Verizon Plans 3D This Year, But Warns About Content Availability

Verizon’s FiOS set-tops are 3D-ready, and the telco plans to offer service through its fiber network later this year. But getting 3D programming from competitors that develop and distribute content remains an issue, Verizon said, saying “integrated operators should not withhold programming options from the marketplace."

"Entertainment opportunities as great as 3D TV promises to be must be accommodated and delivered rationally and superbly,” the company said Friday in a statement attributed to Shawn Strickland, Verizon vice president of FiOS product management. There have been squabbles with cable operators and others about releasing their content for distribution through the telco, Strickland said. “Some content owners have elected to specifically exclude Verizon and other competitive distributors from carriage of these 3D events in an effort to advantage their distribution businesses,” Strickland said. “Others have fixed ridiculously high prices for the content. Verizon’s position is that integrated operators should not withhold programming options from the marketplace and that consumers should have the freedom to choose the distributor that best meets their needs."

Asked to identify those content owners, and whether Verizon would petition regulatory bodies to open the market for 3D content, a Verizon spokeswoman declined to comment: “We don’t have anything further to say at this time, other than what was in the statement you received."

Verizon’s existing FiOS set-tops and network can pass 3D signals to homes with 3D TVs, it said. Although the boxes have HDMI Version 1.3 outputs, they're upgradable to send 3D control signals to TVs with Version 1.4 inputs, it said. U.K.’s BSkyB said much the same about its satellite receivers. “FiOS set-top boxes do have HDMI outputs and they are firmware upgradeable to support the auto-configuration of TVs from 2D to 3D mode,” the spokeswoman told us, meaning the box can discriminate between 2D and 3D TVs and display the appropriate image for either: “Also, FiOS does have the bandwidth capacity for 3D in full resolution, at 38 Mbps in MPEG-2 and/or 19 Mbps in MPEG-4. This would be HD resolution for each eye, or, equal to two HD channels."

Verizon is on the hunt for 3D content that “is just now becoming available from a handful of providers like ESPN,” the telco said. “We are in active discussions with a number of companies in the emerging 3D value chain,” Verizon said. “We're monitoring the early sales of 3D TVs with interest and expect to announce a 3D offering well in advance of the holiday TV shopping season, when 3D television sales will expand."

Verizon was mum when asked if in addition to negotiating deals with content providers, it also contemplates generating its own 3D programming -- or financing original content from third parties, saying only that by year-end “we expect to have access to good 3D content and to have chosen our mode of delivery, whether full time or part time broadcast service, or via Video On Demand and to what measure as Pay Per View material.” Verizon also wouldn’t say if it would offer 3D on a dedicated channel or channels, and if those would be simulcast with the 2D version of the program.

Some “technological challenges remain” for easy 3D reception in homes, Verizon said. It said “technology that enables TVs and set top boxes to adjust the set to display 3D content has not been perfected or distributed, causing a major viewing hassle for consumers.” Its goal “is to offer a product that has a fully automated HDMI format-switching capability that switches between 2D and 3D automatically, not via ponderous access to the TV’s setup menu,” the telco said. Usually, manual switching through a 3D TV’s menu is needed when the programming is in the side-by-side and top-and-bottom formats used for bandwidth-limited carriers, like terrestrial broadcast and Sky satellite in the U.K. Verizon didn’t say what 3D formats it would use, but its use of fiber means FiOS could deliver the bandwidth-hungry “frame-sequential” format used by Blu-ray 3D.

Verizon didn’t answer when asked whether it planned to offer any so-called “2D to 3D conversion” -- either supplied by its content partners or performed “on the run” through its FiOS set-tops, or, if 2D/3D conversion were offered, whether viewers would have control over the depth of the converted 2D images, to avoid exaggerated 3D effects. There’s contention over conversion of original 2D material to 3D. The quality of such conversions -- either automatic and in real-time, or done under controlled conditions in a post-production lab -- isn’t yet known. If the conversions give effects that seem false, exaggerated or otherwise objectionable, the conversions could give 3D a black-eye in its early stages of development, some believe.