Europe’s SES Astra Seeking Standard for Satellite 3D Broadcasts
BERLIN -- “Achieving a standard for broadcast 3D is our objective,” CEO Ferdinand Kayser of SES Astra satellite broadcasting of Luxembourg told reporters Wednesday. “We recognize the need for this, or users will be lost,” Kayser said: “The lack of a standard is not an advantage for broadcasters, it’s not an advantage for viewers and it’s not an advantage for the industry. We have already said that we will issue a communique on this in 2010 and we now expect to have something positive to say over the next few weeks, or months."
SES said satellite broadcasting, with 77 million European households has passed cable, with 71 million. Astra accounts for 52 million of the satellite homes and Eutelsat the rest. About 92 percent of satellite homes get digital service. Only 34 percent of cable homes do. Terrestrial TV reaches into 86.5 million European households, and 48 percent have gone digital, Astra said. “There have been landslide losses for digital terrestrial in Germany,” Kayser said. “Terrestrial TV in Germany is now 100 percent digital but with reduced cover.”
Astra broadcasts 114 HD channels to 6 million HD viewing homes, and 125 million HD-ready sets have been sold in Europe since HD began in 2005. “No extra investment is needed for 3D,” Kayser said. “The satellite infrastructure is transparent and most broadcasters are using transmission systems that work with existing HD receivers. So viewers can keep their receivers and only need buy a new TV. Sky and Canal+ are planning 3D services for as early as April."
"We are fully aware of the issue,” Kayser said when we mentioned that broadcasters can transmit 3D to HD receivers in many ways -- such as side-by-side, top-and-bottom, interlaced and quincunx/checkerboard coding -- but satellite receivers don’t have the new HDMI Version 1.4-standard connectors that support 3D flags to control a 3D TV. “The situation is similar to that in 2004, when we were making the first HDTV broadcasts,” Kayser said. “We are already talking with the industry and the European Broadcasting Union. 3D is moving at breathtaking speed. It’s the trigger for the next big wave after HD. But there are no technical standards and nothing is clearly set out.”
After the news conference, participants had a chance to put on dark glasses and watch wildlife, game-play and football clips in 3D. The demonstration was staged by Sony Germany, using a 46-inch HX9 3D-Ready TV with add-on infrared transmitter and several pairs of active shutter glasses. The 3D demo clips were sourced from a PS3 and upgraded to Blu-ray 3D status with PS3 Version 3.2 firmware. Sony’s demonstrator told us that the player and TV had been on a working demonstration at the Sony Style store in Berlin since the end of January. No explanation was offered for the new Blu-ray 3D standard’s delivering frame-sequential 3D that existing satellite receivers can’t handle.
On the way to Berlin we had noted a similar demonstration at the Sony Style store in London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 -- but not working and with an apologetic sign saying “unavailable due to firmware upgrade.” Although Sony’s Berlin 3D demo worked well, we spotted a significant artifact: Even a small tilt of the head almost completely destroyed the 3D effect, causing crosstalk double images on screen.
Kayser also spoke about the success of a new free-to-air broadcast service in Germany called HD+. This uses encryption for copyright control rather than payment for viewing. “In Europe most free-to-view satellite broadcasters use encryption for rights control,” Kayser said. “German broadcasters are now regretting that they did not do so. At the end of 2009 we launched the HD+ service which uses encryption and smart cards to control viewing. It is going even better than we anticipated. By February manufacturers had ordered 600,000 cards and the number is now around 700,000.”
HD+ technical spokesman Stefan Vollmer told us that HD+ launched Nov. 1 and is used by five HD broadcasters in Germany and Luxembourg. Austrian service is expected to start soon. The HD+ satellite receiver has a smartcard slot that uses Nagravision encryption. Manufacturers like Humax buy smartcards from Astra and bundle them with their HD+ receivers. The bundled card works for a year without charge. After that, the owner pays a 50-euro annual fee to keep the card working. Card use is anonymous, and there’s no technical bar to cross-border sales. The object is to reassure rights holders that the broadcaster is trying to stop viewers in one European country watching satellite broadcasts intended for another.