Philips Demos 3D on IPTV, VOD and Blu-ray

At the IBC show in Amsterdam earlier this month, Dutch technology giant, Philips, offered demos of 3D on IPTV, VOD and Blu-ray. The demos were designed to show how the company's 2D-plus-Depth content format (note: for more on the latter, see [itvt] Issue 7.41) can be distributed easily over existing distribution infrastructures and playout devices in order to enable 3D viewing experiences on 3D displays in the home without the need for special glasses. The company demo'd 3D VOD over IPTV in partnership with Telefonica, using the latter's Imagenio platform which delivers IPTV services, including VOD and interactive TV, in Spain, the Czech Republic, Chile and Brazil. "The Imagenio 3D IPTV VOD demonstration is the first worldwide experience that provides 3D TV, without the need for viewing glasses, integrated in a standard IPTV solution, and supported by a standard network," Telefonica's director of research and development, Raul Ortega del Rio, said in a prepared statement. "A key novelty is that the solution devised only takes up 15% more bandwidth, unlike other systems which utilize 100% more bandwidth." Philips also demo'd 3D VOD with eventIS, using the latter's metadata system.