Many existing
Grass Valley products are easily adapted to 3D operation with minimal modifications. Thus production companies can, without heavily investing in new 3D-specific technologies, develop practical skills and experiences which will enrich and empower them as the market for 3D evolves in the coming months and years.
Digital projection has enabled an old idea—stereoscopic 3D movies—to give the movies a new lease on life. Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert took the box office record for a Super Bowl weekend opening in 2008, and more recently Avatar has become the first movie to exceed $1 billion USD at the box office, both due to being 3D productions.
Seeing the success in theaters, television content producers and distributors have expressed interest in establishing their own stereoscopic 3D services. Channel launches for 2010 have been announced in both North America and Europe.
Consumer electronics manufacturers are excited by the prospect as they see a way of revitalizing television receiver sales, which are currently depressed by the falling prices of flat panel displays and a drop in demand following the initial surge. In the US, consumer electronics manufacturers are sponsoring some of the proposed channel launches.
There are both technical and creative reasons why 3D to the home is very different than 3D in the movie theater. This paper does not attempt to enter this debate (although some of the technical issues will be touched on for context). It looks instead at how today’s technologies can be used and adapted for 3D production, and what special considerations need to be made.
3D television
