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Currently the only way to feed your 3DTV full HD 3D (1080p per eye) is to watch a Blu-ray disc, which is great and all unless you’re a sports fan, than not so much. Motorola and others have been working on ways to deliver Full HD 3D via typical broadcast delivery avenues — yes, we also want to know what happened to 1080p60 2D — but at the CES Bloggers Lounge Verizon and Panasonic were demoing said 3D format over a Verizon FiOS TV lab setup. The press release and embedded video (after the break) were short on details, but Verizon did tell us that it takes twice the throughput of 1080p 2D — which isn’t actually the case, but what do you expect when you don’t get to talk to the engineers? We assume the demo is using H.264 Multiview Video Coding like Blu-ray uses — especially since the demo was on a Panasonic Blu-ray player — but many in the industry question this codec’s application in the broadcast world since ESPN claims that its backwards compatibility with 2D isn’t as valuable as Dolby and Sensio’s way of encoding full HD 3D, which are more efficient. We’re very skeptical that this demo will actually amount to any foreseeable measurable benefits to consumers, but are reassured that both companies like 3D enough to spend the time to get together and make a demo happen.

Update: Verizon PR responded and confirmed that the demo is using the same format as 3D Blu-ray; H.264 Multiview Video Coding.

Continue reading Verizon and Panasonic demo broadcast Full HD 3D at CES

Verizon and Panasonic demo broadcast Full HD 3D at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 07 Jan 2011 21:32:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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