3D Vision Blog

Last year’s Masters Golf Tournament has been broadcasted in 3D online and apparently they’ve decided to do it again this year, they’ve already started on 6th this month actually, but you still have the time to catch up until the last broadcast in Sunday. The video stream is in Windows Media format and the 3Dvideo is packed in Over/Under format, so you should be able to play it on a 3D-capable desktop PC or a 3D laptop directly, or even from a normal computer to a 3D HDTV if you have one.

The 3D coverage will be available during the following windows:

Wednesday 6 April 2011: 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Thursday 7 April 2011: 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Friday 8 April 2011: 5:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Saturday 9 April 2011: 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Sunday 10 April 2011: 5:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

And although the golf may not be the best sport that everyone likes, at least outside of the US, it is still something that you can check out of sheer curiosity just to see how the 3D works with sports broadcasts. I know I’ll be doing just that as I’m not that big fan of Golf, but I can say that I’ve played some and that I’m not very bad at it actually, so with some more time and training… who knows.

Here is the URL you need to open in the 3D Vision Video Player, the Stereoscopic Player or any other compatible with the MMS streaming protocol player in order to get the streaming 3D video content from the 2011 Masters Golf Tournament:

mms://a1980.l858434369.c8584.g.lm.akamaistream.net/D/1980/8584/v0001/reflector:34369

And you are of course welcome to share your feedback in the comments below, is it working for you, how well does it work, do you like what you see, what do you think about sports in 3D in general and golf in 3D more specifically and so on…

- For more information on the 3D Online streaming feed of the Masters Golf Tournament…

More and more sports events are getting the 3D treatment and there were just some news that the Australian Channel Nine TV network will be broadcasting the first 3D sports event in Australia (thanks to Philip Heggie for reporting that). They’ll be broadcasting in 3D the first of the three 2010 State of Origin Rugby League games on May 26th, namely the Queensland vs New South Wales (NSW) rugby match. It is interesting to note that the Australian government has temporary given the network an extra broadcasting spectrum for the event, welcoming the initiative, and it will be a terrestrial TV broadcast over the air, and not on cable. Of course in order to be able to watch it in 3D you’ll have to have a compatible 3D-ready TV set and so far the only ones available on the Australian market are the Samsung C7000 series. Sony and Panasonic may also have their 3D-ready HDTVs available on time for the event as they are expected in June, but that is still not clear yet. The 3D broadcast will be in HD 1080i resolution according to the HDMI 1.4 3D specs. The game will be covered by special 3D rigs consisting of two cameras each and there should be at least a few of these in different places along the stadium to cover the whole game, besides the normal 2D cameras that will also be there for the normal broadcast of the event. Unfortunately no news about online broadcast, so the event will kind of remain limited to Australia, but hopefully someone will make a recording and share it with the rest of the world…

Not long ago we had one major sports event in the USA – The 2010 Masters golf tournament in 3D and now there are some interesting news that The 2010 French Open tennis tournament will also be shot and broadcasted in 3D too. The 2010 French Open will run from May 23th to June 6th in Paris, so after it finishes it will be just about time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa – the next major sports event to be shot and shown in 3D. These are definitely very good news for all the sports fans all over the world as it seems that the big sports events are one of the first to go 3D in trying to provide you similar experience as actually being there live, but at the same time from the comfort of your home while in front of your new 3D TV. After the Masters 3D broadcasts there were a lot of people that were quite impressed by what they saw, although they were not interested in Golf or even found it quite boring. Tennis for example is also not the most common and widely popular sport, but with the football matches coming up this summer the new generation of 3D TVs should become a big hit.

But back on the topic of the 2010 French Open tennis tournament being shot and broadcasted in 3D, not all matches of course, but all that will be played at the center court at Roland Garros will be shot and broadcasted in 3D. It seems that the organizers of the The 2010 French Open have partnered with Panasonic, Orange and Eurosport to make the 3D broadcasts possible. The 3D broadcast should be available to all Orange subscribers throughout France on special 3D TV channel. Eurosport will also be delivering live 3D coverage of the sports event to thousands of retail stores throughout Europe on Panasonic VT20 Plasma 3D TVs, but it seems not to the homes of the early adopters of 3D TVs that still have some issues with finding content in 3D. Still Panasonic expects to have around one million people that will be able to see the 3D broadcast from the tennis tournament in Europe, which is not bad at all.