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FT.com / Media - World Cup 3D goal proves elusive
When South Africa’s football team kick off the 2010 World Cup in Johannesburg this June their every move will be followed by seven of Sony’s 3D TV cameras.
But, while 25 matches at this year’s tournament will be filmed in 3D, so far Fifa, the sport’s international governing body, has only struck deals to broadcast them to televisions in three countries, and only one deal is for terrestrial TV.
The slow take-up highlights some of the obstacles to launching 3D broadcasts around the world.
A lack of broadcasts could hold back a technology that has been heavily touted by the television industry. Samsung aims to sell 2m 3D TVs this year. Sony’s target is 2.5m in the year to March 2011 – but consumers will only buy if there is plenty of 3D content to watch.
Fifa said that it had received enquiries from more than 25 countries about 3D broadcasts and expected to announce more deals in due course.
The agreements it has made so far are with ESPN in the US, Sogecable in Spain and SBS in South Korea.
But in the UK, for example, the World Cup will only be broadcast in 3D to venues such as cinemas.
Both ITV and the BBC, which have the UK television broadcast rights, confirmed that they do not intend to screen matches in the format.
The main reasons are a shortage of spectrum space for terrestrial broadcasts and the lack of an agreed standard for how to broadcast in 3D.
A 3D broadcast needs a separate signal for each eye so it cannot use the same channel as 2D.
Pay-TV broadcasters that use satellite and cable have more capacity and see 3D as a way to attract subscribers. Live events such as sports and music will be vital to fill out the 3D schedules alongside movies such as Avatar, said Motoshi Nakahara of Sky Perfect JSAT, which is launching 3D satellite broadcasts in Japan this summer.
Pay-TV operators may not own the rights to the biggest sporting events such as the World Cup, however, and while the industry has agreed a 3D standard for Blu-ray discs it does not yet have a standard for broadcasts.
“I think it will take at least two years to agree a full high-definition 3D broadcast standard,” said Hirotoshi Uehara, the head of Panasonic’s TV business.
In the meantime, Mr Uehara and Mr Nakahara say the industry will use a standard called side-by-side. Side-by-side cuts each frame of a broadcast into two and uses half for the left eye and half for the right. That reduces the image quality but also cuts the size of the signal and lets broadcasters use their existing equipment.
Many TV makers and broadcasters have agreed to use a version of side-by-side designed by the US company RealD which may become a de facto standard.
This month, RealD announced plans for an initial public offering that could value the company at $1bn.
Additional reporting by Pan Yuk in London and Song Jung-a in Seoul
