Televisions

The UK’s main satellite broadcaster, BSkyB, caused a stir at the end of January with the country’s – and, it says, the world’s – first live 3D sports broadcast.

Broadcasting via eight 3D-camera setups from the Arsenal vs. Manchester United Premier League game, Sky made the footage available for viewing (live!) in nine pubs around the UK and Ireland on TV sets supplied by Korean manufacturer LG Electronics. Sky plans to begin broadcasting weekly in 3D from April this year.

Welho began its 3D test transmissions in December 2009.

But it’s not just the UK that’s seeing huge leaps in the availability of next-generation TV content.

Up north in Finland, broadcaster Welho began 3D test transmissions in December last year. Back on the English Channel, viewers in Belgium will soon be enjoying a 3D music channel from long-running broadcaster Alfacam, reports Display Monitor. The magazine also notes that Alfacam was the first company to launch HDTV broadcasts in Europe. Over the border in Germany, the market has recently seen the launch of a new wave of HD channels, coinciding with the rebranding of German broadcaster Premiere as Sky Deutschland.

Servus TV plans to begin 3D broadcasts soon.

Let’s head south now, to the region covered by a relative newcomer – Servus TV. Here, viewers in towns and cities along the river Danube will soon be able to enjoy regular 3D broadcasts using traditional ‘coloured glasses’ technology.

Finally, we follow the Danube downstream to Hungary, where Antenna Hungaría has seen a 91 percent increase in sales of HD set-top boxes in the last month.

In other words, it’s all go in the world of European broadcasting – and broadcasters have much ground to cover in order to keep up with the latest display technology: HDTVs are now becoming increasingly standard, and even 3D TVs are expected to hit the market by the middle of this year.

Itching to see Sky’s new 3D broadcasts for yourself?

LG announced today that it will be supplying 3D TVs (nine 47-inch LD920s) to the pubs showing Sky’s first live 3D broadcast this Sunday. The Korean manufacturer ended its announcement by saying that it will name the nine pubs, presumably in advance of Sunday’s game between Arsenal and Manchester United. Sky has so far refused to announce the names of the pubs involved for fear of causing overcrowding.

It might therefore be worth keeping an eye on LG’s website in the run-up to the match. And of course, we’ll bring you any information that surfaces between now and Sunday on the Televisions.com blog.

Sky will demonstrate its 3D broadcasts at a handful of UK pubs this Sunday.

Perhaps the biggest news for UK viewers today is Sky’s launch of a dedicated 3D channel this April – Europe’s first, the company claims. The technology will even be demonstrated this Sunday, January 31^st, in selected pubs in London, Manchester, Cardiff, and Edinburgh (and Dublin). But Sky is not announcing the names of the pubs involved for fear of overcrowding – this is probably sensible, but if you just have to be there, you’d better tune into the grapevine over the next couple of days.

But that’s not all Sky announced today. The broadcaster’s interim results for the second half of 2009 – which show welcome growth, by the way – also indicate plans to phase out older non-HD Sky set-top boxes. This accompanies figures showing that over 2m UK households now subscribe to Sky+HD – a massive 1.3m of which signed up within the last year alone.

Sky’s growing popularity comes as no surprise. After all, research has shown that over half of UK households now have an HDTV, but that the vast majority fail to use them to watch HD content. This situation is sure to change over time – and with Sky offering by far the widest selection of HD content (37 channels and counting), it certainly represents an attractive package. In fact, Sky has now said that all new customers from January 28, 2010, will receive a Sky+HD box – and that they’ll receive this free if they subscribe to the HD channel pack for an additional 10 GBP per month.

A REPORT on Reuters’s US site claims that two upcoming Harry Potter films will be converted into 3D ahead of their release in late 2010 and summer 2011. This follows a similar report on Televisions.com that  “Clash of the Titans”, a remake of the 1981 Laurence Olivier classic, is expected to undergo 3D conversion for its release in March 2010. A 3D rerelease of “Toy Story 2″ is also currently showing in British cinemas, but only for a limited time period of two weeks.

But conversion to 3D is surely no substitute for being filmed in 3D in the first place – and news about such projects is spread a lot more thinly. “Ghostbusters 3″, for example, is expected to be filmed in 3D, but that won’t hit cinemas until 2012.

In the meantime, we can enjoy a smattering of converted releases – George Lucas, for example, has hinted at rereleasing the “Star Wars” films in 3D. And, of course, various UK broadcasters are looking at bringing 3D content to the living room within 2010.

Online reports are today quoting a statement by South Korean manufacturer Samsung in which the company says it is entering mass production of 3D panels.

Various manufacturers are gearing up to produce 3D TVs – but will it come in time for this year's World Cup?

