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.