ESPN 3D Debuts With First of 25 World Cup Matches

BRISTOL, Conn. -— The 3D learning curve took a big turn upward Friday as ESPN 3D debuted with the live 3D broadcast of the opening World Cup match between Mexico and South Africa, which ended in a 1-1 tie. “I'm encouraged by what we have to date,” said Chuck Pagano, ESPN executive vice president-technology, at a media event at ESPN’s headquarters. “It’s a pretty good opening salvo. It’s a new dawn."

Though glitches in the 3D telecasts seem inevitable, ESPN 3D plans to stick to its commitment to air all 25 World Cup matches in 3D, Pagano said. “We're doing them all. We're narrowing the gap between what we know and don’t know. Every day we're learning more. We're throwing the spaghetti against the wall.” He said the company is committed to going forward with 3D over the next year, and has made that commitment to production truck company NEP as well.

Now it’s up to TV set makers to run the next leg of the race, ESPN executives said. Sony is ESPN 3D’s charter sponsor, but Bryan Burns, ESPN vice president of business development, said it’s time for others to step up. “They sell TV sets,” he said. “I would hope that those companies who aren’t involved with us in an economic way today become involved with us because that will be the biggest thing that will preserve and maintain and grow the viability of the content. We all like our devices but we don’t buy them for the device itself. We buy them because we want to consume content, and that’s where we come in. We have to figure out how fast and how high and how far to fly this flight. We'll learn that by the kind of business support we get and will act accordingly."

One thing ESPN has learned from its football and Masters golf live 3D coverage is that there’s an “un-learning curve” involved, Pagano said. “You have to uncouple what you know from the 2D world space and have that depth perception programmed back into you. Being in the 2D space for so long your rods and cones get polarized just dealing with that space.” For ESPN, that means visualizing an event like a Hollywood director would, he said. “You study the outcome you're trying to achieve with the shot. You're looking at things more reflectively rather than going for a shot.” As a result, in 3D there will be fewer zooms to cover the ball, he said. “You're trying to set the shot up for a different story, and the story isn’t focused on one point in space but a full frame of information.” The point in 3D is to look for overall play action versus ball action, he said.

In the company of ESPN executives, we viewed Friday’s match at ESPN headquarters on a Samsung 70-inch 3D DLP-based rear-projection TV, and among the first things we noticed were fewer scene cuts compared with those of the CBS broadcast April 5 of the NCAA Final Four matchup between Butler and Duke (CED April 7 p1). The strategy was intentional, formulated over many months of testing, Pagano said. “Our minds are challenged and we go into information overload right now with too many cuts,” Pagano said. “In time our minds will probably adapt to things. You can’t shoot it like a 2D experience. You have to think about how you're going to block out the shots and about your ability to follow the action. It’s like putting your head under a bulk eraser and starting anew."

Kevin Stolworthy, senior vice president of content and information technology for ESPN, said frequent scene cuts have caused viewers dizziness, nausea and other unwanted reactions. “In 3D it’s about placing you in a great seat at the stadium and letting your eyes follow the action,” Stolworthy said. That doesn’t mean scene cuts won’t take place, he said, but the focus will be on immersing the viewer in the experience.

As for camera placement, play-by-play cameras with long zoom lenses that are far away in the stands work well for 2D, but in 3D, “we need to bring the cameras closer to the action,” Stolworthy said. “We're looking for the middle ground that gets us more 3D feel on the lens and gives you more perspective of the game.” The most effective use of 3D, he said, will come from instant replay and close-up shots on the field from the handhelds, Steadycams and “jibs that punch out 3D,” he said. In fact, close-ups and instant replay will be “the big payoff” of 3D, he said. Shooting that way can help reduce some of the imperfections of early live 3D, including when people on screen walk unintentionally into a scene, creating an undesirable jarring effect for viewers back home, he said. “It’s an art form,” he said, “and we have a lot to learn."

