The first 3D television sets are now on sale and 3DTV trials are beginning to evolve into commercial services as manufacturers, retailers, content owners, game developers and pay-TV operators take to market a technology whose potential success is largely unknown.

We are now at the “hype” stage of the products’ evolution as 3DTV’s more enthusiastic backers talk about a fourth transformation of television viewing after the change from black and white to colour, from analogue to digital and from standard to high definition.

But will the illusion of three dimensions on television sets in the living room prove to be more than a passing fad, soon to be superseded by another technological innovation?

There is certainly a massive push from consumer-electronics manufacturers and the Hollywood studios for 3DTV to become the “next big thing” in consumers’ living rooms. For the studios, wrestling with the unauthorised distribution of their products online and on DVD, 3D represents a way to create experiences that cannot be so easily pirated.

But supply-side desire does not necessarily create consumer success. This year’s World Cup was used by broadcasters including the USA’s EPSN, France’s TF1 and Spain’s Canal Plus to showcase 3DTV. Four years ago, the consumer-electronics industry exploited the previous edition of football’s top event to promote an earlier “next big thing” – broadcast mobile television. The advocates of 3DTV will be hoping for a better result this time.

There are several important barriers to consumer acceptance of 3DTV. The first is the need for consumers to buy new television sets. The initial models start at €2,200 in the UK (or €2,000 in the USA), putting them beyond the reach of most households’ budgets. In any case, many homes have only recently spent significant amounts of money on plasma or other flat-screen displays for HDTV and so might not be looking to buy another big screen for a few years.

Consumers will also need to acquire the glasses that enable the 3D images to be viewed. While one leading manufacturer (LG) is opting for relatively cheap “passive” polarized glasses, three others (Samsung, Panasonic and Sony) have adopted battery-powered “active” shutter glasses, which they claim create a better experience. The glasses do not come cheap (Samsung’s went on sale in the UK at £80 (€95) and the cost of equipping a whole family for the 3D living-room experience is going to be considerable.

Having invested all this money in hardware, the consumer who buys a 3DTV set today will then discover that there is not much he can do with it because there is little content to watch and it is likely to be many months before a significant amount becomes available.

Sports programs have made the early running in trial 3DTV services – as well as World Cup coverage by various broadcasters, Eurosport showed the Roland-Garros tennis tournament in Paris across Europe (relaying signals via satellite to a network of retail stories in partnership with Panasonic), and BSkyB has been showing Premier League football (initially in commercial premises ahead of a consumer launch this autumn). And Spain’s Digital Plus, more controversially, recently broadcast the world’s first 3DTV bullfight. The adult-entertainment sector also isn’t going to miss out on the possibilities of additional revenues from another format and is busily practicing its 3D moves.

The first Blu-ray 3D discs are due to go on sale this summer with about 15 Hollywood titles, a figure that is expected to double by the end of the year.

Not everyone’s experience of viewing 3DTV through special glasses is going to be a pleasant one. Samsung equipment comes with a warning about potential health risks (particularly for children and teenagers) from 3D viewing, including epileptic seizure, altered vision, nausea, confusion and eye strain. Negative press coverage and word of mouth around this issue could seriously undermine the marketing campaigns of 3DTV’s proponents.

Early movers

Despite these factors, UK satellite pay-TV operator Sky is confident that 3DTV will follow a similar adoption curve to its previous new products of its PVR (Sky Plus) and HDTV. Sky 3D launched in April with the screening of a Premier League football match (Arsenal Vs. Manchester United) in nine pubs that had been equipped with 3D television sets. More sport is planned for the roll-out of the service to Sky subscribers in the autumn (to be bundled with top-tier subscriptions) along with films, documentaries, ballet and live music.

In France, Orange last month launched a 3DTV service for its IPTV subscribers combining sport (football, tennis and rugby) with culture (opera and theatre). Rival Canal Plus plans to launch its 3DTV service later in the year.

In the USA, satellite operator DirecTV was due to launch a trio of 3DTV channels at the end of this month while ESPN kicked off its 3D sports channel on June 11 with World Cup coverage. Documentary broadcaster Discovery has promised its first 3D TV channel in 2011.

South Korea is perhaps the most enthusiastic country as far as 3DTV is concerned, not least because the government believes the technology can create business for local manufacturers LG and Samsung and jobs for Koreans. Sky Life, the South Korean DTH operator, launched the world’s first 3D channel in January 2010, - showing sports, concerts, animation and entertainment programs, some of which produced by its own Sky HD subsidiary.

Adding the third dimension

One big debate that is dividing opinion is on whether to fill the void in original 3D program production by remastering programmes shot in conventional two-dimensional format – rather as genuine (“native”) HDTV has been supplemented by “up-converted” standard-definition content.

Remastering (or “up-dimensioning” as it has been dubbed) has its advocates, such as Brazil’s TV Globo which argue that it offers a way to provide a wider range of 3D programmes quickly at a lower cost. But Sky (UK) is strongly opposed to up-conversion which it sees as a potential threat to 3DTV - warning that the consumer proposition could be undermined if too much inferior converted product is released into the market. Sky will not classify anything that was not shot in native 3D as 3D.

Even working with native 3D, content creators are going to have to learn how to produce good-quality programs for the new format. Different editing styles will be needed and it will take time for expertise to develop.

A key advantage of the “frame-compatible” approach adopted by Sky, Orange and other operators – where left and right eye images are squeezed onto a single HD channel – is that it can be work with existing HD set-top boxes but the resolution of the image in each “eye” is reduced by half. In contrast, the Blu-ray Disk Association (BDA) is opting for “service-compatible” 3D which delivers full HD 1080p resolution to both eyes. While consumers will not need a new set-top box to watch 3DTV broadcasts, they will need a new player to watch recorded Blu-ray discs in three dimensions. 

While no one is anticipating a format war à la Blu-ray/HD DVD, there are still standardisation issues to resolve as well as debates about which is the best format for frame-compatible 3D – side-by-side, above and below, interleave – and about the pros and cons active or passive glasses. The equipment to enable viewing without glasses – “auto-stereoscopic” television – is not likely to be viable for commercial services for several years to come.

Early days

How big will 3DTV be? It is too early to tell, although forecasts for 2015 include a global total of 85 million sets (Korean Communications Commission) and 70 million (Informa Telecoms & Media). According to Informa, “Although near-term sales of 3D TV sets may be limited, it should not be too long before all new TV sets available are 3D-ready. The optimistic observers believe that this will happen in the next three to five years, although the likelihood is that it will be longer”

Given the huge backing of the entertainment and consumer electronics industries, it seems likely that 3DTV will prove to be more than an expensive gimmick and that it will at least carve out a niche market – perhaps among video-gamers, the viewers who are most interested in the more “immersive” viewing experience that the format offers.

Beyond that, it remains to be seen if, over the longer term, Hollywood’s appetite for making films in 3D is sustained by box-office and Blu-ray income and whether the three-dimensional experience is something that consumers in their masses will want to have as a regular part of their television viewing at home rather than an occasional treat in the cinema.

June 28th 2010