Digital Video – The Advance of 3D Video Technology
05. Apr, 2011 
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With HDTV now almost common place what is the next major advance in digital video technology? It is quite likely to be proper three dimensional television
(3D TV). This does not refer to the strange pseudo 3D TV that relied on camera movement and was trialled by the BBC in a Dr Who programme many years ago, nor the old fashioned cinema 3D where you have to wear red and green glasses. By proper 3D TV we mean experiencing a full 3D image by just watching what appears to be a conventional TV screen without any aids.
Work on creating 3D TV has been ongoing since the 1980s but with very little success until relatively recently. Over the last few years a number of Japanese companies have actually demonstrated 3D TV prototypes that use various technologies to produce amazing 3D images.
In order for the viewer to perceive a 3D image, it is necessary for each eye to see a slightly different view of the scene. Although this can be achieved using the coloured glasses described above or indeed with polarising glasses which filter out separate images, this is not particularly attractive to the viewer an is not what we mean by true 3D TV. In true 3D TV the video display itself must project different images to each eye.
The prototype systems use large amounts of data processing using dedicated chips to compute the different images for the left and right eyes. The display itself has tiny lenses over each pixel that reflect the light at numerous different angles in front of the TV so that different images are picked up by opposite eyes.
Versions of this prototype are already commercially available but at a cost of many thousands of pounds. Producing 3D video content for them is also extremely expensive, so they are still a long way from being consumer products. There are also broadcasting bandwidth constrains as large amounts of data are required. Though some years away, the eventual commercial take-up is inevitable and in the future you can expect to have this technology in your home.
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