The Most 3D NAB Ever ! (Until Next Year)

I'm now attending the pre-show NAB conference for two days. Since I started building my 3D meetings list last week, I've added a new product or company ever couple of hours. Last year, if you queried the NAB database for 3D and you discarded all the “3D Page Flipping” and “3D Virtual Set” you ended up with just two companies. The folks from Reality Check and SeeReal. All in all, you ended your NAB 3D experience with half a dozen places to see. This year, I got more than 20 names so far, and the show floor is not yet open, plus some major press announcements are yet to append.

Every step of the 3D production process is presented this year, from camera to displays, including edit, post, fake, and distribute. And big players, no less. I'm guessing here, but I'd bet you could get your headshot produced in 4K at the PACE, Dalsa or RED both, in 2K at Silicon Imaging, put a dozen frames on your USB stick, do some edit on a Quantel Pablo 3D or an IRIDAS frame server, and see it at the 3D theater, or on one of the many many 3DTV we'll see on the floor. So far I've mapped four “SpectronIQ / Kerner Optical R&D” 3DTVs and I expect to see close to a dozen.

And the real news is what we are asked not to talk about. You can sure label a tech as “hot” when the NAB exhibitors just can't wait for their products to be ready. In order to keep their clients confident they'll have theses products soon, they have to introduce them in “behind-closed-doors” demos. Why does you think Avid (who's even not showing up) did host “3D edit” demos in Los Angeles last week ? We saw them here at the Digital Cinema Summit. They have rudimental 3D support. A stereoscopic “container” that includes left and right streams, and present them as over/under 3D. All the edit is done in 2D, using this 2D compatible 3D format. The 3D display is on the external monitor, I would guess it's another of these SpectronIQ using simple line-alternative 3D. More to come later this year.

On the conference and education side, the Digital Cinema Summit hosted three sessions dedicated to 3D. Only three ? There were as many, or maybe even more, last year. Where is the exploding 3D ?

All over the place. There was a session on “3D shooting” at the ASC (aka Directors of Photography Society) and there's a full day of 3D advocacy during the show, open to all attendees.

And by the way, Autodesk just made public they are showing stereoscopic products... later this year at the Siggraph. They made clear that they will not just show a couple of patched products or scattered solutions, but instead introduce a full 3D pipeline. A comprehensive stereoscopic production system from the top VFX solution provider. Expect to be amazed !

In the meantime, here's my list of the 3D booths. I think this is the last year you have to walk around to see 3D at the NAB. Next year there'll be a at least a “3D village” if not a “3D invasion from outer space” on the whole south hall. If I'm missing anything, send your comments to pro@mendiburu.net :

- TDVision Systems (Booth: C9042) with a 3D Blu-ray
- P+S Technik GmbH (Booth: C10319A) with Alain Derobe's 3D rig
- MikroM GmbH (Booth: C10919D)
- American Paper Optics, Inc. (Booth: C11225) with all sorts of 3D glasses
- NHK Media Technology (formerly known as NTS) (Booth: C12105) with a 3DTV demo
- PACE (Booth: N112DMR) with 3D camera, a the very least
- Quantel (Booth: SL720) with Pablo 3D
- The Foundry (Booth: SL2624) with 3D plugins for Nuke
- Red Digital Cinema (Booth: SL3820) Likely to show 3D with Assimilate Scratch
- Vizrt (Booth: SL4805, R129) Realtime 3D on WOWvx screens
- Christie Digital Systems (Booth: SL6113) 3D projectors
- T-Works Co., Ltd. (Booth: SL6530) Silver screens
- Fraunhofer IIS (Booth: SL7424) 3D reconstruction from 2D
- Silicon Imaging Inc. (Booth: SL10608) Stereoscopic rig.
- IRIDAS (Booth: SL10708) stereoscopic edit system
- HD Solutions (Booth: SL11017) stereoscopic edit system
- NVIDIA (Booth: SL13913) what the F**k are they doing with the 3D driver ?
- FOR-A (Booth: SU5220) real time 3D mixers
- Iconix Video, Inc. (Booth: SU6426) stereoscopic rig
- NTT (Booth: SU10220) Another 3DTV demo

Bernard Mendiburu is a visual effects artist and digital cinema engineer working in Los Angeles. He started working on 3D in the mid 1990s as R&D engineer in Paris, where he developed HDTV and 3DTV interactive advertising. As the production company CTO, he built a production pipeline for auto-stereoscopic displays, from acquisition to playback computers, including visual effects and interactive players. In 2003 he moved to the US, and worked as scientific visualization engineer at the UCLA School of Medicine. He worked at Walt Disney Feature Animation on the stereoscopy of “Meet The Robinsons” and is writing a book on 3D movie making. He is an active member of the SMPTE 3-D Cinema group, ISU (International Stereoscopic Union), and writes for the French stereoscopic magazine "Images en Relief".