by Tets Maniwa

April 9, 2010—Santa Clara, CA— On March 31st, 2010, iHollywood Forum sponsored a panel of 3-D dignitaries to look at the topic, "3-D Beyond The Hype". This was a chance to discover the latest about the hottest new technology in entertainment.

The evening focused on technology and market adoption. Clearly, 3-D has a strong foothold in cinema.  But in consumer electronics, the outlook is foggier.  There are big hurdles to consumer adoption: lack of content; no standards; no existing market; those darn glasses; and the difficulty of asking consumers to commit to new TVs and Blu-Ray players when they have barely digested their HDTVs. The future is bright, but when will it materialize? 

The panel was comprised of the following people:
Moderator: Michael Stroud,  CEO, iHollywood Forum 
Chris Cavigioli, Senior Strategic Planner, Multimedia, Intel
Rick Dean, Chairman, 3-D@Home Consortium; Sr. Vice President, THX Ltd. 
Eric Edmeades, CEO, ILM Spinoff Kerner Studios; camera work, "The Cove", this year's Oscar for best documentary.
Phil Eisler, General Manager, 3-D Vision, Nvidia
Barry B. Sandrew, Founder & President, Legend Films,  3-D for " Alice in Wonderland"
Marketing Manager, Standards & Regulatory, Harmonic Inc. 
Steve Venuti, President, HDMI Licensing, LLC
J. Patrick Waddell, Member, 3-D Working Group, MPEG Industry Forum; Technical Marketing Manager, Standards & Regulatory, Harmonic Inc.

Waddel started by describing the various efforts in standards and interoperability. The successful reentry of 3-D in movies portends well for the overall industry, and delivery to the home is coming. The primary groups working on standards are Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and its sub-group MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF), Society of Motion Picture and TV Engineers (SMPTE), Digital Video Broadcast (DVB), Society of Cable Television Engineers (SCTE), and Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC), all are working together, due to overlapping memberships, to deliver enabling standards for stereoscopic 3-D viewing. The various groups are working on their individual pieces and we should see 3-D interoperability testing in the near future.

Existing hardware is capable of viewing 3-D content in the home, but the deliver systems need more development. The 3-D cameras and production facilities can generate the video and a standard set-top box (STB) can handle the interleaved 1080P24 or 720P60 video streams. Possibly by 2012, some operators will have the hardware and bandwidth to deliver a full HD simulcast video stream. The problem is that the timeframe for appropriate STBs is unclear.

An alternative is to use an MPEG-4 MVC encoded delivery which uses a 2-D base layer plus 3-D enhancements. This encoding uses 20-30 percent less bandwidth than sending full dual streams. It uses much more complex encoding and a different STB, so this version is also an indeterminate future capability.

Of possibly greater concern is the need for dual 2-D and 3-D production. Live production requirements differ significantly between 2-D and 3-D with production "syntax" such as rates of cuts, dissolves, vision mixer effects, and other constraints. Dual, simultaneous production will be more than twice as expensive so operators will have to find ways to recover their costs. Pay-per-view or elite tier status will be necessary for the initially small audiences.

Eisler talked about the rise of the 3-D PC. They are saying developments in high-quality 3-D imaging centered in the gaming areas and combined with active shutter glasses. The developers create separate left and right images which are managed by the GPU and drivers. Games have an advantage in creating 3-D, because they are rendered in real time. To handle 3-D content, they have to make changes in the drivers. Currently, there are more than 400 games for 3-D PCs.

In other areas, hardware such as cameras and Blu-Ray players are used to create streaming 3-D content for web delivery. YouTube has over for 5000 3-D videos and other sites mainly in Europe are hosting over hundred thousand. The amount of content is growing very high rate and by next year there should be more than one million 3-D videos online. Due to the lighting, resolution, and capability of the people posting, there is a large discrepancy in the quality of the videos posted.

Rich Dean talked about the changes that are coming down the pipe for consumers. He felt that the impact of 3-D is going to be very broad. Although content seems to be one of the keys, other areas such as education, storage processing conversion and other aspects will actually define the user experience. The image processing is the area where the consumers will bump up against technology. To this end, they are testing various types of 3-D viewing glasses and developing a database that shows compatibility and interoperability of these across various platforms and formats.

Most users do not wish to, and cannot handle high complexity technical tasks, in order to receive entertainment. To fully enable the conversion to 3-D, the industry must understand consumers do not want the task of connecting their viewing hardware to become a major science project. The 3-D@home Consortium is developing an ecosystem that will make the whole process a simple plug-and-play procedure. They're trying to identify the technical issues that could prevent consumer conversion to 3-D, and are advocating the entire industry develop a full path for this conversion.

Venuti described the efforts from the High Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) consortium creating specification 1.4 which establishes a critical infrastructure for implementing 3-D in the home. The new specification defines common 3-D formats and resolutions, and the many 3-D structures such as full side-by-side, half side-by-side, field alternative, line alternative, left + depth, and others to enable interoperability.

The specification requires display devices support all mandatory media formats, and all sorts keep prices must support at least one mandatory format. These formats include: Frame Packing for 1080p @ 23.98/24Hz or 720p @ 50 or 59.94/60Hz, Side-by-Side Horizontal (made mandatory in 1.4a) for 1080i @ 50 or 59.94/60Hz, and Top-and-Bottom (added and made mandatory in 1.4a) for 720p @ 50 or 59.94/60Hz or 1080p @ 23.97/24Hz. Optional formats or a combination of the you timing and resolutions using the above three formats.

