PlayStation 3 to support 3D Blu-ray

 

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Posted on 17 Dec 2009 at 16:01

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) today announced the finalisation of the Blu-ray 3D specification. The technical details are fairly dull, but one piece of interesting news is that the PlayStation 3 has been confirmed to support playback of upcoming 3D Blu-ray releases.

To playback 3D movies in Full HD you'll need a player that's capable of 1080p at twice the frame rate of the movie, which is usually 24fps. Most modern Blu-ray players should be capable of this, though many will require a firmware update. If you've got a player then all you can do is cross your fingers and hope your player gets support. If you haven't .bought one yet, then we'd recommend the PlayStation 3, as it's certain to support the new standard.

A far more pressing problem for most will be the need for a new HD TV. Models supporting 3D currently cost thousands of pounds, and though this is sure to drop if the format gains momentum, it will still hugely outweigh the cost of a new disc player.

The movie and electronics industry is hoping that 3D movies will be the next big thing for home entertainment. The popularity of 3D movies is about to under go its greatest test, with previews of James Cameron's action-adventure movie Avatar on today, and general release tomorrow. Other 3D animated movies, like Pixar's Up have done well when screened in 3D, but it's still hard to see if 3D will rise above its previous gimmick status.

For those who like the technical waffle, here it is. The Blu-ray 3D specification calls for encoding 3D video using the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec, an extension to the H.264 codec currently supported by all Blu-ray Disc players. MPEG4-MVC compresses both left and right eye views with a typical 50 per cent overhead compared to equivalent 2D content, and can provide full 1080p resolution backward compatibility with current 2D Blu-ray Disc players.

Author: Seth Barton