AXON’ Synapse enables 3D broadcasts in Belgium and the Netherlands

AXON’s award-wining Synapse card G3D100 was recently used for 3D broadcasts in Belgium and the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands United Broadcast Facilities (part of the Euro Media Group) supplied the technical facilities to broadcast a live political debate in 3D a few days before to the Dutch general elections. The 3D signal was distributed to the home by cable company Ziggo. The left signal of the 4 3D-cameras was used for the transmission of the event on national TV and on the internet. The final of the European Champion League in Madrid was broadcasted in 3D by Belgian Outside Broadcast. Numerous broadcasters took the live signal from the EBU satellite and the final could be viewed in 3D cinemas in Madrid. A total of 6 3D cameras were deployed to cover the game. Whereas for United Broadcast Facilities their 3D transmission was a first, Outside Broadcast already had 3D experience. Last year Outside used the predecessor of the G3D100, the HXH160 for their first 3D transmission during the Van Damme Memorial. This year Outside turned a soccer game in 3D which was then broadcasted live on the Belgacom network and it could also be viewed in 3D in a number of pubs in Belgium.

“The fact that we are asked to provide the signal processing for these unique transmissions makes us proud”, comments Harry Kanters, AXON’s Director of Marketing and Sales. “It underlines our ability to adapt swiftly to new technologies in our industry and that our Synapse system does more than what people refer to as glue”. The G3D100 is a low latency module which has several built-in functions that support 3D stereo production: it supports horizontal and vertical flip on both inputs to flip/rotate images coming from a 3D camera set on a rig with a mirror, it can squeeze the left and right ‘eye’ signal to an anamorphic half horizontal size and combining them into one side-by-side stream, and it has two full-blown colour correctors on-board that combined with the on-board mixer can be used to create any type of anaglyph 3D video.

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