workshop.

Source: http://www.muscade.eu/announcement.html

EARLIER POST ON SAME TOPIC: https://www.etcenter.org/2010/10/3dtv-workshop-by-muscade-multimedia-scalable-3d-for-europe/

< PREVIOUS ARTICLES NEXT ARTICLES >

Specification for Naming VFX Image Sequences Released

ETC’s VFX Working Group has published a specification for best practices naming image sequences such as plates and comps. File naming is an essential tool for organizing the multitude of frames that are inputs and outputs from the VFX process. Prior to the publication of this specification, each organization had its own naming scheme, requiring custom processes for each partner, which often resulted in confusion and miscommunication.

The new ETC@USC specification focuses primarily on sequences of individual images. The initial use case was VFX plates, typically delivered as OpenEXR or DPX files. However, the team soon realized that the same naming conventions can apply to virtually any image sequence. Consequently, the specification was written to handle a wide array of assets and use cases.

To ensure all requirements are represented, the working group included over 2 dozen participants representing studios, VFX houses, tool creators, creatives and others.  The ETC@USC also worked closely with MovieLabs to ensure that the specification could be integrated as part of their 2030 Vision.

A key design criteria for this specification is compatibility with existing practices.  Chair of the VFX working group, Horst Sarubin of Universal Pictures, said: “Our studio is committed to being at the forefront of designing best industry practices to modernize and simplify workflows, and we believe this white paper succeeded in building a new foundation for tools to transfer files in the most efficient manner.”

This specification is compatible with other initiatives such as the Visual Effects Society (VES) Transfer Specifications. “We wanted to make it as seamless as possible for everyone to adopt this specification,” said working group co-chair and ETC@USC’s Erik Weaver. “To ensure all perspectives were represented we created a team of industry experts familiar with the handling of these materials and collaborated with a number of industry groups.”

“Collaboration between MovieLabs and important industry groups like the ETC is critical to implementing the 2030 Vision,” said Craig Seidel, SVP of MovieLabs. “This specification is a key step in defining the foundations for better software-defined workflows. We look forward to continued partnership with the ETC on implementing other critical elements of the 2030 Vision.”

The specification is available online for anyone to use.

Oops, something went wrong.