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Alcatel-Lucent Innovation Days – December 2008
Context
Digital television (IPTV), as we know it today is
essentially little different from the former analog
television. Nevertheless, the IPTV technology
inherently offers a huge potential for growth in new
services and personalization.
Figure 1: Auto-stereoscopic 3D display
Auto-stereoscopic 3D displays will be one of the
technologies which will initiate a new era for digital
television. This technology brings a new television
experience, with a higher immersion of the viewer. In
addition, it also opens new opportunities for natural
user interfaces and new 3D services. During the
demonstration one can get acquainted with this new
technology, the underlying encoding methods, new
applications, and research in this domain.
Challenge
Auto-stereoscopic 3D displays are expected to be the
next technology wave after High Definition (HD)
Television. Besides the high number of technology
challenges needed to be solved on the screen-
technology level (e.g. beter 3D resolution, bigger
viewing angles, ....), there is an even bigger amount
of challenges to be solved before the system will be
ready for deployement in the same applications space
where current 2D displays are being used.
In order to make the 3D technololgies available to a
large market such as residential IPTV, a high number
of challenges needs to be tackled.
The most important technological challenge are new
3D encoding technologies. H.264 AVC is a very mature
technology for 2D. It brings high quality with low
bandwith requirements. For 3D encoding, all options
are still open, and it is not yet clear, which
technology will be able to bring the best quality for a
certain application and at which bandwidth?
Less scene info
More scene info
Data size
Fixed Viewpoint Free Viewpoint
Less scene info
More scene info
Data size
Fixed Viewpoint Free Viewpoint
Figure 2: Bandwidths of different 3D coding technologies
An other set of challeges are related to how
applicatoins will be using the 3D technologies. How
will 3D acquisition of the content happen? How will
3D improve man-to-machine interfaces. What new
opportunities will it bring for e.g. watching sport-
events, gaming, video communication, ...
Scenario & Innovations
2D+Z coding technology
With the 2D+Z coding technology, a very bandwidth-
efficient mechanism is demonstrated for initial 3D
IPTV deployments. The advantage of this technology
is that it is backwards compatible with normal 2D
displays, while providing a basic 3D experience with
only 10%-20% overhead on the IP network
Figure 3: 2D+Z coding technology
A disadvantage of the technology is the very limited
viewing angle, and visual artifacts in occluded areas.
3D IPTV
A Potential Future (R)Evolution for Digital TV
BELL LABS Research Project