Italian broadcast research and development company Sisvel Technology is the key mover behind the 3D Village, a collaboration of partners involved in 3-D broadcasting, to be announced at the 2011 European Forum on Digital TV on June 10 in Lucca, Italy. The 3D Village will provide a forum for content providers, manufacturers, researchers, and broadcasters to discuss 3-D content, display and transmission issues.
3D Village partners that are early adopters of Sisvel Technology's new 3D Tile Format2 include broadcasters QuartaRete TV, Città Digitali and Astra. Sisvel claims this format has significant advantages over current methods, by combining two 720p stereoscopic frames within a single 1080p frame. This is supposed to provide better quality images for 3-D content while maintaining backward compatibility so that viewers not equipped for 3-D can view the transmission normally as 2-D images. The reconstructed right and left images maintain their original 720p spatial and temporal resolution, giving viewers of both versions the full benefit of the original picture. The transmission of both 2-D and 3-D can be achieved without the need for increased bandwidth.
Such technology will be discussed in the new 3D Village forum, as the industry wrestles with the task of introducing compelling 3-D content while recognising that most viewers will still be watching in 2-D.
