ESPN to launch a 3D sports channel

Bobby Miller 6 Jan, 2010 at 3:25pm ET Article published in Tech

ESPN recently upped the ante of 3D stereoscopic technology at home. The sports broadcasting giant announced on Tuesday that they will launch a new station devoted entirely to live sports broadcasts in full 3D stereo on June 11th, 2010. The new station’s first 3D broadcast will be the 2010 FIFA World Cup match between South Africa and Mexico. The station is devoted to 85 live stereoscopic broadcasts through June of 2011. After a year’s time, ESPN will evaluate the program and make a decision on whether or not to continue broadcasting in stereo or not.

A field photographer shooting stereo (image by Jeff Mills of ESPN)

This is a massive leap forward in the implementation of stereoscopic technology at home. This move will require a large initial investment from ESPN, as the studio will have to write a big check to buy multiple lightweight stereoscopic broadcast cameras, and staff each game with both standard HD and stereoscopic production crews.

Viewers at home will be required to throw down some cash of their own. Aside from paying to add ESPN 3D to their television programming, sports fans hungry for stereoscopy will need to own a 3D ready HDTV, which currently consists of a small market percentage of the available HDTVs. The CES tradeshow in Las Vegas going on this week promises the unveiling of many new 3D-capable televisions and displays, so the lack of available products will be remedied soon enough.

3D stereoscopic presentation is making big splashes in almost all media-related industries. With the wild success of films like James Cameron’s Avatar and Pixar’s UP, 3D technology in cinema is going full steam ahead and shows absolutely no signs of slowing. Companies like NVIDIA and Acer are working hard to bring the 3D experience home in the same high fidelity that is used in theaters. It won’t be long before households across the world have pairs of polarized glasses for every day stereo goodness.

Like it or not, 3D is coming in a big way. If Avatar showed us what the technology is capable in film, then perhaps ESPN 3D will show us what the tech can do in a live broadcast situation. Even if you’re not a sports fan, you have to admit – a field level football replay in stereo will look absolutely stunning in 3D. Sports are just the beginning, as there is still a lot of room for this technology to grow.

Comments

6 Jan 2010 ~ 3:43pm jared

Aside from paying to add ESPN 3D to their television programming, sports fans hungry for stereoscopy will need to own a 3D ready HDTV, which currently consists of a small market percentage of the available HDTVs

Because of this I predict after the trial run ESPN will most likely kill it off.
6 Jan 2010 ~ 4:43pm Snarkasm What makes a TV 3D-ready?
6 Jan 2010 ~ 4:46pm Koreish Assuming my dad hasn't retired by then I wonder how this will change his job? That's gonna be a whole lot more camera equipment he's hauling around.
6 Jan 2010 ~ 4:59pm MachineDog @Snark: 120Hz, to my knowledge, currently.
6 Jan 2010 ~ 5:22pm Snarkasm Is that all? And the glasses, of course?

Hmm. Hooray! I'll be all set.
6 Jan 2010 ~ 11:05pm UPSLynx Snark, I'm still researching the tech, but here's what I understand about 3D-ready televisions so far.

MD is right, 120Hz is the magic number. That's the big differential. Only a handful of PC displays have 120Hz capablility.

Now, the details I'm still trying to work out - I believe 3D-ready televisions require a sort of filtering ability for polarization. This is probably much like RealD in cinema - a circular polarization filter must be placed in front of the lens before the effect can be created on screen. There is also an issue of true-HD... with each eye technically only seeing half of the pixels on a standard TV in stereo, you lose HD. New HD stereo trends will remedy this, but probably only in the newest models.

Also, special glasses will probably be needed - I doubt RealD glasses will work, as I don't think 3D at home will be circular polarized.

I don't know how up to date this is, but here's a guide to current 3D-capable TVs and displays

Koreish - I can't stop thinking about how this is going to change my job. Local news won't see stereoscopy for a long, long time as it doesn't really benefit the product. But 3D's impact of the collective film and television industries (and even gaming) is going to be monumental. One thing is for sure - it's going to be very expensive.

Jared - I 'm not so sure about that. CES right now is just gushing out new displays that are capable of this. I can't imagine any future television being developed without 3D-ready capabilities. It'll probably be like HDMI inputs, it'd be crazy for a new TV to not have it. Over the course of a few years, most people will have 3D ready TVs in their home, most without having even realized it.

home television will be without question the hardest market to penetrate. We know stereoscopy is here to stay in cinema. At home, things are very different, and it won't be as easy to get people to buy in. But there are enough companies dumping enough money into it, they're certainly going to die trying, and I think they'll be successful.
6 Jan 2010 ~ 11:34pm RyanFodder Yay for knowing where Lynx found out about circular polarization
6 Jan 2010 ~ 11:42pm BuddyJ Oh hey. I went to the press conference for this. Looks like it'll be RealD and/or shutter glasses. All the demos today were in RealD at Sony's event during the presentation, but we saw active glasses (that look pretty cool) with some of the products on the show floor. I didn't get much time with it but we'll know more soon.
6 Jan 2010 ~ 11:58pm MachineDog

UPSLynx wrote:

Snark, I'm still researching the tech, but here's what I understand about 3D-ready televisions so far.

