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One to One Magazine
April 2009
3D - The New Industry Battleground
Hurdles need to be cleared before 3D is ready for prime time. Joy Zaccaria speaks to a cross-section of players who need to come together to make 3D a must-have for consumers.
In order for 3D to be a viable viewing format, there needs to be a coordinated effort among display
manufacturers, movie studios, content creators, production, post-production, and those behind the
technology to make what was once a flat moving image into an image that has a new dimension.
The Consumer Electronics Show was a big 3D party this year. From broadcast to consumer electronics and
the cinema, the whole industry is excited about the prospects of 3D. Regardless of who needs whom, Blu-ray
and 3D need to work well together for either to succeed. Since video games are already being created with
3D information in them, this sector is leading the way.
Chris Chinnock, presidentof InsightMedia and
leader of the 3D@Home Consortium.
Chris Chinnock
The big take-away from CES in Las Vegas in
January is that3D is now squarely on the
roadmaps for major consumer electronics
companies –
that’s a big
change.This is
top-line
messaging from
Panasonic, Sony,
LG and Samsung.
Wow! 3D went
very well
this year.
Based on all of
the manufacturer
demos and a lot
of buzz at CES,
we’re passed the
hump and we
have reached
critical mass for 3D. This is notgoing to be a fad;
this is a movement. Panasonic demonstrated a
103in plasma display with 3D content from the
opening ceremony at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to
knock your socks off. It was very impressive. Most
people preferred the LCD TV. The plasma display
used active glasses so those were a little heavier;
LCD had passive glasses, but that meant more
pixilation – and it was a little brighter.
NVidia’s announcement regarding the new driver board and active glasses it is bundling with manufacturers to enable a whole new class of 3D monitors for 3D gaming could be a big initiative in the home for 3D. That was important.
There's going to be a lot happening in the next few years in this area, so it's going to be fun!
Sarah Carroll, director strategy consulting &
continuous services, Futuresource
Sarah Carroll
Enthusiasm for 3D was clear in the keynotes at
CES. Hollywood
executives talked
about how the
industry has
taken a massive
step forward in
terms of the
viewing
experience for
consumers.
Display
manufacturers
were
demonstrating
3D more
enthusiastically
than we thought they would be. We knew 3D was building, but there are still some issues that need
to be resolved to make it a mass-market success.
3D can create great renewal in this business.
Hollywood won’t be happy unless they can exploit that 3D content in other windows, not least in the home via Blu-ray – home video is still the largest part of their revenue. The cinema window is important, but the holy grail is home video. For those in the broadcast industry, 3D also has the potential to rejuvenate a business where HD is starting to mature in some markets.
Bill Foster, senior technology consultant,
Futuresource
Bill Foster
From a replicator’s standpoint, 3D is not a whole
lot different since a feature in 3D will probably fit
initially on a BD50. It may mean more production
and a double inventory if a studio chooses to put
out two SKUs – a 2D version and a 3D version.
3D on Blu-ray will have to be sanctioned by the
BDA and it will have to be part of the format.
There are lots of proprietary solutions going
around but everything has to be standardised,
otherwise Brand
X’s Blu-ray player
won’t show 3D
on Brand Y’s
plasma. That’s
the neck of the
hourglass.
Standardisation
takes time since
everyone has to
agree, but
Hollywood can’t
wait. There have
been interim
solutions such as
the Hannah
Montana discs that have come out in the coloured
glasses format called anaglyph, but longer term a
more sophisticated system will be required.
3D cinema is creating a groundswell, especially
the movie Avatar, from James Cameron –
everybody says that’s going to be the big one. In
theory it is going to push cinema owners to put in
3D equipment. James Cameron has studied 3D
very closely, and it’s felt in the industry that what
he does with it will be stunning. He ‘gets it’. It’s
not just about having things thrown at you and
you ducking. There are aspects to 3D that are more
subtle and he understands it.
David Chechelashvili, VP of marketing, iZ3D
David Chechelashvili
There are two major obstacles in the way of mass-market 3D acceptance. One is a more comfortable
3D experience. Most people associate 3D with the
red and blue
glasses from the
’60s and
headaches and
discomfort.
