It has been a big week for 3D TV in the UK. There has been a major 3D news announcement every day. So what’s all the 3D TV fuss been about?
Well Samsung announced an £8m 3D TV launched campaign and were the first to go on sale with a 3D Ready TV in John Lewis this week. The Samsung 3D Ready TV offers a 47-inch screen for £1,800 at flagship branches of John Lewis. The 3D TV set is HD Ready also and is compatible with Sky’s soon to be launched 3D TV channel – Sky 3D.
Then LG chimed in saying it will launch its biggest ever UK ad campaign behind its line of 3D TVs. It is launching a range of 3D Ready TVs in LCD, LED and Plasma formats, along with HD compatible Blu-ray players and full-HD 3D projectors.
And then Astra, the satellite broadcasting platform announced that it is to broadcast a 3D TV demo channel for retailers. This will allow retailers to sell 3D Ready TVs by showing a rich 3D TV content in-store.
The new 3D TV channel will not be available to digital TV viewers at home and will broadcast a loop of demo 3D content to illustrate the capability of the new 3D TV medium.
Meanwhile Sky is in the midst of their 3D TV launch, with Sky CEO Jeremy Darroch talking about their 3D TV plans this week. Sky will launch Europe’s first dedicated 3D TV channel later in the year, and the channel has already started broadcasting in over 1,000 pubs and clubs in the UK. The channel will be available to Sky digital TV customers who have a Sky+ HD box and pricing will be announced shortly.
And the content owners have also been busy on the 3D TV front. It has already been announced that 25 World Cup games will be filmed in 3D and this week also saw the announcement that the French Open tennis tournament will also be filmed in HD. Panasonic confirmed an agreement with the Fédération Française de Tennis, Eurosport and Orange to broadcast the French Open in 3DTV across Europe.
The French Open starts on May 23 and all the matches on centre court will be filmed in 3D. In France, the live 3D TV coverage will be broadcast via ADSL and fibre-optic broadband to Orange subscribers on the dedicated Orange web-TV channel. And Eurosport will also show the event in 3D via satellite to over 3,000 Panasonic stores in 58 European territories, including the UK.
So 3D TV is coming soon! If you would like to learn more, why not speak to the Simplifydigital impartial digital TV experts on 0800 466 1047 – they’d love to help…