Sky 3D will set standard

Video Interview. BSkyB has said its proposals to launch a 3D television service in 2010 do not circumvent the various industry initiatives to develop a common standard for the format.

In a Broadband TV News/Videonet interview Brian Lenz, director, product design & TV product development, BSkyB, said it was not the issue that many in the industry were making out because all the manufacturers with which the satcaster has held discussions were proposing multiple input formats.

“In general standards are not developed by committees and then brought to market, standards are developed by commercial ventures into the marketplace to set and form that standard,” said Lenz. “What we’re doing is actually reusing the HD format and embedding two images into that and whether you do it side by side or top down it’s non-proprietary, it’s simply an open format, it’s encoding, and it’s re-using the HD infrastructure and we believe that that is the way to get the best quality stereo 3D signals to customers in broadcast.”

Asked if TV manufacturers would be happy to see one format running in the UK and another format elsewhere, Lenz said it was less about country and regional variations and more about the type of distribution platform. “What you do need is a standard for Blu-ray or packaged media, you need a standard for HD transmission infrastructures, and you need a standard for free-to-air transmission infrastructures should they ever find a way to address that market. But you shouldn’t constrain any one of those platforms to the limitations of another platform.”

Sky’s new 3D channel is expected to offer a broad mix of programming including movies, entertainment and sport. It will use the existing HD infrastructure, meaning that the 1.313 million Sky+ HD households will already have the reception technology in place, though the purchase of a compatible 3DTV set will be required.

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