ESPN to Unveil 3-D Television Network in 2010

[MadBadger]

Sports broadcasting will enter a new dimension in 2010 ... the third dimension, as ESPN will unveil the industry's first 3-D network.

ESPN 3D will showcase a minimum of 85 live sporting events during its first year, beginning June 11 with the first 2010 FIFA World Cup match, featuring South Africa vs. Mexico, ESPN and ABC Sports president George Bodenheimer announced.

Other events to be produced in 3-D include the 2011 BCS National Championship Game, college basketball and football contests, up to 25 World Cup matches and the Summer X Games. Additional events will be announced at a later date.

"ESPN's commitment to 3-D is a win for fans and our business partners," Bodenheimer said in a statement. "ESPN 3D marries great content with new technology to enhance the fan's viewing experience and puts ESPN at the forefront of the next big advance for TV viewing."

ESPN has been testing ESPN 3D for more than two years, even showing a USC-Ohio State college football game in select theaters and to 6,000 fans at the Galen Center on USC's campus.

"This is a turning point for 3-D," Consumer Electronics Association CEO Gary Shapiro told USA Today.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=4796555

not really sure what to think about this.

[tridim]

1. 3D TV is inevitable.

If they do it right (by not using red/blue glasses) I'm all for it.

[MineralMan]

3. They're going to be stuck with the colored glasses,

since they can't use polarization due to the limitations of television. But...the glasses aren't going to be the disposable paper ones. Instead, they'll have optical quality lenses with no distortion. It's the distortion that gives you a headache with typical 3D.

I actually watched a 3D movie with real glasses once, and it was amazingly better. The technology has improved dramatically.

[EOTE]

4. Anaglyph glasses are antiques. I really doubt they're going to be used much in the future.

Newer televisions are coming equipped with a 3D port which will allow either wired or wireless glasses which while not polarized, can alternate between opaque and transparent based upon a signal coming from the TV. This will allow near transparent glasses where one lens will see even frames and the other odd. Also, certain projection types like DLP should be able to display polarized content, it's just a matter of splitting the TV's refresh rate into two alternating streams. This is relatively easy to do with 120hz and higher televisions, but 60hz displays apparently lack this ability. Perhaps in the near future, there will be a 3D format for 60hz displays that provides 2 alternating 30fps signals, we'll have to see. I haven't read much about ESPN 3D as of yet, but I know that their theater presentations of 3D material have been with polarized lenses, I can't see them going back to anaglyph for the home market due to the drastic reduction of quality. I couldn't see myself enjoying a football game with everyone seeming to have a purplish tint to them.

[MineralMan]

5. Looking into it further, it appears that the ESPN plan requires

displays dedicated to their system. That's not going to fly, at least not on a large scale. The point about the anaglyph process is that it's cheap, available, and can be viewed on any monitor. Cheap is good. Quality? If it's done properly, it's not that big a deal, and the novelty would allow it to become popular, with a future path of shifting to new tech to improve quality.

Sell the sizzle, then the steak. Get people watching sports on an anaglyph system with their current displays, then show them how much better it is with the new technology at Best Buy. The real sports fans will buy into it.

The throw your old crap out or buy a separate, dedicated 3D system isn't going to play, and will slow adoption to a crawl.

[EOTE]

6. But anaglyph glasses, even on TV, were already a fad.

I know at the very least, they were available in the late 80s for viewing on conventional televisions. Granted, when a newer movie which was shown in 3d in theaters is released on Blu-ray and DVD now, they'll include an anaglyph version in the package somewhere, but most people won't even watch it because the quality is so poor. The Blu-ray 3D standard is almost finalized and we should be seeing it come to light in a few months. I'm not sure if it's going to require a DLP system or a television with a 3D port, but it's most likely going to require a TV with a refresh rate of 120hz or more. Yes, a dedicated 3D system isn't going to play, the adoption rate would be way too slow. But it appears as if the Blu-ray 3D standard isn't going to require a "3D ready" television, but will most likely require at least a relatively new set. Same thing most likely with ESPN 3D. It's certainly going to start off slowly, but in a few years, I'd imagine the bulk of television sets will be 120hz, so the adoption rate will increase naturally over time as more people get compatible televisions, whether they were looking for a 3D compatible set or not.

[MineralMan]

9. Personally, I'd prefer a wearable binocular virtual display for 3D

But that's just me. A virtual screen is kind of the ideal viewing experience. The low res ones never really caught on, mainly because there was no software to match their capabilities.

Now, they should be able to produce a high-def version of those things. Feeding two 60 hz images simultaneously, without any switching, would be a great way to get really excellent 3D on a virtual screen.

Things are going to pop with this stuff in the next few years, and there are going to be a lot of choices. It'll take some time for the whole thing to settle down to a single standard, though, and there's the rub.

