Japan’s NHK Media Technology’s New Advanced Stereo 3D Broadcast System
Current stereo 3D TV broadcasts send to two side-by-side pictures within one HD video stream. However, this has the unfortunate side effect of halving the horizontal resolution. To fix this problem, Japan’s public broadcaster, NHK Media Technology, has developed the Advanced Stereo Broadcast System which sends two full resolution pictures simultaneously, eliminating the resolution loss currently associated with 3D TV. The new system is also compatible with current standards, sending a regular HD picture to non-3D capable TV sets.
“This format provides high-definition when viewed on a conventional TV set. When viewed on a 3D-capable set, the current side-by-side format of sending two images has the problem of reduced image quality. Our new format independently transmits both left and right images in full high-definition to eliminate that problem and provides viewers with a gorgeous image.”
NHK have submitted the new system to the Japanese standards setting body, ARIB, for approval. Interestingly, Korean broadcasters are also developing a very similar system, so there appears to be some good, competitive rivalry between the two, since NHK hopes that their standard will be a hit in Korea and also become a worldwide standard, using their recently exhibited encoder.
“Korean broadcasters, for example, are investigating a similar format. The Korean format will likely be almost the same as our format, so we think we should be able to support a compatible format and have it catch on in Korea as well.”
Comments are closed.