Eurosport’s live 3-D broadcast was distributed by many of the largest operators across Europe. Sports fans with 3-D-capable TV sets can visit the Eurosport website to know if the 3-D broadcast is available in their country and learn how to access the channel to enjoy the matches in the exceptional immersive experience that 3-D offers.
Laurent Abadie, chairman and CEO of Panasonic Europe, said that in addition to consumers’ homes, the tennis coverage (including the first Chinese woman to win a Grand Slam singles title) was broadcast live to more than 7500 consumer electronics stores where Panasonic TVs are sold.
“Sporting events, especially like the prestigious French Tennis Open, offer a compelling 3-D TV experience, so it is important that the industry strives to do more live 3-D sport broadcasts to help drive the 3-D market forward,” he said.
For the actual production of the event, Panasonic’s latest 3-D camcorder, the AG-3DP1, was used for the first time for a live broadcast. This P2HD series 3-D camcorder comes with a newly developed 17x twin lens zoom lens system and features both wide-angle and telephoto settings to provide an angle of view for diverse shooting situations. It combines three high-sensitivity, high-resolution sensors and high-quality 3-D HD recording in a compact package.
Other Panasonic 3-D products used in the production included several compact AG-3DA1 camcorders, and a side-by-side rig with two AK-HC1800 box cameras, six AV-HS450 multiformat live switchers, numerous P2 Mobile memory card recorder/players, BT-3DL2550 3D production monitors and BT-LH910 3D production monitors.
At Roland Garros, the site of the French Open, Panasonic also unveiled a demonstration of 3-D Hybrid Broadcast Broadband TV (HbbTV). The company said HbbTV is an important step forward for the 3-D revolution, as it allows people to watch streamed 3-D content just as you would HDTV content using catch-up services through connected TVs and set-top boxes.
HbbTV is a new pan-European initiative that combines traditional broadcast and broadband delivery to help consumers manage the rapidly increasing amount of TV content available to them. The HbbTV specification is being promoted by Panasonic to give people more opportunities to view 3-D content.
Last Year’s 2010 French Open tennis tournament will also shot and broadcast in 3-D.
