3D channel news
The world of 3D broadcast is in constant reshaping. Confirming that Asia wants 3D badly and that US and Europe are frowning on the need to wear 3D glasses to watch TV, China announces its first 3D channel that will open for the Chinese New Year of the Dragon (read: January 23, 2012); at the same time, Canal+ France is announcing it will stop (at least for a while) its experimental 3D channel "Canal + 3D" from January 24, 2012.
In China, the new channel, China 3D TV Trial Channel, will be jointly operated by CCTV and other five local TV stations in Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Jiangsu and Shenzhen. The free-to-air channel will broadcast a total of 13.5 hours everyday from 10:30 to 24:00, with 4.5 hours of first broadcast and two rebroadcasts.
Programs of performing arts, sports, cartoons and movies with 3D effects will be broadcast in the channel, CCTV said. The CCTV representative added that 3D TV channels may create a consumer demand worth hundreds of billions yuan (read : a LOT of dollars), if part of China's 500 million TV sets are replaced by 3D ones.
Chicken and egg problem in Europe? Canal + 3D announcs that the lack of content is the main motiviation for its service suspension, closely followed by the lack of demand from the audience.
Egg and chickens problem in Asia? The BBC reports that some users of Sina Weibo - one of China's Twitter equivalents - said they were looking forward to the new service. Others expressed scepticism, saying they would wait until new 3D TV sets that did not require special glasses arrived. Other Asian countries have already their 3D channels. Before China, countries like Japan, South Korea and India have already launched similar services.
The Chinese press release from SARFT (State Administration of Radio Film and Television) is here (in Chinese - you may try Google Translate if you are not fluent in Chinese ...).
