3D Vision Blog

It seems that this year, for a third consecutive year the Masters Golf Tournament will be broadcast in 3D, continuing the tradition that this event has started back in 2010, and successfully continued in 2011 as well. This year the event will again be broadcasted in 3D both online and on ESPN 3D (possibly on other 3D channels as well), there is already some information about the schedule of the 3D broadcasts – they will not cover the whole event.

The 3D broadcasts of the Masters 2012 Golf Tournament will begin on April 4th, the third practice day as the first practice day is today, and will continue until the last day of the tournament – April 8th. If you want to be able to watch the 3D coverage online, you will need a 3D capable computer with a 3D monitor and 3D glasses (not limited to specific 3D setups) along with a 3D media player with support for Windows Media Video and Side by Side 3D video format.

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

- Wednesday 4 April 2012: 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
- Thursday 5 April 2012: 4:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
- Friday 6 April 2012: 4:30 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
- Saturday 7 April 2012: 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
- Sunday 8 April 2012: 4:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.

The information listed above contains broadcast windows in Eastern Time (ET) in USA, the online 3D coverage may not be available worldwide or in some countries, there is no clear information on that yet, but make sure that you get the right time for your Time Zone. Probably the online stream will be rotating a recording during the rest of the time when there is no real-time online broadcast, but you should not rely on that.

- For more information about the 3D broadcasts of the Masters 2012 Golf Tournament…

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…