3D is on the upswing. Since the triumphant success of James Cameron’s Avatar, the film world has been looking mesmerized at the three dimensional pictures. It took the eco-tale only seven weeks to climb to number one at the box office-results and the film even managed to sink the Titanic. The earnings up to now: more than two billion US-Dollars.

One of the many highlights of the UEFA Champions League took place on 15 March 2011 in Munich when Bayern played Inter in the round of 16. Bayern's 1-0 first-leg advantage lasted just four minutes as Samuel Eto'o tucked away his eighth goal of the competition. By 31 minutes Mario Gomez and Thomas Müller had struck to turn the game on its head, giving Louis van Gaal's men a handy lead – but there was a nasty sting in the tail for a side beaten by the Nerazzurri in last May's showpiece. Wesley Sneijder's 63rd-minute equaliser set the platform for Pandev, who fired high into the net as Inter became only the second club in UEFA Champions League history – and the first in 15 years – to overturn a first-leg deficit on their travels.

The HMD (head mounted display) marks are finally disappearing from my kids after watching nearly 90 hours of “awesome 4K VR” streaming content from the Rio Olympics.

O.K., I admit it… VR (virtual reality) is going to be big in a few years.
After experiencing The Martian at SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers) and hearing from friends at Sundance about the lines of folks waiting patiently to put on the gear for the dozen or so films. Then there was the drill-down VR session at HPA (Hollywood Post Alliance) Tech Retreat. It’s safe to say that the industry is taking VR film work seriously. VR isn’t really new, although my kid swears it was because he wanted to be in the thick of the battle with his newest games. It wasn’t until he saw some pictures of the ViewMaster his grandfather had as a kid that he acknowledged that maybe, just maybe, VR has been around longer than he has.  We just needed tech advances to really bring it to life.

The 2014 Winter Games are underway in Sochi, and Elemental is working with leading Russian satellite TV operator NTV Plus and semiconductor supplier Broadcom to power a telecast of the two-week event. NTV Plus announced the world’s first 4K high-efficiency video coding (HEVC/H.265) satellite transmission on February 12, with live streaming of the Games in Ultra HD to special public and cinema viewing points for Russian audiences.

On 12th June the “Movie Park Germany” in Bottrop was the place to be for the German premiere of the fourth and last part of the Shrek animated series “Shrek Forever After”. In the recently reconstructed Studio 7, an audience of 1,800, including the prominent voiceover characters, had the opportunity of experiencing the green ogre’s new adventure prior to its full release – and indeed for the first time in 3D.

STEREOTEC Stereographer Sarah Rotter held the 3 day pre-summit workshop for the “AIBD/BROADCAST EMPIRE Master Class: Thinking in 3D” from 26-28 May 2013 at the Swiss-BelHotel Maleosan in Manado, Indonesia. On show was the latest STEREOTEC Nano Rig, accompanied by two CUNIMA MCU micro HD camera systems.

Highlighting its new ViBE® 4K real-time compression solution for Ultra HD (UHD) broadcasting, Thomson Video Networks will demonstrate encoding of a live UHD TV signal to distribute high-dynamic-range (HDR) content at IBC2015. ViBE 4K enables media enterprises to leverage high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) to provide an optimal video experience to consumers through live compression of UHD sources at up to 60 frames per second and in 10-bit color. ViBE 4K with HDR support will be commercially available in early 2016.

Sweden's Teracom, a leading provider of technical infrastructure and network solutions for media distribution and communications, is using Thomson Video Networks' award-winning ViBE™ VS7000 video system, NetProcessor 9030/40 multiplexer, and Sapphire MPEG stream server to demonstrate a complete transmission chain for DVB-T2 delivery of HEVC-encoded video. To enable delivery of Ultra HD content that significantly improves the home viewing experience, Teracom has combined its DVB-T2 transmission capability with the exceptional HEVC compression efficiency enabled by the ViBE VS7000 and the DVB-T2 gateway processing provided by the NetProcessor multiplexer.

At the NAB 2014 Show, Thomson Video Networks and Broadcom will demonstrate delivery of 4K Ultra HD (UHD) broadcast streams for next-generation satellite, cable, and terrestrial applications via the emerging High-Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. The demonstration will highlight the integration of Thomson Video Networks' award-winning ViBE™ VS7000 multi-screen encoding/transcoding platform with a set-top box (STB) powered by Broadcom's flagship BCM7445 Ultra HD video decoder system-on-a-chip (SOC). The Broadcom STB-ViBE VS7000 integration will be featured in Thomson Video Networks' booth at the NAB Show, SU2610.

The TICO Alliance has announced that their standardization work is moving rapidly forward and that new companies are joining the group. IBC2015 will see more TICO implementations.

Leading Broadcast equipment manufacturers, OEM providers, broadcasters, electronics brands and technology companies announced today the launch of the TICO Alliance. TICO is a new lightweight compression technology, which enables 4K/UHD to be transported over legacy SDI infrastructure and modern IP production and contribution networks. TICO has been developed by intoPIX and work is now ongoing at the SMPTE to publish TICO as Registered Disclosure Document (RDD) for the benefit of the entire broadcast and media industry.

Snell Advanced Media (SAM) today announced that Tigo Sports, Paraguay’s first sports channel dedicated exclusively to multiple sports coverage, has purchased a range of SAM solutions including its Sirius™ 840 router, Kudos™ LC350 framerate converters and IQ Modular™ infrastructure as part of a major upgrade to its facility. The upgrade allows the simultaneous production of HD and 4K content across major sporting events in Latin America. SAM’s partnership with Paraguayan reseller MACOM was key to delivering the project for Tigo Sports.

Timeline, a major provider of outside broadcast, post production, and studio-based services for all major UK networks, has designed and built the first purpose built Ultra HD (UHD) 4K outside broadcast unit in the Europe.  In conjunction with BT Sport this represents a significant investment in this brand new technology.

Axon Digital Design’s Cerebrum Monitoring and Control system will form the backbone of a new IP-based Outside Broadcast vehicle that is being launched in May by Timeline Television, a major provider of outside broadcast, post production and studio based services to all major UK networks.