Australia’s first 3D TV transmission has been switched on by Broadcast Australia.
The event marks a two-month trial for Nine Network Australia and SBS Corporation that will reach seven cities initially. Content that will be 3D-enabled includes up to 15 matches from the 2010 FIFA World Cup, as well as the three State of Origin rugby league matches.
The first live 3D TV broadcast will take place on May 26, when the first of the three State of Origin matches will be played in Sydney.
The spectrum used for the trial is one of the ‘unassigned’ UHF channels in each city. In Sydney, it is the same channel vacated on April 30 by Broadcast Australia’s ‘niche TV’ trial service.
In a fast-tracked engineering project, Broadcast Australia has modified several of its broadcast transmission systems to support the 3D TV signal, which is encoded using the latest MPEG-4 compression standard and utilises a side-by-side ‘frame compatible’ 3D transmission technique.