Numerous reports now say that Samsung is officially beginning production of LCD panels for 3D TVs, meaning it will be the first manufacturer to introduce mass-produced 3D panels. The panels, which will come in screen diagonals of 40, 46, and 55 inches, will be used both in TVs with normal fluorescent-tube backlights and in those with newer LED backlighting technology. According to a report on TradingMarkets.com, the panels will have a refresh rate of 240 hertz, which will presumably allow them to display 120-hertz signals for each of the viewer’s eyes.

This announcement follows DisplaySearch’s publication late last week of its 3D-TV market predictions up to the year 2018. The figures showed an increase from 2009’s total global sales of just 200,000 units to 1.2m units in 2010, and estimated that the industry will be worth as much as 220bn USD (136bn GBP) in 2018, just eight years after its expected arrival on the consumer scene.

We expect similar announcements from other manufacturers soon, especially if global shipments of 3D TVs are supposed to reach 1.2m units in the next 12 – oops, wait, 11 – months. Watch this space!

Humax freesat receivers, such as this Foxsat HD, will now be able to view the iPlayer beta trial.

The BBC’s iPlayer has gone from strength to strength. Some TVs, such as the iViewer from Cello Electronics, are now even available with the technology built in. But the familiar black-and-pink interface has now also weaned its way onto freesat, the free-to-air digital satellite service launched in the UK in 2008.

Freesat has began beta tests with iPlayer in autumn last year, but has now announced that owners of all Humax freesat receivers will be able to sample the service ahead of its official launch later this year. Although freesat has taken its time to catch on, it seems now to have reached an exciting pace – Panasonic, LG, and Sony now build freesat-certified receivers into their flat-panel TVs, for example. Nevertheless, Sky still eclipses freesat’s HD offerings – just BBC HD and ITV1 HD – with its massive selection of 37 HD channels, most recently extended to include MGM HD. The prospect of a wide range of free-to-air content is still a distant one, therefore, but freesat looks to have a lot of potential – and we’re keeping a close eye on developments!

For more information , check out our articles on receiving satellite TV and HD TV in the UK.

This year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is already over – but it’s left a big enough legacy of cutting-edge technologies to fill the dreams of gadget fans for at least the next few months.

LG bolstered the plasma market with eight new plasma models – led by the PK 950 (pictured here).

All the rage this year in the TV sector were, among others: 3D TVs, Toshiba’s CELL TVs, and a general step-up in refresh rates.

So, we’ll come right out and admit this isn’t what we’d predicted. OK, 3D topped the bill, and that’s what we said it’d do – but it was pretty hard to miss the clues there. Things we hadn’t seen coming include Toshiba’s CELL TVs, which will use the equivalent of up to an eight-core processor for video processing and other tasks. This is a big step forward, and the company’s announcement that it plans to introduce them in Europe this coming autumn is sure to give the competition plenty to worry about. The new Toshibas will also use their phenomenal processing power to handle 3D signals, and will even attempt to add depth information to normal 2D content. Very exciting news indeed!

But what other things were we looking out for? OLED, for example, is a relatively new display technology that’s taking its time about hitting the HDTV market. Sony released a tiny 11-incher, the XEL-1, last year, and we’ve seen prototypes at the odd trade fair or two. It seemed fair to expect to see the next piece of the puzzle. Sadly, however, LG presented a similarly tiny 15-inch model, and the price tag was so unbelievably high (over 2,000 USD) that the device remains the stuff of dreams for all but the best-heeled consumers.

One thing we’re glad not to have seen is the death of the plasma – but to be fair, we didn’t predict that happening just yet. LG, for example, reasserted its commitment to the display technology by announcing eight new, slimmer, and better-equipped plasma TVs. Of the big manufacturers, only Panasonic, Samsung, and LG remain in support of plasma, which many home-cinema enthusiasts still rate more highly than LCD. Pioneer’s recent departure from the plasma market had left many devoted fans unsure of the technology’s future.

First of all, Happy New Year!

The unexpectedly cold end to 2009 has turned into an unexpectedly snowy start to 2010. But there’s one place it definitely isn’t snowing: the CES 2010! This consumer-electronics trade fair takes place in sunny Las Vegas in January every year, giving technology buffs from all over the northern hemisphere a great excuse to jet off and escape the sub-zero mayhem back home – including Televisions.com’s editor-in-chief, Florian Friedrich.

Philips' PVD-900 is a portable TV with multimedia capabilities.

It’s still two days before the show kicks off, but the announcements have started pouring in. Philips, for example, is taking the opportunity to showcase a number of its products, some of which are actually already available. Included is the PVD900, for example, a portable LCD TV with an integrated DVB-T tuner and multimedia capabilities. They’ve also got two portable DVD players, the PET749 and PD703, which, again, have built-in DVB-T tuners.

