“Our centre has a staff of approximately 60, five of whom work full-time on 3DTV research”
Recent research In a recent Rai TV news report on the broadcaster’s 3D research, a prototype camera (developed as part of the project) used to shoot coverage of the Centre’s radio museum was a modified Arri camera with a lens designed by Brunel University and realised by Arri itself. The report explained the two ways in which images can be reproduced in the home — one with a microlens array in front of a very high definition (eg, 100 mega pixel) television (bulky and expensive), the other using microprojectors projecting on to a translucent holoscopic screen. Morello adds, “The latter is
already available in the project — even if it has a much lower resolution than we’re looking for — and involves 80 in-line projectors to obtain a natural stereoscopic effect.”
it will be able to be adapted in some form to domestic use — these are prototypes, and it must be remembered that in the nineties, working on HDTV research, we used CRTs that weighed 300 kilos!”
3D predictions While stating that no “convincing” technology is currently available for manufacturing high performance displays that enable real 3DTV content to be viewed without special glasses at a low cost, Morello says, “Engineers are very good at forecasting what will happen, rather less when they have to say when. However, the biggest problem isn’t the camera, but the lens, the 3D post-processing and, to an even greater extent, the manufacture of consumer-level high-resolution monitors. “On the production side, it must be remembered that we’re
TVBEurope 17 News & Analysis
A CRIT technician recording 3D footage in the field
controlled to ensure that the intermediate images can be generated in post processing, the risk is that only certain programmes — such as large sports events and films for
“We must remember that when the first 50-inch LCD and plasma displays came out in 2000, they cost thousands of euros. Obviously not a consumer market!”
This is obviously impossible
to adapt to domestic use, as Morello adds, “This type of technology requires banks of computers to process the sequences required to create the images and might be suitable for use in large halls, but it will be many years before
talking about television, not cinema — in other words content that must be able to be produced easily and rapidly at reasonable costs. If each platform used on 3DTV productions requires five cameras, which must be perfectly aligned and precisely
example — will be able to be produced in ‘real’ 3D.” Asked to give an estimate on
how long it will be before it will be possible to watch “real” 3DTV at home without glasses, Morello says, “Some microlens displays are already on show at consumer trade expos (CES,
IFA, IBC, NAB...) and can be purchased. They receive the two stereoscopic images (or one image plus depth maps) and the intermediate views are often obtained by means of internal processing. “With the autostereoscopic (no-glasses) 3D displays on the market, viewers must be in precise sweet spots to watch them correctly and they’re unable to reconstruct scenes with viewer-position-dependent effects, such as occlusion, so the quality is still poor compared to the full-quality no-glasses holoscopic viewing we’re aiming for. This would enable viewers to see the appropriate 3D images on the display naturally and smoothly changing when they move around the room.”
As to whether these will
evolve to such an extent as to achieve a foothold on the consumer market in the next few years, he concludes, “Quite honestly, there doesn’t seem to be any real excitement on behalf of the industry in this direction. From the point of view of standards, nobody in the industry says that next year the quality of ‘real’ 3DTV viewing without glasses will be acceptable. “In the next two or three years, 4K UHD televisions will probably arrive on the market — and some may include glasses-free 3D reproduction— but we must remember that when the first 40- or 50-inch LCD and plasma displays came out in 2000, they cost thousands of euros. Obviously not a consumer market!”