Education is key
to overcoming
that image. At
iZ3D we believe
the user
experience should
be comfortable,
so we use a
technology called passive
polarisation. It’s
similar to what
RealD uses in 3D movie theatres with polarised
glasses thatare more like sunglasses – except
they have eight choices of designer glasses. iZ3D
targets gamers, so it is important that they have a
choice of cool glasses.
The second obstacle is content availability – that’s
where the games come into the picture. Games are
already made in 3D but 3D information built into
games is not being utilised in regular screens. We’re
taking advantage of the built-in 3D information.
Once the 3D driver is installed on a monitor, any 3D
game will work in it. In a couple of years when
availability of 3D movies on Blu-ray increases, the
adoption of 3D will move to the mainstream.
Neil Schneider, CEO, Meant to be Seen
Neil Schneider
Gamers are early adopters of exciting
technologies like 3D and they are very much a
viral community. Gaming is going to be the link:
itis going to build the demand for 3D in the
home while we’re waiting for the standards to
take place. Once the standards are settled,
cinema will follow.
One obstacle is the myth about 3D glasses.
Articles criticise the ‘dorky glasses’ and there is a
lot of judgement about 3D before the
technology is actually tried. As far as the
acceptance of 3D glasses goes, it’s very high. I
think people will invest in autostereoscopic –
meaning glasses-free technologies – but I don’t
know if this is actually necessary. Are customers
really complaining about this?
Meant to be Seen ran a survey to determine what customers really think about 3D. One
survey was designed for traditional 2D gamers
who don’t own the equipment. Another was
designed for people who owned modern 3D equipment such
as monitors,
head-mounted
displays and
glasses. I was
surprised that, of
the people who
don’t yet own
the equipment,
almost 65
percent see 3D
as intriguing
while 27 percent
said it was must-have technology.
I was most excited about the results of the 3D
glasses questions. Based on traditional 2D gamers,
people who don’t yet own the equipment, only 12
percentare against wearing glasses while playing
video games.This jumps to 16 percent for Blu-ray, so
once you’re dealing with Blu-ray movies instead of
games, there’s more rejection.
There are disadvantages in home cinema
compared with gaming. A gamer playing on a PC
will spend top dollar on a computer and will want
the best possible visual experience. He wants to be
oblivious to everything else in the room. Instead of
Blu-ray bringing 3D into the home, it’s gaming
that will bring customers to Blu-ray.
David Naranjo, director of product development
for the AV products group, Mitubishi
David Naranjo
With evidence from Beowulf that came out in 3D
in 2007, and recently The Journey to the Center of
the Earth and My Bloody Valentine, ticket sales
have shown that some people are willing to pay
up to twice as much for 3D in the theatres as for a
standard version of the same movie. This means
more revenue for the studios while showing these
movies in fewer theatres.
At CES in January, Mitsubishi promoted
technology to bring 3D to the home. We offer
large-screen televisions that leverage 3D-ready
capability: that means our TVs are able to display
3D content in a checkerboard format.
Mitsubishi is now partnered with NVidia, the
makers of graphics cards, and a company called
Aspen Media that makes PCs.This offers
consumers a
gaming solution
that will allow
them to play over
350 games that
were created in
2D, and the
system renders
them on the fly
in 3D.
Many people
are purchasing
Blu-ray players.
3D should be an
add-on feature
for Blu-ray, as
opposed to making someone buy a new
Blu-ray player.
How the industry presents 3D will determine its
success. You have to do it well for people to be
grabbed by the wow factor. Mitsubishi is putting
demo systems out at retail to display 3D content
running off their TVs. This is building momentum.
People see this transition like HDTV. In 1989 people
knew it was coming and once they saw it, it was
here to stay.
Rob de Vogel, senior director business creation,
Philips
Rob de Vogel
We develop tools to create content in the right
form for our displays. They are not for home use,
but rather mainly they are active in the B2B world
of digital signage and scientific specialisation.
We started with 3D in B2B because they are less
price-sensitive markets and, importantly, it allows
for more controlled rollouts.
We think 3D is absolutely the next big thing but
it will be a controlled rollout, first in B2B, then
controlled
environments,
then packaged
media, then full
fledged television.
