HD bandwidth limits BBC Olympics 3D coverage
Highlights show, two ceremonies, one race
The BBC has revealed what parts of next summer Olympic Games it plans to beam into homes in glorious 3D-o-Vision.
And it's not an awful lot, really. The opening and closing ceremonies will be transmitted in 3D, as will "nightly highlights" of each day's athletic antics.
We were hoping for the ladies' beach volleyball tournaments to get the 'out of the screen and in yer face' treatment, but we'll have to make do with the men's 100m final instead.
We'll seeing what's on the other side, then…
And that's your lot. Even the main ceremonies may not be shot and streamed entirely in 3D, but in general Auntie is keeping the 3D stuff to a minimum to ensure there's sufficient bandwidth to present as many of the events live in HD as possible. Which is probably the sensible approach, given the inevitably gimmicky nature of 3D. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Re: What about the 5th HD channel capacity?
Red button is just a fancy/redundant way of changing channel! I use the channels during Wimbledon constantly, but find it far simpler to just change directly to the channels, usually 801/802
There is another way
Another option, though it relies on boxes having an up to date MHEG engine, is to broadcast 3D in the way they did for the StreetDance 3D film over the New Year holiday.
That had the broadcast in the standard side by side format, with an MHEG app that allowed views to press Red for 2D.
When they did that, it scaled the left hand side of the screen to full size. Details are at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/researchanddevelopment/2012/01/2d-compatible-3d-broadcasts.shtml
This method means you have both on a single channel, but it does risk confusing people wanting to watch in 2D (unless the app auto-started, perhaps...). It also means that if you use a non-Freeview HD receiver that doesn't have an MHEG engine, you can't see anything other than the 3D version.
There are research projects on methods for encoding the difference/depth information, so you can have a completely 2d compatible broadcast, but they're not yet standardised, so the MHEG trick is the only way you can really do it right now, and be sure it'll work with consumer equipment - anything with a Freeview HD/Freesat badge should have a compatible MHEG engine to handle the scaling.
My guess is that, for the Olympics, they don't want to run the risk of even a few people complaining about not being able to get the 2D version - rather different to a minority interest holiday film with '3D' in the title.
standard definition
used to be watchable. these days it's like watching through a seive. blocky as fuuuuuck. even the sky single def channels are terrible. was watching he rugby league over the weekend and it's impossible to make out the advert hordings on the sidelines.... and all so they can force you the hd premium priced content for what used be about right.
and it's worse for old Auntie or any of the other channels.. try watching standard def Channel 5 or the BBC2 in the day-time .. truly awful quality. and not just the program content ( before you go there).
admittedly, this is through a virmin media HD box into an LG 42 inch telly.. it ought to be ok but it's just pants.
Not quite
It means that BBC HD has to be commandeered and turned into BBC 3D, thus removing half of the BBC's HD availability. Since the other half (BBC One HD) will be showing the same thing as BBC HD (but in 2D) it effectively means that the BBC can only show one HD programme at once.
