CBC Face Hard Hitting Reality For NHL 3D

3D broadcasting has come a long way in the past year, and this is particularly relevant for live sports, but it seems as though the NHL (the biggest league in the world for ice hockey) is not yet on board, despite testing the format three times earlier in the season.

The general response to these trials, which occured in the Maple Leafs-Canadiens, Islanders-Rangers, and Canadiens-Flames (2011 Heritage Classic) games during the regular season, was a comparatively negative one, with reviewers claiming that the coverage was good, but could do a lot better. Reports claim that because of this, the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals (which will be contested by the winners of the Bruins-Lightning & Sharks-Canucks series) will not be shown in 3D.

Canadian national broadcaster CBC, who’s Hockey Night In Canada show was an integral part of the ‘experiments’ conducted by the NHL Network, claim that they are not as ‘confident’ in the idea of 3D ice hockey as they were before the December and March broadcasts.

Fred Mattocks, CBC’s general manager of technology, is still a fan of the 3D format, and was pleased with the results of the two Canadian fixtures aired by the network, but he admits that there are plenty of problems that need to be ironed out. Such problems included filming bugs, high production costs, and the network not having a large enough market to sustain regular three-dimensional coverage.

Mattocks summarised his personal feelings on the matter: “At the end of the day right now, I’m not as bullish on 3D as I was a year ago. We’re in a mode that I call disciplined experimentation, we can’t afford to be all over the place because we’ll go broke.”

Market size of 3D has been fairly slow, according to the Consumer Electronics Marketers of Canada, with only 3% of all new TV’s in the country in 2010 being 3D-compatible.

Mattocks added: “When it comes to people actually using 3D that level is very, very low, so until that level starts to grow we can’t afford to move massively into 3D production, it just doesn’t make any sense. But we’ll keep an eye on it, we’ll try to help it along, we’ll encourage people … because I do believe 3D is the future, it’s a question of when.”

He said of the technical bugs, which were reported to have gone as far as causing physical harm to viewers (due to the nature of 3D and the visual effect a filming error can have on the audience): “The addition of the third dimension changes the creative equation and in television nobody has all the answers. The entire industry, even in the movies, is still trying to figure it out - what you can do and what you can’t do, or put another way, what you should do and what you shouldn’t do.

Mattocks continued, also referring to the need for 3D glasses as an issue: “How do you deal with people popping up in front of the camera - that creates a real issue for the viewer in 3D because all of a sudden your depth and focus becomes jarred. 3D gives us the ability to make our audience sick and you never want to make your audience sick. The industry’s a smart industry and it’s reacting to that. Glasses interfere with the experience, it’s just that simple. … My own view is until the glasses problem is solved we won’t see the kinds of adoption we saw with other high-quality forms of immersive experiences in the living room like high definition.”

With CBC’s efforts to make 3D a permanent NHL fixture slipping, there will no doubt be a search on to find the problem that is stopping them from matching other sports and leagues (such as the NBA, NFL, and golf) in terms of well-recieved and good-quality coverage. Is it the nature of the game (being in an enclosed playing arena with little camera room), or are the producers just not doing their jobs right?

Crazy Matt Cazzy into all things hi-tech, gizmos and gadgets. If its just out, i want it. Loves watching tv on every device ever invented that can handle it

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