3D Glass ‘Somewhat Full,’ But CE Woes Weigh on Sales, Panasonic Says

Cumulative U.S. viewership for London Olympics coverage in 3D is “about a million” households, Eisuke Tsuyuzaki, Panasonic North America chief technology officer, told Consumer Electronics Daily Tuesday at a screening of 3D Olympics coverage in New York. “That’s quite respectable for where we are today,” he said, citing 3D TV’s three years on the market.

In the U.S., 3D Olympics coverage is available to 80 percent of the combined footprint for cable operators, Tsuyuzaki said, and is being shown on a next-day delay basis by Armstrong, AT&T, Blue Ridge, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, Insight, Mediacom, RCN, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and WideOpen West. Overseas, where 3D has taken a more solid stance, having been part of the infrastructure switch to HD in some markets, 3D Olympic broadcasts are being shown in the U.K. over Sky and BBC and in France, Italy, Norway, China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Asia, Brazil and Latin America, he said.

Panasonic showed swimming, diving, gymnastics, bicycling and kayaking events in 3D over the n3D channel it sponsors on DirecTV. It was reported last month that n3D had quietly gone part-time from the 24/7 schedule it trumpeted at launch, although 242 hours of 3D programming were slotted for the Olympics, which Panasonic called “the most widely distributed 3D program ever.” Specific events for 3D were chosen on “eye candy” potential by the Olympics Broadcast Services (OBS), which is operating three trucks, 20 camera rigs and 30 handheld cameras for the 3D broadcasts, Tsuyuzaki said.

Calling the “glass somewhat full” for 3D, Tsuyuzaki noted that 3D TV sales have followed the overall fortunes of the TV industry where “the bottom fell out” due to oversupply and a soft economy and prices that “eroded quite quickly” in 2010-2011. This year, adjustments in the supply chain have paid off and prices are inching up for 3D and TVs overall, he said. Penetration for 3D TV has grown from 1.2 million households in North America in 2010 to 3.2-3.5 million households last year, and it’s expected to approach 7 million households by the end of this year, he said. With 3D as a feature bundled with other premium features including LED lighting for LCD TVs and Internet connectivity, just how many consumers are making use of the 3D function on premium TVs is another question. “Maybe they're using it, maybe they're not,” he said. “We're not forcing it down their throats.” Tsuyuzaki couldn’t cite figures on how many 3D glasses have been sold.

As one of 3D’s biggest cheerleaders, Tsuyuzaki said 3D market proliferation “continues,” despite industry chatter about future technologies such as autostereoscopic 3D, OLED, 4K and 8K displays, second-screen technology, cord-cutting and Apple TV. All that chatter has taken a toll on TV sales overall, he said. Tsuyuzaki called the division of 3D into active and passive camps a “distraction,” and while Panasonic has fielded one passive 3D TV SKU to satisfy that segment of the market, active models have a household penetration in the U.S. of 85 percent versus 15 percent for passive, he said. Passive will likely grow this year, he said.

Consumers will be able to have a 3D experience on a tablet next year, Tsuyuzaki said. Gaming platforms including Nintendo 3DS and LG’s 3D phone have been moves toward mobile 3D, he said, adding that 3D hardware is “doing OK in the grand scheme of things.” Regarding Panasonic’s plans for 3D tablets, Tsuyuzaki said the company has tablets for industrial markets, but the challenge for an Android-based tablet for the consumer market is, “how do you find something that’s unique to you at a price point people want? We'll figure that out,” he said. He called 3D “another layer” but wouldn’t expand, adding, “you'll have to wait for CES."

From the programming side, “big events,” including the London Olympics, are key to NBC’s future involvement in 3D programming, Rob Simmelkjaer, senior vice president of NBC Sports Ventures, told us at the screening. On NBC’s commitment to 3D two years after TVs became available, Simmelkjaer said the network is still taking a “wait-and-see attitude” toward the technology. The Olympic Games from London is the “perfect event because the whole world is watching,” Simmelkjaer said, “but we're not yet at the point where we're going to be creating a channel as ESPN has done or going deep into the 3D space.” NBC Sports will “pick and choose our spots,” he said.

To offer a dedicated 3D channel, NBC would have to see an adoption rate “similar to what occurred with HD” and “have a sense that the population would pick it up at a very high rate,” he said. “We haven’t seen that level of pickup yet, but we're very high on the technology and on the experience it gives sports fans,” he said. He said the network believes 3D “has the potential to get there,” citing golf as currently the top sports event for 3D. While NFL football has “great potential,” for 3D, he said, “sometimes the sports you think would be best for 3D aren’t.”

NBC will confer with partners including Panasonic following the Olympics to determine what’s next in 3D, but Simmelkjaer referred to 3D as still an “experiment” versus a commitment. NBC Sports won’t deliver 50 or 100 3D events a year “the way ESPN 3D does,” he said. “We're going to be dipping our toe a lot more than ESPN has,” he said.

The business model for 3D keeps changing as more 3D TVs come to market, said Frank Hawkins, partner with Scalar Media Partners, a consultant to Panasonic for 3D. “If you're selling 70 percent of sets with the 3D chip embedded, by the end of 2013 you'll have 12-15 million sets and by the end of 2014 you'll have 20-plus million” in homes, he said. At that point of “mass adoption,” he said, “what’s going to be the event that gets consumers to find the glasses?” Simmelkjaer said the “tipping point” for NBC to make a deeper commitment to 3D would likely be at least 20 million 3D TV households.

Although ESPN hasn’t released viewership figures for its 3D channel, the sports network is having a much easier time than Discovery’s 3net channel, said Tsuyuzaki. He said 3D has found venues for pay-per-view, VOD, and premium cable. The question now is, “how do you bring that down to the basic cable tier?” he said. “When you start seeing scripted drama, then you'll see something,” he said. Costs are coming down on the production side to make that more viable, he said, citing the Cameron-Pace integrated 2D-3D camera that’s been used by ESPN and others.

Baseball has been slow to move to 3D, with only a few experimental games shot thus far. Hawkins said anything shot with “a moving ball coming toward you is great in 3D,” but the primary problem with baseball broadcasts is “seat kills,” where the optimum locations for low-angle cameras are where $1,000 seats are located. “We ended up doing Yankee games from Seattle,” Hawkins noted, because “there are certain stadiums where 3D will work better than others,” he said. “They don’t necessarily correlate with the teams people want to watch.” Tennis can be more accommodating, Hawkins said, saying new openings were cut at the US Open for 3D cameras in the back wall where 2D cameras -- and no seats -- are located.