UK’s Channel 4 uses ColorCode 3-D for 3D Week

The ColorCode 3-D Division of Sirius 3-D has been chosen to provide the supporting technology behind 3D Week on the UK’s Channel 4, which began today (November 16, 2009).  As part of the UK-wide promotion for the event, 10 million ColorCode 3-D glasses are being given away exclusively by Sainsbury’s supermarkets – ensuring that as high a proportion of Channel 4’s audience as possible is able to view the 3-D content as intended.

Press Release Follows:

From H.M. The Queen’s Coronation to magician Derren Brown, Disney’s Hannah Montana to Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein – all can be experienced with true stereoscopic depth right in your home when 3D Week airs,” enthuses Steen Iversen, CEO of Sirius 3-D ApS.  “And if ‘Flesh for Frankenstein’ becomes too much for you in 3-D, you can simply take off the ColorCodeViewer™ (3-D glasses) and experience it in normal 2-D.  With ColorCode 3-D, spectators – with or without the 3-D glasses – will never see unwatchable coloured double images, as was the case with earlier systems.”

Even if spectators are not wearing the glasses, they will still be able to view a coherent, watchable 2-D image with minimal artefacts.  As Iversen explains, this is just one of the many benefits the ColorCode 3-D system has over competing technologies:

“Our 3-D glasses have amber and blue filters built into them: amber for colour information, blue for depth.  The great advantage of ColorCode 3-D is that, compared with the old-style anaglyph (red/green) glasses used for early 3-D movies or the polarised glasses used in

3-D cinemas today, the technology allows content to be watched using the naked eye and, in these circumstances, still provides an acceptable viewing experience. 

“Additionally, for the Channel 4 event, we developed our technology further, implementing a special broadcast processing so that anyone watching 3D Week while wearing the glasses will get a noticeable 3-D effect – not just those on a high-quality digital connection, but also those on an analogue connection, on a lower-bandwidth SD connection, or using a digital receiver connected with an antenna cable, S-video or composite rather than HDMI.

“Furthermore, we have developed a live 3-D transmission system with ColorCode 3-D encoding in real-time, so that Channel 4 can incorporate live broadcasts into the 3D Week schedule.”

During the 3D Week, Channel 4 will screen a variety of 3-D shows shot and post produced by Can Communicate. Scheduled highlights include never-before-seen footage of Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation in 1953, which was shot in 3-D stereo and has been restored by Can Communicate with support from Sirius 3-D.  There will also be a ‘3D Magic Show” presented by Derren Brown and also a number of classic 3-D movies and TV experiments from the past four decades which, like the Coronation footage, have been specially converted by Can Communicate.

Earlier this year, ColorCode 3-D technology was used in the ‘Monsters vs. Aliens’ Super Bowl promotion in the U.S., which saw 130 million glasses given away so that American football spectators could watch a TV commercial for the 3-D version of the movie at the game’s midway point. Channel 4’s 3D Week is equally significant because it will be the first time that such an extensive programme of 3-D content has been shown on British television.

“Once you have acquired content stereographically, using two cameras, you can make a 3-D commercial in almost any format,” concludes Iversen. “With 3D Week on Channel 4, we aim to demonstrate to the broadcast industry not only that spectators can have a hugely enjoyable experience regardless of their home equipment setup, but also that the 3-D content creation workflow is nothing to be afraid of – on the contrary, it is established, controllable, flexible, and ready to go, right here, right now. And you no longer have to worry about spectators getting offended by blurry double images”

More information about Channel 4’s 3D Week campaign can be found at: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/3d-week