The specification is still in flux. Formats may be added or modified and formats that currently exist in the specification may be removed based on market requirements. As yet, no testing has been done on the various formats and their ability to interoperate. Other parts of the specification describe specific capabilities for the displays and sources as well as more details on specific data formatting requirements. In the effort to help drive interoperability, the 3D extension of the HDMI 1.4 specification is available to the public and not just HDMI license members. The 3D portion of the specification can be downloaded at http://www.hdmi.org/manufacturer/specification.aspx

After the presentations, the final members of the panel were introduced, the group responded to questions from the attendees.

And presentations, the questions came fast and furious. The first question was on whether or not 3-D in theaters and in homes is viable. Cavigioli noted that about 500 films are currently in production for 3-D presentations. Even though 3-D was a fad in the 50's, the last 3-D film made in the 50's made money. Edmeades added that the success of Avatar shows that digital cinema works, but replicating an optimal consumer experience will only happen slowly and painfully to the complexities of the technologies. Another panelist opined that games and sports will be the initial high growth areas.

To be viable, the quality of the content is important. Moviemakers must work on making a great movie that is experienced and immersive using 3-D as part of the story, not just make a movie and add 3-D effects. Otherwise, this current incarnation of 3-D will become just another fad and, like the 50s, will fade from view in a short while.

Sandrew stated that 3-D will move into the home when the cinema industry fully understands that 3-D is just one more visual effect, and successful movies still need to have strong stories. The prospects for quick entrance to the home are there are as HD into a systems are highly likely to be 3-D compatible, so though not be a new round of purchases for equipment. The prospects for quick entrance to the home are there, as HD systems are highly likely to be 3-D compatible. Therefore, the move to in-home 3-D is not likely to generate a new round of purchases for equipment. To show that this is not a chicken and egg situation, one of the panelists stated that 750 shows are scheduled for some form of 3-D in the very near future.

Venuti commented that HDMI will help the compatibility issues, full high quality 3-D will require new displays. Everyone believed that there would not be a premium 3-D monitors, but the glasses and transmitters could be expensive. Surprisingly, there are already over 2 million 3-D capable televisions in people's homes, and most of the owners do not remember or realize that their sets have the capability.

Edmeades postulated that big events like the Super Bowl will drive consumers to buy and will render moot the content versus platform question. Existing conversion technology will supplement full 3-D capture. Waddell concurred and stated that the initial rollout of 3-D in the UK was for sporting events in the displays are mostly located in pubs. In addition, the cost for 3-D camera equipment is dropping very rapidly, making the conversion much less expensive. Cavigioli suggested content creators would capture on many platforms, but consumers will demand high-quality images if you're paying a premium for the pictures.

The panel agreed that eye glasses required for 3-D we're not going to be an issue but interoperability across platforms could present a problem. When the technology to produce consumer priced, large-screen auto-stereoscopic vision displays is available, the glasses will not be needed. This time is many years out in the future, due to challenges such as wide viewing angles and simultaneous experience for multiple viewers. The most likely issues on glasses for consumers is the style and, for active glasses, the weight. Cavigioli considered that standards are being developed and universal glasses should be available in the near future. It will also depend on the viewing platform. If you are watching something 10 feet away the glasses are okay, but if the screen is 10 inches away, the glasses don't work. Fortunately, at close viewing distances the issue viewing angle is not relevant, and will drive the mobile/personal 3-D viewing applications to the forefront.

Sandrew responded to a question on a conversion versus 3-D capture by noting that HD really added no new information to standard television, the 3-D requires two separate, but very closely related views. Yet very different perceptions looking at something that is transformed versus something that is converted from 2-D. Three companies currently are able to correct feature films, but need technology and experience to get a fully dimensional view. Cavigioli disagreed. He noted that some companies can do a transfer well, but low cost software will damage the industry. Gaming is already 3-D, but film will require real effort to produce high quality 3-D images.
Sandrew responded to a question on a conversion versus 3-D capture by noting that HD really added no new information to standard television, but 3-D requires two separate, but very closely related views. The viewer gets a very different perception looking at something that is native 3-D versus something that is converted from 2-D. Three companies currently are able to convert feature-length films to 3-D. Other companies, however, will need to develop technology and experience before they can have the ability to perform 2-D to 3-D conversions. Cavigioli disagreed. He noted that some companies can do a transfer well, but low-cost software will damage the industry. Gaming is already in a 3-D format, but film requires real effort to produce high quality 3-D images.

Edmeades noted that current efforts to some form of capture them correct in a post-filming operation. Most directors & cinematographers only know how to shoot and frame in 2-D. So for a while, movies are likely to be in a hybrid of 2-D capture and conversion to 3-D plus 3-D capture. This will require very many new standards in efforts at instilling quality in the content in all phases of production. Current technologies for auto correction leave much to be desired.

The question on 3-D causing headaches led to the lively interchange. Cavigioli stated that window violations, when it touches into the frame and causes dissonance and for some people this can be quite painful. The spacing between the two images may require correction if the spacing is much larger than normal distance between eyes. Sandrew said that there still needs to be research done into the psychological aspects of 3-D vision. Eisler suggested that content creators must pay much more attention to conversion versus planar issues and the depth cues have to be carefully blended to minimize any problems.

There also may be some aspects that are related to people's learning curve on visualization. Viewing a 3-D picture may feel different but not necessarily bad. Perhaps will need to attach warning labels on 3-D content suggesting the possibility of headaches.

One good thing for movie producers is that current 3-D technology is very difficult to pirate. The bigger screens enable much bigger effects. The relative lack of 3-D capable screens is being addressed with both film based solutions (such as those promoted by Technicolor) an digital projection, and more theaters are gearing up install the equipment. For the foreseeable future, 3-D movies will require circular polarized glasses in theaters. The greater challenge is defining the appropriate hardware combinations for blu-ray release based on the BD 3-D specification that was released in December 2009.