MD is right, 120Hz is the magic number. That's the big differential. Only a handful of PC displays have 120Hz capablility.

Now, the details I'm still trying to work out - I believe 3D-ready televisions require a sort of filtering ability for polarization. This is probably much like RealD in cinema - a circular polarization filter must be placed in front of the lens before the effect can be created on screen. There is also an issue of true-HD... with each eye technically only seeing half of the pixels on a standard TV in stereo, you lose HD. New HD stereo trends will remedy this, but probably only in the newest models.

Also, special glasses will probably be needed - I doubt RealD glasses will work, as I don't think 3D at home will be circular polarized.

I don't know how up to date this is, but here's a guide to current 3D-capable TVs and displays

Koreish - I can't stop thinking about how this is going to change my job. Local news won't see stereoscopy for a long, long time as it doesn't really benefit the product. But 3D's impact of the collective film and television industries (and even gaming) is going to be monumental. One thing is for sure - it's going to be very expensive.

Jared - I 'm not so sure about that. CES right now is just gushing out new displays that are capable of this. I can't imagine any future television being developed without 3D-ready capabilities. It'll probably be like HDMI inputs, it'd be crazy for a new TV to not have it. Over the course of a few years, most people will have 3D ready TVs in their home, most without having even realized it.

home television will be without question the hardest market to penetrate. We know stereoscopy is here to stay in cinema. At home, things are very different, and it won't be as easy to get people to buy in. But there are enough companies dumping enough money into it, they're certainly going to die trying, and I think they'll be successful.

In any case, it's going to depend on the setup you're running, but if you've got a 120Hz display all you need is a box that can take the 3D footage and display it in a way that functions with shutter glasses. I think Samsung is going with RealD in their displays, eh? But regardless, there will probably be multiple ways of actually 3Difying the content for awhile and all will hopefully be compatible.
7 Jan 2010 ~ 3:01am OnTheInside First the above comment it correct you need 120hz refresh rate if you do not want a massive headache. I have done stuff in 100hz and it makes you want to punch the screen.

Next you need a set of polarized glasses for 3D that are hard wired to a sync device or (live in theaters) an emitter that sends the sync signal to the glasses.

RealD uses emitters in theaters. But wired glasses will prob be more common in houses because of the cost.

Now as for the content. Do not expect avatar type 3D here. ESPN is broadcasting in "stereo", movies like avatar are "rendered" in 3D. The CG in avatar is easy to render in 3D but the live actors in avatar are dimensionalized. Not shot in stereo like ESPN.
7 Jan 2010 ~ 12:05pm UPSLynx OnTheInside - thanks for the insight. Sync is a good point, as high end workstation GPUs have a stereo sync port for hard-wired active glasses. I hadn't considered that for television. Truthfully, I'm sure consumers would rather deal with passive, wireless, but it all depends on how the tech is implemented.

Good point on the quality of 3D. In the article, I didn't mean to suggest AVATAR level visuals, apologies if that's how it came across. AVATAR is the pinnacle, and ESPN has experimented with stereo broadcasts in the past. While it was cool, it wasn't the quality of cinema, especially considering screen size. Cinema will still be the killer app for 3D viewing.

Now, the Sony broadcast stuff announced at CES will be developed in partnership with RealD, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
7 Jan 2010 ~ 12:12pm Kwitko I just hope the technology makes its way down to ESPN 8, "The Ocho."
7 Jan 2010 ~ 1:11pm Sledgehammer70 I just think this hype for 3D everything is beyond what the tech will really reach out to in the open market. If it does go big it will take awhile.
7 Jan 2010 ~ 1:59pm QCH Ladies and gentlemen, I have been to the Great Wall of China, I have seen the Pyramids of Egypt, I've even witnessed a grown man satisfy a camel. But never in all my years as a sportscaster have I witnessed something as improbable, as impossible, as what we've witnessed here today!
7 Jan 2010 ~ 2:03pm Kwitko

QCH wrote:

Ladies and gentlemen, I have been to the Great Wall of China

But have you ever been to a Turkish prison?
7 Jan 2010 ~ 2:59pm shwaip

Kwitko wrote:

But have you ever been to a Turkish prison?

Ever seen a grown man naked before?
7 Jan 2010 ~ 3:31pm AlexDeGruven

Kwitko wrote:

I just hope the technology makes its way down to ESPN 8, "The Ocho."

Oh man, competitive dodgeball would be SO AWESOME in 3D. That would be worth the price of admission right there.
12 Jan 2010 ~ 2:09am primesuspect Effin A, Kwitko.... Effin A....