Samsung has announced that it plans to use RealD’s 3D technology in its 3D TVs; this follows similar announcements last month by Sony and JVC and raises hopes for a standardised 3D TV format. No doubt Samsung will put some of this gadgetry on show at its trade-fair booth in the coming days. As you’ve undoubtedly heard, 3D looks set to dominate the show’s headlines this year. For example, US-based semiconductor manufacturer Sigma Designs says it plans to demonstrate a range of 3D graphics technologies at its stand in the Las Vegas Hilton.

Skype's familiar software will soon be available on your TV.

But there are other things going down in the desert this year: We’ve also heard from video-calling service Skype that its technology will soon appear in LG and Panasonic HDTVs – and will support 720p video, no less! This is exciting news, and you can be sure the demonstrations of the technology will also attract a great deal of attention at the CES.

All in all, it looks set to be an interesting year, and organisers will probably be hoping that the hype surrounding 3D technology will bump up attendance figures – last year’s show saw a 22 percent reduction in visitors since 2008.

2009 has been a busy year. Among the developments: manufacturers have been rushing to cut power consumption, we’ve seen the arrival of Sony’s PS3 Slim, and analogue TV has begun to disappear from our screens. But this is all very much a question of “out with the old”. So, in with the new: press releases are bringing in news by the barrowful about 3D TV, and HDTV has begun to take hold both in the UK and abroad.

3D TV looks set to explode onto the consumer-electronics scene.

Sony recently announced plans to record 25 matches of the forthcoming 2010 World Cup in 3D, although no plans have yet been sealed to broadcast the content – fingers crossed for future proud owners of the 3D-Ready TVs that companies such as LG plan to release in 2010. 3D TV is joined by 3D Blu-ray as one of 2010’s proud expectations – the Blu-ray Disc Association has now finalised its specification for the new 3D discs. Manufacturers and studios will no doubt see this as a ‘go’ to start developing products and content that many expect to see arrive within the next 12 months.

HDTV is beginning to snowball – the UK’s Sky+HD service now offers 37 HD channels since the launch of MGM HD earlier this week, and Sky has recently made inroads into the German market, for example, where it now offers seven HD channels. Freeview HD has also begun broadcasting in the UK, albeit with just two channels initially. The service will roll out across the country over the next few months, and various broadcasters have announced plans to add HD channels to the service in the medium term.

Internet-capable TVs are yet another corner of the market that’s seeing massive growth. Four of the major manufacturers have now introduced TVs with internet access to one degree or another. Recent research suggests that as much as 20% of HDTVs sold in Europe in the next calendar year will have some form of internet connection.

Whatever happened to OLED?

But what haven’t we heard much about? For a start, way back in April, Adobe announced plans to install its Flash player in TVs by the end of the year, which is surely an important step in bringing full internet content to the TV screen. There’s been no more news on that, so we’ll keep an eye out for any progress.

Budding screen technology OLED has also kept pretty quiet: After we all made a big fuss about Sony’s 11-inch XEL-1 in spring 2009, we’ve not yet heard any plans to introduce ‘proper sized’ screens for the general public. Perhaps this will all change at the CES trade show in January – you can, of course, expect a full round-up of developments from the team at Televisions.com.

Sony and Fifa recently announced plans to record 25 matches of the upcoming World Cup 2010 in 3D. This is yet more fuel for the fire in a sector just waiting to explode onto the consumer-electronics scene – according to a Sony Europe press release last week, market-research company Screen Digest is now forecasting that 13.6 million 3D TV sets will be installed across Europe by 2013.

We’ve been watching developments in the 3D TV sector with bated breath, and now is an exciting time indeed – various manufacturers plan, for example, to release “3D-Ready” TVs in 2010. We’ll bring you more on that when the companies announce further details.

Channel 4's recent 3D broadcasts used the ColorCode system seen here.

Sky will also begin broadcasting a 3D channel at some point in the coming year, which will be available through standard Sky+HD set-top boxes – but will need one of the new 3D-Ready TVs. Channel 4 gave viewers a sneak peek of TV’s next big development by broadcasting a few programmes in 3D this autumn, although these only required 3D glasses, not the 3D-Ready TVs you’ll need for ‘proper’ 3D TV.

What do we mean by proper? It’s way too complicated to explain in a blog, but if you’d like to learn more, we’ve already put together an extensive background article on 3D technology.

3D TV is also generating a lot of interest at consumer-electronics trade fairs, such as the Home Theater Cruise 2009, where Televisions.com’s Editor in Chief, Florian Friedrich, attended a talk by video expert Joe Kane about 3D projection. You can watch Joe Kane’s talk here, as well as reading our supporting article, which fills in some background knowledge.