MPEGIF Kicks off 3DTV Working Group at CES 2010

Tuesday, January 5th, 2010

FREMONT, Calif. — 2010 International CES — The MPEG Industry Forum (MPEGIF), the world’s largest advocacy group for standard’s based digital television technologies, announced today the date for the first inaugural meeting of its recently launched 3DTV Working Group. This meeting will be held during CES 2010 on Saturday, January 9 between 1pm and 2pm at the MGM Conference Center, Las Vegas in Room 110.

All interested industry participants are invited to attend as the meeting is open to the press as well as both members and non-members of the MPEGIF.

The 3DTV Working Group, with its founding members being Motorola, Harmonic, dicas, NetLogic, MainConcept and TDVision, is following in the great tradition of Working Groups created by MPEGIF over the years, and will take on an unique, important position in the industry closing the gap between content mastering, an area covered superbly by SMPTE, and content display, which is perfectly represented by the CEA, as well as facilitating a coordinated course of action both in respect of technology standardisation and creation of adequate business models.

“I am extraordinarily pleased with the overwhelmingly positive response we received after the launch of our 3D campaign, and I am more convinced than ever that the industry will benefit tremendously from the 3DTV Working Group led by my colleague Dr. Sean McCarthy,” commented Prof. Dr. h. c. Sebastian Moeritz, President of MPEGIF and CEO at dicas. “3DTV is a fantastic technology representing an interesting challenge and distinctive opportunity both on the technology as well as on the commercial front.”

“Clarity in the set of technologies required to complete a comprehensive delivery chain for 3D video is vital to its success,” said David Price, Vice President of MPEGIF and Vice President at Harmonic. “The investment in everything from cameras, editing and production suites to encoders to CPE demands global standardization to give business models a chance of success.”

“3DTV is not just the ‘hot topic of the day’ — it’s the natural evolution of digital media for the home. As we are seeing in the cinema, modern 3D creates a better and more immediate experience that was ever possible before,” says Dr. Sean McCarthy, chair of MPEGIF’s 3DTV Working Group and Fellow of the Technical Staff at Motorola. “Today, the technology and ecosystem issues surrounding 3DTV distribution remind me of the challenges the industry faced a few years ago with the emergence of new MPEG4/AVC compression technologies. Yet, in other ways, 3DTV could become widespread much more quickly because 3DTV distribution can leverage existing MPEG-based headends, channels, and digital set top boxes.”