Sky shoots Swan Lake in 3D
Ballerina blitz
Broadcaster Sky has continued its research into the potential of 3D TV by filming snippets of the famous ballet Swan Lake in 3D.
Sky's 3D dual-lens cameras glided around the dancers
At a recent event in London, 32 of the English National Ballet’s dancers were filmed gliding around by several dual-lens HD cameras which capture images for the left and right eyes.
But instead of simply shooting from a fixed point – as was the case when Sky previously captured band Keane in 3D — the cameras moved among the ballerinas.
The results were shown at the recent Hay-on-Wye literature and arts festival, but Sky doesn’t have any plans to broadcast it to a wider audience.
Swan Lake 3D's part of Sky's ongoing 3D TV research
A spokesman for the broadcaster told Register Hardware that the production was simply part of its ongoing 3D TV R&D process.
Swan Lake was shot in 3D “to ensure that we have lots of experience of filming different types of 3D content”, he said.
Sky remains tight-lipped about its plans for a commercial 3D TV service. It has said that 3D content availability is the main hurdle. ®
COMMENTS
Lateral thinking
If only there was a way of cheaply hiring a bunch of young, lissome ballet dancers, and have them perform in front of my television, i.e. in my front room. Voila, instant 3D. The air conditioning is wonky, so they would have to wear fewer clothes - just like in that weird Japanese ballet I downloaded from the internet that time, with the squid! I wonder if there any more of those? I'll have a look.
Forward thinking
With the current popularity in 3D movies this year it makes sense that the main provider of high quality in-home delivery would be doing their research in this area. I've seen pretty much all of the 3D movies released over the last few years, and am completely won over by it's immersive experience and the extra layer it brings to entertainment.
Oh well
May be a good idea, but for someone like me who has vision problems and who has a permanent squint, meaning my pupils aren't lined up exactly, no 3D technology will ever work. I remember having a go at those green/red glasses, just looked like green/red to me. Also those "magic eye" pictures were totally wasted, just looked like NTSC signal on a PAL TV!
I won't believe it until it's the sort of cube screen we were promised in the 70s, where you could walk around it like it was a glass case. Now THAT would be 3D!
Why settle for stereoscopic?
Why not real holograms. Sure it's expensive today, but once it becomes a mass market it'll be cheap. And just think of the many side products of that.
A title is missing
@raving angry loony
Current "3D" means stereoscopic. There are two ways to get proper 3D. Tell a computer where your head is, and the computer can render the right image on a TV so it looks like there is a 3D scene infront of and behind the TV. This is limited to computer generated material and is not useful for two people watching the same TV, but it is very cheap. I am surprised that you cannot get this as an add-on for games consoles now.
The other way is to spin a screen very fast and use 3 high speed projectors to put images on the screen that change as the screen rotates. The image is limited to places where the screen can be (nothing can appear to be infront of or behind a sphere), three viewing angles are blocked by the projectors and the image darkens as your point of view becomes vertical. If there was a guaranteed mass market, the kit would cost a few thousand pounds. Content would be hard to produce - multiple cameras shooting from all directions at the same time, then the cameras have to be replaced by background in post production. It could be done if there was an audience ready to spend lots of money on 3D films. Even if the porn industry had not been decimated by free content on the net, this stuff would still be over a decade away from being anything but a curiosity in a science museum. Your best bet for 3D footie is to take 21 friends and a football to the park.
@Sooty
Sounds like you were looking at a hologram. If you shine a laser onto a holographic plate, it looks like there is an image infront of or behind (or both) the plate. If you move around, the image changes as if it was a real 3D object. The holographic plate is a piece of high resolution photographic film. The resolution is several thousand dots per millimetre. LCD's have a resolution of several dots per millimetre. You can get that sort of resolution with LCD on sillicon, but the result is either tiny or expensive. You can also store a 3D animation with current technology. 1,000,000 times the size and bandwidth of a 2D film is expensive, but technically possible. It would be cheaper to hire some actors for a private performance, and walk around the stage.
Anyone seen microdisplays for sale? Several companies claim to have them, but as soon as you look for a price you get customer friendly notices like "You need Microsoft .NET framework to beg for a quote", "If you need to ask for the price, you cannot afford one" or "FOAD because we hate customers/developers/anyone who might generate sales". I have always thought a microdisplay would be far more convenient than a laptop display, but judging by people's opinion of 3D specs, I could be alone there.
