Canal+ to cease 3D broadcasts
Canal+ is to end its experimental 3D channel as of January 24, 2012. Reports in the French media indicate the channel had only managed to derive some 30,000 subscribers.
Initially launched in June 2010, the French premium channel had always taken a softly, softly approach to 3D broadcasts, running a single movie and one live event every month. It was also able to draw on 3D content produced in the UK and Spain.
Transmissions were receivable on Canal’s range of PVRs, including Le Cube, as well as IPTV Networks Free and SFR.
Local website Planet CSAT indicated that Canal might return to 3D when it is able to provide subscribers with a better experience.
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Just Who Are the Real Hollywood Stars?
"Who are the real Hollywood stars?" Scott Ross asked the packed crowd filling Salon 1 of the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel during October's annual SMPTE Technical Conference.
Then he put a list of the top 20 highest-grossing box office films of all time on the screen in front of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers audience.
"Notice that, in this whole list, only one franchise featured an established star," Ross said. "But all of them, without exception, were powered either by massive digital visual effects or computer-generated animation."
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The demand for visual effects will not go away, of course. So Ross envisions a future VFX industry built around a hub-and-spoke paradigm, which is being accelerated by broadband Internet connections.
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"We need a major change in the industry," Ross finished up. "The people who own and operate visual effects facilities have to understand that they are not the tail that wags the dog. They are the dog!"
After all, as Ross told the SMPTE audience, "It don't mean a thing if it can't go ka-ching!"
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Production processes: A lightbulb moment
The emergence of “personalised manufacturing” promises to resolve the contradiction. Using computerised designs, techniques such as three-dimensional printing will enable businesses based in Birmingham or Belize to make complicated parts for products from forklift trucks to space rockets that could be assembled virtually anywhere. Customer choice over how the artefacts look will increase, with only minimal compromise concerning quality or cost.
This development places the world on the brink of the fifth era for manufacturing: “mass personalisation”. In 3D printing – also called “additive manufacturing” – machines based on advances in electronics, laser technology and chemistry build up complex shapes from granules of plastics or metal.
“It adds up to a new industry which reduces immensely the gap between design and production,” says Ian Harris, from the Additive Manufacturing Consortium, a US-based industry think-tank. “Manufacturers will be able to say to their customers, ‘Tell us what you want’ and then they will be able to make [specific products] for them.”
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NPD DisplaySearch: 3D TV Gaining Momentum in Western Europe and China, Declining in North America
”We were surprised to find that 3D appears to be a far more popular feature in China than North America, and the penetration rate was two times higher in the last quarter,” said Paul Gray, Director of TV Electronics Research, NPD DisplaySearch. “Our report also indicates that North American and Japanese 3D penetration is lower than the Middle East.”
The report finds that North American consumers favor large, inexpensive TV sets with fewer features, unlike other regions.Chinese consumers are enthusiastic about richly-featured sets with 3D, LED backlighting and smart TV capabilities.
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THX and Optometry College Set Up One-Person 3D Theater
THX has provided equipment and setup assistance to a special eye clinic just opened in Beaverton, Oregon by Pacific University’s College of Optometry. It is the nation’s first 3D eye exam room to help people with depth perception problems, and hopes also to provide information to the 3D industry to improve the methods they use to display 3D to audiences. The clinic is already discovering what it is about viewing 3D that causes some people to have eye problems.
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3D Forms, Most Beautiful and Most Wonderful
If there’s one trend that’s poised to take off and enter the mainstream in 2012, it’s 3D printing. Sometimes referred to as additive manufacturing, 3D printing is the process of taking computer-generated designs and building them up in the real world, layer by layer, using materials such as plastic or powdered metal, via printers the size of a desktop. ...
In other words, manufacturing has been transformed into creation.
The movement toward 3G printing takes advantage of wide-scale trends and behaviors already taking place within our society. The growth in popularity of Maker culture, the renewed emphasis on small-batch craftsmanship and the DIY ethos that has infused the digital world all have contributed to the creation of a grassroots, hobbyist movement around 3D printing. By some estimates, the most recent Maker Faire event in New York City attracted over 35,000 participants, leading some to speculate thatwe are witnessing the same kind of broad-based hobbyist movement that gave rise to the PC revolution. Some have even gone one step further, arguing that we may be on the cusp of a new industrial revolution, powered by small communities of DIY enthusiasts and personal 3D printing kits. ...
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Myst 3D coming to the Nintendo 3DS in 2012
For those who are unfamiliar with the game, the game was originally released back in September of 1993, a good 18 years ago and is basically a first-person adventure game. The game itself was considered to be pretty “scenic” at that time and surprisingly rather immersive. The good news for those planning to relive the game or planning to give it a go, the Nintendo 3DS version of Myst will come with new landscapes along with the RIME Age that was not included in the original PC release.
... Hoplite Research has set a release date for the 27th of March 2012 ...
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IMM Sound gives a Conference on 3D immersive sound
IMM Sound ...a technology pioneer which anticipates the future of the sound in three dimensions to viewers in the digital age and opens the door to a new cinematic experience and fully immersive.
From a technical point of view, scalable imm Sound Technology goes beyond the concept of the sound channels, because its decoder provides a full surround sound experience, adapting the 3D immersive soundtracks to the speaker setup selected in each room.
The channels that Imm Sound installed on the roof (more than five in configurations of 23 or more canales9 open space, recreating the z-axis so far was missing in the cinematic sound experience. This new effect provides hiper-resolución in the location and movement of the sound environment to the Viewer.
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