Digital TV News

A lack of content will slow 3D TV demand

Friday 14 May, 2010

By Garnet Roach - garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

The World Cup will kick start 3D TV uptake, but a lack of content, high costs and having to wear glasses will delay widespread adoption of the technology, according to a new study.

“This summer's World Cup will provide an ideal platform for 3D programming,” said Simon Murray, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media and author of the Global 3D TV Forecasts report, “for example, FIFA and Sony have already announced that they will be showing 25 matches in 3D.

“With the possible exception of the Olympics, the World Cup is the most important showcase for new broadcast technology and it could potentially do for 3D TV, what Avatar did for 3D movies," "The influence of Hollywood, console manufacturers and games publishers will also help push overall demand."

But despite a prediction that 845,000 households worldwide are likely to have 3D-ready TV sets by the end of the year, only one in eight will actually be watching 3D TV programmes. An estimated 22,000 homes in Western Europe would be watching 3D TV by the end of the year, said Informa Telecoms & Media.

The study predicted that some 70 million homes would have a 3D-ready TV by 2015, but still just over 30% - or 22.5 million homes - would actually be watching 3D programmes.

“We believe that 3D TV will take off, but we also believe that 3D TV viewing will be limited until the technology has progressed sufficiently to remove the viewer's need to wear glasses - which we estimate will be beyond our forecast period," Murray said.

"Other limiting factors for 3D TV in the home include a lack of content, high production costs, scarcity of channels, bandwidth constraints and the high cost of 3D sets."

However, the study added that although a number of issues had delayed the take-up of high-definition (HD) TV in time for the 2006 World Cup, HD was now commonplace, and there were with "significant growth opportunities" to come in 3D TV.