The world's first terrestrial 3D TV service officially went live last week, following a successful trial by Italian broadcaster Mediaset.
The service, known as 3VOD, runs on Motive's Bestv set top box, offers subscribers the ability to view films from a selection of around 50 films. It was originally offered as a limited trial to subscribers from late last year.
Previously 3D TV was limited to high-bandwidth pay-tv on satellite and cable platforms.
The problem with 3D TV is its very large filesizes—with two images per frame, films are literally twice the size of 2D shows.
"I believe this is a world first," said Giuseppe Flores d'Arcais, co-founder of Bestv and director of Motive. He said the service is aimed at delivering internet TV-like services to viewers still receiving their signal through aerials or via satellite, rather than internet-connected TV: "You don't need 10MB into the home."
What 3VOD does is to trickle the movie file to the Bestv set-top box throughout the day and night. The box stores the film on its hard drive. Trickling small amounts of data allows the broadcaster to extract the maximum value out of any under-used bandwidth. Typically broadcasters transmit up to seven TV channels in what is known as a "multiplex".
"Within a multiplex you will always have different kinds of content. So on one channel you may have a soccer match that requires a lot of bandwidth, maybe on another channel you may have a cartoon or news bulletin. Within multiplexing you can always find some free space, even during primetime. We really extract the value of these networks," he said.
3VOD is not a conventional VoD service
Although it describes itself as video on demand, 3VOD is not a conventional VoD service like the U.S. Netflicks. Instead users are able to watch from a limited set of choices. Unlike true VoD services where the files are stored on a remote server and streamed in real-time to the user, 3VOD stores the files locally on a set top box.
When the film is complete on the hard disk, it appears in the user's electronic programme guide for viewing. As the film is being served from the hard disk there are no issues of latency, buffering or quality concerns.
For broadcasters the system, known as Datacasting, allows them to offer a limited set of higher-end services that are similar to those offered by IP TV or satellite providers, but delivering them over their existing networks.
Motive is in talks with providers in eastern Europe as well as Turkey and Latin America. Motive Television was founded in London in 2005 and its shares are quoted on the London Stock Exchange (AIM).
The recent CES trade fair in Las Vegas saw a heavy 3D presence on show. However sales of the TVs remain slow. Only some 3.2m 3D TVs were sold last year out of global sales of 247 million televisions.
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