Friday, August 29, 2014

3D Virtual Reality: The Future of Sports Broadcasting?

Recently tried on the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Scotland – is the 3D virtual reality video broadcast of the games the future of 3D broadcasting?

By: Ringo Bones

The average American may have become jaded – even bored with anything pertaining to 3D after its boom in 2010, but for the rest of the world, 3D enthusiasts are still clamoring for the latest improvements and innovations on whatever makes 3D a more enjoyable experience. Given that the trial 3D virtual reality broadcast of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games seems to have rekindled everyone’s interest in anything 3D related in Britain and her former colonies, is 3D virtual reality the future of sports broadcasting? 

The latest 3D virtual reality broadcast of the 2014 Commonwealth Games is a technological tour-de-force in itself because it is the first ever sporting event that was broadcasted worldwide in 3D virtual reality format. But it would not have been possible without the Kickstarter crowdfunded start-up company called Oculus Rift who has improved those wrap-around virtual reality goggles that make them no longer headache-inducing unlike their VR Goggle predecessors of the late 1980s of the early 1990s. Thanks to recent advances in wrap around 3D virtual reality goggles, 3D virtual reality viewing is no longer the nystagmus inducing chore that it used to be.

To the eagle-eyed viewers who had noticed, the video quality of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in 3D virtual reality format is slightly compressed - at the moment – in order for it to allow to be transmitted in our current internet infrastructure. Faster computer processor and internet transmission speeds in the future would only mean better picture quality – make that better 3D picture quality of future 3D virtual reality broadcasts via the internet. Only time will tell if all sporting events broadcasts and movies will be judged by their “you are there” 3D image quality - as in 3D Virtual Reality.