DVB-3DTV Specification Published

On February 17 the DVB Steering Board approved the DVB-3DTV specification, which has just been published as BlueBook A154 ‘Frame Compatible Plano-Stereoscopic 3DTV’, (DVB-3DTV). The specification will be sent to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) for formal standardisation.

The new specification follows agreement by the 3D Commercial Module, chaired by David Wood (EBU) in July 2010 on the DVB-3DTV commercial requirements from key industry groups. The specification is the result of the work carried out in the TM-3D, chaired by David Daniels (BSkyB), with the co-operation of the ad-hoc groups TM-AVC, chaired by Ken McCann (ZetaCast), TM-GBS, chaired by Alexander Adolf (Condition-ALPHA), and the ad-hoc group TM-SUB, chaired by Nick Tanton (BBC).

The specification specifies the delivery system for frame compatible plano-stereoscopic 3DTV services, enabling service providers to utilise their existing HDTV infrastructures to deliver 3DTV services that are compatible with 3DTV capable displays already in the market. This system covers both use cases of a set-top box delivering 3DTV services to a 3DTV capable display device via an HDMI connection, and a 3DTV capable display device receiving 3DTV services directly via a built-in tuner and decoder.

Plano-stereoscopic imaging systems deliver two images (left and right) that are arranged to be seen simultaneously, or near simultaneously, by the left and right eyes. Viewers perceive increased depth in the picture, which becomes more like the natural binocular viewing experience. Since 2010 many 3DTV capable consumer products have been launched in the market.

The DVB-3DTV specification also provides a mechanism that allows subtitles and other onscreen graphics to be best positioned so that they can be viewed correctly in the stereoscopic picture.

Full press release