back to article Sky shoots Swan Lake in 3D

Broadcaster Sky has continued its research into the potential of 3D TV by filming snippets of the famous ballet Swan Lake in 3D. Swan_Lake_3D_02 Sky's 3D dual-lens cameras glided around the dancers At a recent event in London, 32 of the English National Ballet’s dancers were filmed gliding around by several dual-lens HD …

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  1. Dabooka
    Go

    Let's face facts;

    It'll be the porn trade that gets this thing going. That'll create the demand for kit and produce the "content".

    Sad, but true. Personally I'd settle for the footy, but I dread to think what Sky will charge for that.

  2. Tony Hoyle

    That's not the main hurdle

    After all, 3D films have been around for ages... the main hurdle is people don't want to be sat around their houses in silly glasses all day.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Biggest hurdle?

    "Sky remains tight-lipped about its plans for a commercial 3D TV service. It has said that 3D content availability is the main hurdle."

    They reckon that's a bigger hurdle than the lack of a consumer-ready technology?!?!

  4. Eddie Edwards
    Boffin

    Content

    "It has said that 3D content availability is the main hurdle."

    I wonder if Pixar, Imageworks, etc. could just re-render movies like Monsters, Inc. or Carz in 3D?

  5. Joe K

    "content availability is the main hurdle"

    I'd say TV availability even more so!

    Still can't get a straight answer as to what TV's would work. Anyone?

    All i know is that they have to accept a 100hz INPUT. Note this has *nothing* to do with current 100hz motionflow systems, which i'm sure will cause much confusion.

  6. Graham Marsden
    Coat

    Pull...!

    ... Oh? Not that sort of shooting...?

  7. raving angry loony

    stubborn

    I still contend that it's not 3D until I can view the action from any angle of MY choice. What they're marketing as 3D is just another gimmick.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    iZ3D

    Can it be displayed on the iZ3D?

  9. Andrew Tyler
    Thumb Down

    Lose the glasses

    I don't ever see myself getting into this so long as you have to wear 3D glasses. Maybe if I wore glasses anyways and if you could get 3D glasses in the same form factor as regular thin-rimmed glasses it would be different, but the bulky LCD shutter glasses they have today: no chance. Maybe for video games or movie theaters (IMAX would be awesome) because you're typically wholly engrossed in those, but never TV at home. I saw some stuff at Disneyland(world?) about fifteen years ago that used simple glasses with oppositely polarized lenses and that was pretty cool, and it had none of that nauseating flickering nonsense. It was Micheal Jackson dancing around on spaceships and stuff. Thank god it wasn't his modern appearance. I don't think I could handle that.

  10. Bod

    Point?

    Still don't get it. Why would anyone want to sit there watching with those stupid glasses? It's always been the problem with 3D right back to the 50s.

    An okay gimmick for IMAX, but nothing more than a novelty. I'd rather Sky concentrate on HD content, generate enough demand for that so they can get rid of their stupid £10 a month extra so we can turn HD into the normal kind of TV.

  11. Sooty

    i don't get it

    many, many years ago i saw 3d images generated, no glasses needed, in fact you could reach inside and it looked like you could touch it, in this case it was a static object, a skull. I'm not sure why the same sort of thing cant be used to generate moving 3d images though.

  12. Flocke Kroes Silver badge

    A title is missing

    @raving angry loony

    Current "3D" means stereoscopic. There are two ways to get proper 3D. Tell a computer where your head is, and the computer can render the right image on a TV so it looks like there is a 3D scene infront of and behind the TV. This is limited to computer generated material and is not useful for two people watching the same TV, but it is very cheap. I am surprised that you cannot get this as an add-on for games consoles now.

    The other way is to spin a screen very fast and use 3 high speed projectors to put images on the screen that change as the screen rotates. The image is limited to places where the screen can be (nothing can appear to be infront of or behind a sphere), three viewing angles are blocked by the projectors and the image darkens as your point of view becomes vertical. If there was a guaranteed mass market, the kit would cost a few thousand pounds. Content would be hard to produce - multiple cameras shooting from all directions at the same time, then the cameras have to be replaced by background in post production. It could be done if there was an audience ready to spend lots of money on 3D films. Even if the porn industry had not been decimated by free content on the net, this stuff would still be over a decade away from being anything but a curiosity in a science museum. Your best bet for 3D footie is to take 21 friends and a football to the park.

    @Sooty

    Sounds like you were looking at a hologram. If you shine a laser onto a holographic plate, it looks like there is an image infront of or behind (or both) the plate. If you move around, the image changes as if it was a real 3D object. The holographic plate is a piece of high resolution photographic film. The resolution is several thousand dots per millimetre. LCD's have a resolution of several dots per millimetre. You can get that sort of resolution with LCD on sillicon, but the result is either tiny or expensive. You can also store a 3D animation with current technology. 1,000,000 times the size and bandwidth of a 2D film is expensive, but technically possible. It would be cheaper to hire some actors for a private performance, and walk around the stage.

    Anyone seen microdisplays for sale? Several companies claim to have them, but as soon as you look for a price you get customer friendly notices like "You need Microsoft .NET framework to beg for a quote", "If you need to ask for the price, you cannot afford one" or "FOAD because we hate customers/developers/anyone who might generate sales". I have always thought a microdisplay would be far more convenient than a laptop display, but judging by people's opinion of 3D specs, I could be alone there.

  13. Christian Berger

    Why settle for stereoscopic?

    Why not real holograms. Sure it's expensive today, but once it becomes a mass market it'll be cheap. And just think of the many side products of that.

  14. JB
    Thumb Down

    Oh well

    May be a good idea, but for someone like me who has vision problems and who has a permanent squint, meaning my pupils aren't lined up exactly, no 3D technology will ever work. I remember having a go at those green/red glasses, just looked like green/red to me. Also those "magic eye" pictures were totally wasted, just looked like NTSC signal on a PAL TV!

    I won't believe it until it's the sort of cube screen we were promised in the 70s, where you could walk around it like it was a glass case. Now THAT would be 3D!

  15. Kev - LG

    Forward thinking

    With the current popularity in 3D movies this year it makes sense that the main provider of high quality in-home delivery would be doing their research in this area. I've seen pretty much all of the 3D movies released over the last few years, and am completely won over by it's immersive experience and the extra layer it brings to entertainment.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Lateral thinking

    If only there was a way of cheaply hiring a bunch of young, lissome ballet dancers, and have them perform in front of my television, i.e. in my front room. Voila, instant 3D. The air conditioning is wonky, so they would have to wear fewer clothes - just like in that weird Japanese ballet I downloaded from the internet that time, with the squid! I wonder if there any more of those? I'll have a look.

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