Tokyo-based Pico House has unveiled an easy-to-use 3D Blu-ray authoring solution for BD-Recordable discs. According to the developer, its prosumer “Easy3D” software conforms to the BDA’s 3D BD specifications, and format video in the AVCHD standard.

“Easy3D” helps those who need 3D contents to produce very easily video for uses such as production previews, medical material, 3D design, teaching material, maintenance, entertainment, government and municipal information, corporate, wedding and school events,” boasts Pico House CEO Takanobu Sato

“Because the 3D video can be made without re-encoding the stream necessary for 3D playback by processing video data, the time for data creation can be shortened,” says the company. Since writing on the BD-R disc conforms to UDF 2.6, it is possible to overwrite and add material by using the Logical Over Write (LOW) feature.

Authoring of the menu can be done by selecting background and button images from templates, designed by Pico, arranging the data automatically in a short time. The company announces the launch of a commercial service to provide customised menus on demand, collecting material and designing the finished product.

Full HD 3D images can be recorded on memory cards in the AVCHD standard of Panasonic’s twin-lense 3D camcorder AG-3DA1. The solution is based on 3D active shutter glasses viewing.

As of September, Pico House says the following Blu-ray recorder models can read the disc written with Easy3D: Panasonic DMR-BWT3000 / DMR-BWT2000 / DMR-BWT1000, Sharp BD-HDW700 / BD-HDW70. “Easy3D” works on Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 32-bit Edition of Microsoft

Pico House’s Sato believes providing the prosumer market with a low-cost, easy-to-use capability of creating 3D content is important at this early stage in the format’s growth given the dearth of 3D titles from the movie studios. It is also critical that 3D be adopted by a wide range of uses, not just feature films.

Pico House was established in 1987 as the film and music production arm of Shinchosha Publishing. In disc authoring, Pico House started in 1994 an on-demand Video CD service in 1994 and claims to have brought to market the first independent DVD authoring service in 1996. It started a Blu-ray authoring service in 2006. In 2009, Pico house produced its first BD-Live title.

The authoring solution began selling in Japan last month, priced at ¥1.89m (€16,500) including the HP workstation. Taiwan is next on the list followed by Europe. Pico house is producing an English-language version. It will showcase its product at the forthcoming InterBEE 2010 fair

Story filed 08.11.10