[EOTE]

11. What you're proposing would be insanely expensive.

Two high def displays in wearable glasses would be adopted at a far slower rate than today's "3d ready" displays would be. As cool as that would be, I don't think we're going to be there for a few years (although I've seen similar devices, going back as far as a decade, but with very low resolution displays which are not independent). And the simultaneous part isn't really so important as the switching is done far faster than the human eye can perceive. Yes, there are going to be a few different ways of viewing 3D for a little bit, even anaglyph glasses have gotten an update with Colorcode as was seen during 2009's Superbowl and in an episode of Chuck in early 2009. But there will be a definitive 3D standard coming out very soon with Blu-ray 3D. The only question is how exacting will the specification be and what percentage of existing televisions will meet the standard. Frankly, I don't see why it's not possible to convert 24fps material into 30fps material in order to make it compatible for viewing on standard 60hz screens. Hopefully the bulk of HDTVs in existence today won't need to be upgraded to match the standard.

[MineralMan]

12. Oh, not necessarily.

Back around 1990, I saw some .75" diagonal 640 x 480 color displays at the LG or Canon booth at Comdex (can't remember which). One of the ways they showed it was in a wearable 3D display. They had an animation sequence running on it, and it was pretty amazing. The displays ended up in viewfinders for cameras, of course, but the tech was already well developed.

The other application they showed for that display was a micro PC that fit in your pocket. Little stylus keyboard, and it was running Windows. Pretty cool. I wanted to steal it, but it was cabled to the display stand.

[EOTE]

13. Yep, and there was Nintendo's Virtual Boy as well.

Which approximated 3D fairly well considering the display was a reddish monotone. But 640x480 is only about .3 megapixels. 1080P HD is around 2 megapixels, so you're talking more than 6 times as many pixels in a similar, less than 1" diagonal LCD. Even though this is 20 or so years later, HD LCDs of that size are pretty expensive. Two of them would be twice as expensive, which is a lot of money to spend for something that can be done nearly as well using a single LCD. I'm sure we're going to see something similar to what you've described in the near future (although it may be a while longer until they're fitted with independent displays), but I don't think there will be any 3d standard associated with something like that for a very long time. Would be quite cool, though.

[MineralMan]

14. Here's a link to some stuff that's either marginally available

or in the immediate pipeline. 720p is essentially available now, in the $500 range. 3D is definitely in the immediate future works with this tech. So, I'm not that far off base. Just a little early.

http://www.redwoodhouse.com/wearable/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=6

This site is pretty much on top of wearables...

[MineralMan]

17. OK, I'm seeing the problem...

The tech hasn't quite gotten there in any sort of affordable way.

http://www.wtsbroadcast.com/shop/product.asp?idproduct=18211

Here's a 1080p viewfinder for professional HD video cameras. at $8000 more or less, it's a little steep, I'll have to agree. And that's just for a single screen.

Still...it's coming down the road, no doubt. But, just imagine viewing separate binocular image 3d through a pair of these things. Uff da!

[EOTE]

18. It would be remarkably sweet.

But for the time being, there are much cheaper technologies with 90+% of the functionality. I have a few issues with the first link you provided. I couldn't find any 720P sets on that page, although one of the listings for wearable eyewear claimed 900,000+ pixels from a 640x480 display. Simple math shows that a 640x480 display has only a bit more than 300k pixels, whereas a true 720P display would have the 900K+ pixels claimed. And from what I've read so far, those displays don't operate independently. Yeah, they'll be available in time. For the time being, I'm more interested in getting a bit of the current 3d movie experience at home. I've got a couple of more modern displays, but still my current home theater uses a 720P 60hz projector. I've seen some stereoscope material on it and I was unimpressed. I hope I won't have to replace my projector in order to get a 3d experience that impresses me. I'm really not looking to drop the kind of money needed to get a 4K projector.

[MineralMan]

2. It's a no-brainer. Since large-screen HD TV's are

going into more and more homes, it's something that needs to be done. You need a large screen for effective 3-D, and high definition is also important. People won't be wearing crappy paper 3D glasses, either. Instead, they'll be using optical quality glasses, probably given away free by the cable companies or from ESPN itself.

With high-quality glasses and large screens, sports is an ideal way to start. Since Avatar and a few other high-budget films have been produced in 3D, as well, they'll be more content for 3-D TV, and will encourage the production of new films.

If they do this right, it will be the next wave of television, without any doubt. It may even induce me to buy a new TV.

[dkf]

7. That is what they want. Lcds and plasmas are too cheap

Gotta create the new premium tv to get you to buy buy buy.

[Yavin4]

8. Wow, I Can Watch The Browns Suck in 3-D

Thanks ESPN!

[MineralMan]

10. Yah, well, there'll be porn channel for it as soon as its available.

Either that or the porn industry will actually set this standard. It's certainly driven a whole lot of things on the internet.

[IndianaGreen]

15. LMAO

The Browns are better than the Bills, so take heart!

In other news, Mike Shanahan has been named the new Bills coach.

[Fumesucker]

16. Here is a website devoted to 3D recording and display..

Warning, it's quite large and all on one page but there is a considerable amount of information here.

http://www.anachrome.com/