ESPN's USC-Ohio State Game Goes 3-D
College-Football Trial Telecast to Screen In Theaters
by George Winslow -- Multichannel News, 9/9/2009 3:46:59 PM
ESPN will produce and televise the Sept. 14 USC-Ohio State college-football game in 3-D, marking the first time the programmer has distributed a live 3-D sporting event to fans.
Viewers will be able to watch the game -- set for Ohio
Stadium in Columbus, Ohio
-- for free on the University of Southern
California campus in Los
Angeles and in several theaters around the U.S.
The test production is designed to help ESPN better understand the 3-D technology from a consumer and technical perspective, said network executive vice president of technology Chuck Pagano.
"This is part of the learning process," he said. "It's an opportunity for us to see how it might change the way we do things and will help us gauge fan interest.
"It isn't a dry run for a business or the launch of a channel. It isn't a dry run for anything other than trying to get our arms around it to see how we might do our business in the future, if and when it does become a reality," he added.
ESPN will create two distinct productions of the game, using separate equipment, crews and announcers. ESPN and ESPN HD will carry the standard and high-definition telecasts to home viewers.
A separate 3-D production will use Pace cameras and an NEP truck that has been equipped to handle three-dimensional images. Mark Jones and Bob Davie will announce the 3-D game, with free screenings of the live game offered at the Galen Center on the USC campus and in theaters in Columbus, Ohio; Hartford, Conn.; and Hurt, Texas. Fans in each will be given an opportunity to win free tickets over the radio; ESPN will not sell tickets to the event.
On the technical side, ESPN will experiment with the best way to shoot a game in 3-D and try to get a better sense of which camera angles work best, Pagano said. It will also be the first time that ESPN has tried to incorporate 3-D graphics into a live 3-D production.
While ESPN has made no commitment to launch 3-D services, the production comes at a time when a number of television programmers and pay TV providers are actively exploring 3-D's potential.
In the U.S., both Fox Sports and TNT have been involved in 3-D productions and ESPN has been experimenting with the technology for about three years. "We've put maybe seven or eight things in the can," Pagano said.
In Japan, 3-D programming is already available via satellite and in the United Kingdom, both the BBC and BSkyB have experimented with the technology. This summer, BSkyB announced that it will launch regular 3-D programming in 2010.
A number of hurdles remain, however, before the technology finds it way to multichannel television. Transmission standards have yet to be developed and relatively few 3-D-capable sets have been sold, though consumer electronic manufacturers are expected to roll-out a number of 3D capable models at CES in January.
Cost is another issue. For the moment, ESPN and others have had to shoot separate 3-D and HD productions, making it a much more expensive process. "We don't have an answer yet as to whether it will be possible to produce both at the same time," Pagano said.
Stereoscopic productions and high-quality HD productions are also likely to place heavy demands on bandwidth. Even though ESPN has made no decision on the possible launch of 3-D service, the programmer built a 3 Gigabits-per-second infrastructure for the new facility it opened in Los Angeles this spring and is expanding the capacity of its fiber network.
"Everything that is coming up will be a bandwidth hog and we're trying to make certain we have all our bases covered for the new generations of HD and 3-D," he said. "I tend to be a boy scout. I'd rather be prepared than be reactive."ESPN Kicks Up Fiber For Cup
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