Did you read through the post this morning on watching the World Cup in 3D and think to yourself, “But that’s pointless for Australians!”? We did, which is why we’ve put together this handy guide to watching the matches in 3D here in Australia…
On Your Shiny New 3DTV
Just bought yourself a shiny new 3D capable TV? Then you can watch each of the 25 matches being recorded in 3D Live on the special trial 3D channel that was launched last month.
The catch though is that the channel only works in certain areas, namely Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane, Newcastle, and Wollongong. If you struggle to get a regular SBS signal though, you’ll probably struggle to get the 3D signal.
Don’t forget that if you’re watching the match in 3D at home, you’ll probably need to spring a few hundred dollars for some extra pairs of glasses so your mates can watch as well.
At The Cinema
Really want to watch the Australia vs Germany match on Monday morning at 4:15am in 3D, but don’t have your own 3D capable TV? Why not head to the cinema? Both Hoyts and Event Cinemas are planning on showing the match in 3D at selected cinemas around the country. At the time of writing, Hoyts were only showing the Australia vs Germany matches in five cinemas in NSW and Victoria, and Event’s website shows that they’re selling tickets, but the link to buy them is broken. But Hoyts is charging $15 a ticket, including the glasses, to watch the match, which is a lot cheaper than buying your own 3D capable TV.
At the Sydney International FIFA Fan Fest
Sydney is one of six locations around the globe, alongside Berlin, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Paris and Rome, to host an official FIFA branded Fan Fest for the World Cup. This is the event we heard about last year when Sony announced they were filming some matches in 3D.
The catch with the Fan Fest site in Darling Harbour is that it won’t actually be broadcasting the matches in 3D live. Instead, they’ll be showing highlights from each of the 3D matches about 12 hours after the match has been won (or lost, if you were playing against Australia) in a dedicated 3D stand from Sony.
Sony’s 3D stand will be fairly obvious to anyone at the Fan Fest site in Darling Harbour. Inside it’s polished mirrored tiles with LED lighting will be TVs showing 3D match highlights from the World cup, PS3 3D highlights and another area showing music and film content in 3D. It’s not going to be as exciting watching 3D at the fan fest – it won’t be live for a start – but it might satisfy the curiosity of anyone not willing to drop cash for a 3D television or a 3D movie ticket.
Kieran
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 10:46 AMI still don’t get why you need a 3dtv to watch 3d? you can display glasses-required 3d on a 2d screen without any issue.
why don’t they just broadcast 3d in a format which will play on all tv’s with glasses.
or is it something to do with shutter glasses..
Adam
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 11:25 AMWhat like the red and the blue 3d lmao what are you 12 do some research about it
matt
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 11:31 AMno.
you need a new TV. your old TV would need to be able to natively support 200Hz signals through HDMI or DVI or something (I don’t think cable supports this)
the 3D signal its self is probably only 48 or 50hz,(25 frames per second, with 2 images each frame, one for each eye).
but the images of a frame can’t simply go: show frame1 eye1, frame1 eye2, frame2 eye1, frame2 eye2, ect. because there would be two much flickering (and eye would be blocked for a whole 50th of a second), so the images need to be swapped multiple times in the space of a frame to avoid flickering (so an eye is only blocked for 1/200th of a second at a time) in my opinion, even at 200hz, there is too much flickering.
so in short the 3DTV takes a 50hz signal and upmixes it to a 200hz signal, no tv, not even the latest 3D ones, can accept a 200hz signal from an external source.
if showing 3D at 50hz was acceptable (lots of flickering!) then all you would need is a set-top box that supported 3D and an ir transmitter for the 3D glasses. it would plug into your tv just using HDMI or even component, and transmit what would look to your tv like just a normal 50hz 2D signal. then, just with some calibration to get the IR transmitter synced up with your TV, it would theoretical work. can’t imagine it would cost much more than $150 + 3D glasses (assuming the glasses could support 50hz)
Cameron
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 10:50 AM“Hoyts were only showing the Australia vs Germany matches in five cinemas in NSW and Victoria, and Event’s website shows that they’re selling tickets, but the link to buy them is broken.”
No that’s just Hoyts website, that’s how they define “working”.
moloko
Thursday, June 10, 2010 at 12:28 PMI hope the four people that watch this in 3D have fun LOL
Sean
Monday, June 21, 2010 at 9:37 PMI would like to see more content in 3d and the other tv networks should bring out more 3d channels in mpeg 4 and also have more 2d mpeg 4 channels as well and i would be interstred when the abc brings out a 3d channel