The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) will soon announce plans for future support of 3D home entertainment technology as Hollywood studios and electronics manufacturers are keen to establish industry wide standards for 3D content in the home. At least four ad hoc industry groups formed just this year to explore standards for stereo 3-D on TV.

Andy Parsons, chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association, recently stated that the BDA could pursue one of two approaches for implementing 3D technology on Blu-ray.

The first method would allow for 3D data to be passed through the HDMI ports of the television, allowing supported TV's to handle all of the 3D processing. The second method would have the 3D processing occur on the Blu-ray players themselves, but this would most likely require yet a significant addition to the Blu-ray player profile. In either case, the group wants to make sure any 3-D approach is compatible with its existing specification for 2-D content, Parsons said.

Many see Blu-ray as the likely first vehicle to deliver stereo 3-D movies to the home owing to the act that the separate images for right and left eyes in stereo 3-D typically require significantly more bandwidth than 2-D images, creating trouble for broadcast delivery. Standards are not expected to be approved and implemented until 2010 at the earliest.

The DVD Forum, for its part, is also working on 3D applied to standard definition DVD.

Story filed 26.08.08