The DVB-3DTV specification has been approved by the Steering Board of the Geneva-based organisation. It will now be submitted immediately to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) for formal standardisation.
The Bluebook A154 Frame Compatible Plano-Stereoscopic 3DTV has now been published and is available for download from the DVB website.
As previously reported in Broadband TV News, DVB-3DTV received the approval of the technical module at the end of January and followed the agreement of the commercial module last July. The February 17 meeting, the 67th meeting of the Steering Board, also gave approval to the fostering of the CI Plus common interface technology.
The Phase 1, frame compatible, system will allow viewers to keep and use their current set-top box, in line with plans put forward by broadcasters including BSkyB and Canal+, though requiring them to purchase a new 3D compatible television display.
The DVB-3DTV specification is also accompanied by the Subtitling Systems specification (EN 300 743), which provides a mechanism that allows subtitles and other onscreen graphics to be best positioned so that they can be viewed correctly in the stereoscopic picture. There are also amendments to the Service Information specification (EN 300 468) and to the specification of audio and video coding over the MPEG-2 Transport Stream (TS 101 154).