Live 3D will require new camera positioning because of the angles involved, Stolworthy said. The standard first-and-10 overhead shot in football, for example, can’t be done well in 3D because the “Z-axis” -— the depth aspect -— doesn’t carry over into 3D from that angle, he said. While all ESPN 3D broadcasts will be shot in HD as well, because of the different requirements of 2D and 3D shooting, the 3D cameras might be on the opposite side of the field from the 2D cameras, as was done with the live 3D telecast last September of the Ohio State-USC football game from Columbus, Ohio, he said.

Transmitting World Cup from Johannesburg in live 3D is a “pretty complex process,” Stolworthy said. Particularly challenging, he said, is “keeping two signals synchronous across 9,000 miles through a fiber link that goes under the ocean,” he said. In addition, the signal is at 50 frames and has to be converted to 60 frames for the U.S. standard and is in 1080i, he said. ESPN 3D’s broadcasts of Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby July 12 and the X Games July 28 -- the first events in which ESPN 3D will control the feed -- will be sent in ESPN’s native 720p, Stolworthy said. It has long been ESPN’s position that 720p displays sports better than 1080i, Stolworthy said. Although the World Cup matches are being produced for FIFA by Host Broadcast Services, which is headquartered Switzerland and has planning offices in Boulogne-Paris, France, 300 ESPN employees are on the ground in South Africa helping with studio programming and various feeds.

At each World Cup match, nine 3D rigs will be used at set positions, compared with 18 HD cameras, which have been given priority locations. In the Mexico-South Africa match we watched on ESPN 3D, we noticed a substantial step down in HD quality on both close-up and long shots. That was a result of the conversion from a 50-frame to a 60-frame signal and the MPEG-4 compression required to get the signal into the pipeline, said Jonathan Pannaman, ESPN’s senior director of engineering. Because the conversion from 50 to 60Hz won’t be required for ESPN’s airing of the MLB Home Run Derby and the X Games, HD quality should be noticeably better, he said.

We also noticed dropouts in fast-action shots, which Pannaman also attributed to compression artifacts. “When you compress a picture, the algorithm is analyzing the picture and looking for objects that are moving and not moving and looking at loads and loads of frames,” he said. “If something just whips through, it ends up somewhere where you don’t expect it and trips up the compression.” Future improvements in processing power and speed will result in fewer glitches, he said. “If you gave the compression algorithms all the time in the world, they'd do it perfectly,” he said.

On the Mexico-South Africa broadcast, we noticed another 3D phenomenon akin to what we saw when we viewed Masters golf and Butler-Duke in 3D -- an inconsistency in the size of the athletes, who at times appeared as miniature people in a way that doesn’t happen with 2D. Pagano attributed that to different geometries involved in a 3D image.

Early on, Pagano said he was surprised by the lack of industry consensus on 3D transmission and delivery methods (such as side-by-side, top-bottom and checkerboard). “I now have to produce and deliver a product for all of the formats based on what the distributor is using,” he said. The need to accommodate all delivery methods doesn’t compromise the picture, he said, but it adds to the overall complexity. He was pleasantly surprised by the market-readiness of 3D TV makers, he said. But was unpleasantly surprised that none of the broadcast production vendors were ready for 3D, he said. Still, “they're all working nicely with us and trying to help out,” he said.

In addition to next month’s Home Run Derby and X Games, ESPN 3D hopes to air 13 college football games live this fall as well as a slate of NBA games next regular season and in the playoff. As of now, ESPN 3D will run live sports events exclusively and return the bandwidth to its affiliates during down time, Burns said. “There could be opportunities for our affiliates to do video on demand which helps their business,” he said. “Everybody needs to look at the 3D value chain. How can all the various entities participate and benefit?"

ESPN 3D will weigh airing live sports in 3D based on factors such as rights availability, logistics, stadium availability and interest among sponsors, affiliates and viewers, Burns said. “Time will tell” whether ESPN commissions more trucks or NEP builds them -— a significant investment -- on the assumption that 3D will take off, he said. -— Rebecca Day