Norwegian broadcaster TV 2 has produced the country’s first 3D broadcast with coverage of the European Championship qualifier against Cyprus. The match was available exclusively from Canal Digital on cable and satellite.
The 3D production was made possible by the TV 2-owned OB Team, which recently took delivery of a 3D-ready TV production truck, the only of its kind in Scandinavia. A dedicated team produced the broadcast that used five separate 3D cameras placed around the stadium in Ullevaal, Oslo.
“It is exciting that we can finally go on air with a full 3D production. We’ve really been lucky with the “timing”. We needed to expand our fleet of television production trucks. At the same time 3D technology and the market for 3D production evolved so that it seemed appropriate to build the 3D functionality to our newest TV bus, said Bjørnar Nordahl, managing director, OB-Team AS.
The transmission was delivered to TV2 using T-VIPS’ TVG450 JPEG2000 Gateway. T-VIPS pioneered 3D video transport over JPEG2000 in 2009 when it was trialled for a live Korean surgical video transmission. It has since been involved in a number of live 3D projects including Opera in Sweden and most recently the IAAF World Athletics championships in Korea.
“We have extensive global experience working in live sport and 3D transmissions and it’s a real pleasure to be working on such an innovative project on our home turf,” said Johnny Dolvik, CEO, T-VIPS. “T-VIPS is dedicated to providing innovative video transport solutions and ensuring top class TV viewing experiences. Our pioneering 3D video transport solution helped OB Team provide TV2 viewers with the next best thing to being at Norway’s 3-1 victory last night.”
Despite the winning score, results elsewhere meant Norway failed to quality for Euro 2012, allowing both the Norwegian team and the production crew to concentrate on the World Cup qualifiers.