3D is not so much
about a display or
a Blu-ray player,
it’s about the
whole chain:
production of
content, editing,
distribution of
content and
playing it back to
home.
Mark Horton, strategic marketing manager,
Quantel
Mark Horton
Quantel has been out on the road for nearly a year,
showing stereoscopic 3D to everyone we could. As
a manufacturer of high-end visual effects and
editing systems for film and television, we learned
a great deal from individuals and companies who
are already
involved in stereoscopic 3D.
I’ve drawn
two conclusions
from the road
trip: first, there is
a lot more
stereoscopic 3D happening out
there than
people realise.
And, second, this
is potentially the
biggest opportunity for
our industry in years and we need to work as an
industry to make ithappen. If we get it right,
everyone wins.
This industry is ultimately about entertaining
and educating people. Channel proliferation has
changed the economics of broadcasting, as have
games and the web. Broadcasters are adapting
by cutting costs, improving efficiency, offering
HD services, increasing the use of user-
generated content and looking for new delivery
revenue streams.
These are all good measures to improve their
position versus other broadcasters – but
stereoscopic 3D offers the prospectof grabbing back
viewers who spend their time on the web or playing
games. Today, if you shoot digitally, post digitally and
transmit digitally, stereoscopic 3D is less difficult
than many imagine. Also, well-shot stereo may have
some compression-friendly characteristics – there is
similarity between the ‘eyes’.
I have been told that there are still many issues
to be resolved for working on 3D content in post-production and that customers have all the day-to-day issues of conventional 2D projects
multiplied by at least two. 3D projects mean
double the recorded material – that means double
the disc space, double the rendering overhead and
double the issues with moving media.
There are issues in off-line. You can’t judge
depth effects, you can’t judge the pace of the
project (3D feels better with longer, slower shots),
you can’t easily see if there are colorimetry,
positioning or synchronisation issues between the
cameras etc. That all means off lines are
guesswork and much more fixing needs to be
done in the online sessions.
While 3D post is still suffering its growing
pains, colour TV was difficult as well.
Nicholas Routhier,CEO,Sensio Technologies
Nicholas Routhier
Sensio already has a library and rights to 40 titles
such as Jaws 3D, and we’re the only one signing
deals with studios.
Big studios like Disney, Warner and Universal
are pushing more for 3D on the theatrical side.
They have great titles and executives are asking:
‘When are we going to release 3D for the
consumer market and get all the extra revenues?’
Disney has the same roadmap for 3D that it
had for digital cinema. It wanted digital cinema to
happen, so it made Chicken Little and pushed and
advocated 3D, and now you have digital cinema
worldwide. Before there was 3D, digital cinema
was going nowhere. Disney is thinking that,
similarly, 3D is going to be the killer app for
Blu-ray. 3D requires more bandwidth and, in the
DVD specs, there’s not much room to manoeuvre. Blu-ray has extra
capacity on the
disc, more
bandwidth.
The DVD
Forum is looking
at standards.
Sensio has met
all the
requirements of
the DVD Forum
and they have
been accepted as
an optional
standard – the
way DTS is for audio. It’s the first time any
standards body has recognised the technology as
a standard for 3D distribution.
Guido Dalessi,CEO,Singulus Mastering
Guido Dalessi
3D glasses are a hurdle preventing a real consumer
market pick-up. The screens that do not require
any special glasses will greatly improve market
acceptance potential.
In the past one or two years a lot of people
have purchased a HD flatscreen TV, and I am not
sure that these people will consider purchasing a
new display for
3D again on a
short notice. I
would not expect
3D TV to become
an immediate
consumer
success, but it
probably will be
in a couple of
years. It will
depend a lot on
the availability of
the right content.
At the same
time, the extra
dimension could be appreciated in the same way
as going from mono to stereo sound, giving a clear
next step forward in the desire to totally
experience movies.
www.3dathome.org
www.futuresource-consulting.com
www.insight-media.com
www.iz3d.com
www.mitsubishi.com
www.mtbs3d.com
www.philips.com
www.quantel.com
www.sensio.tv
www.singulus.de