On CE - For Dealers, Distributors and OEMs of Consumer Electronics throughout EMEA

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) releases the Blu-ray 3D, a long-awaited standard for full 1080p viewing of 3D movies on home TVs.

The first Blu-ray machines for 3D will be shown at CES in Las Vegas in January but shipped later in 2010. 3D movies (yes, Avatar!) will be play on these Blu-ray 3D machines (they can also play regular 2D disks). Current Blu-ray players can't handle the new 3D format, but maybe adapters will become available.

The spec is display agnostic, able to deliver the 3D image to any compatible 3D display, whether LCD, Plasma or other technology (and regardless of what 3D technology the display uses to deliver the image). The new spec allows PS3 game consoles to play back Blu-ray 3D content in 3D.

Blu-ray 3D calls for encoding 3D video using the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec, an extension to the ITU-T H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) codec currently supported by all Blu-ray Disc players. MPEG4-MVC compresses both left and right eye views with a typical 50% overhead compared to equivalent 2D content.

Go Blu-ray 3D

The 5GHz-band technology will be demonstrated at CES in January.

The Wireless Home Digital Interface (WHDI) consortium finalizes its WHDI 1.0 standard for streaming uncompressed 1080p video. (It's based on Amimon technology --other competing wireless technologies also offer multi-room capability but almost all use compression.)

The finalized standard would ensure interoperability among different-branded devices that license the technology and bear a WHDI logo (but watch out for interoperability of devices with pre-standard WHDI technology).

With WHDI 1.0, a video source could transmit a 1080p/60Hz Deep Color video stream more than 100 feet through walls to multiple TVs without running cables.

Go WHDI

AVATAR: It's the most expensive production Fox Films has ever made.

Director James Cameron probably spent more than $300 million, the cost of the last "most expensive film ever made," Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End.

Fox teamed up with Cameron for Titanic (1997) which at the time cost a record- breaking $200 million but earned more than $1.8 billion worldwide.

Now Fox is investing heavily to promote Cameron's Avatar as a technically- advanced epic that's a game-changer for the movie industry, heralding a new era of 3D-movies.

And if movies move en masse to 3D, home theatre will surely follow.

Cameron has had this film in his mind for more than a decade, waiting for technology to catch up with his vision. Cameron has even created a new film camera that combines computer-generated imagery with live action so he could simultaenously watch the virtual world as he shot the live scenes.

And another innovation from Cameron: he substantially reduced the size of 3D cameras used.

Fox says more and more live-action films will be done in 3D as the technology expands further.

Fox already credits Avatar for encouraging theatre owners to make the change over both to digital and to 3D capability. They predict audiences will soon come to expect 3D movies and 3D will become the most dominant film form.

"We experience the world in 3D, why should we experience film any different?" Cameron is quoted as saying.

This week The Empire Leicester Square in London showed the world premiere of the James Cameron movie Avatar, using the Dolby 3D solution for large screens.

"Empire Leicester Square boasts one of the largest screens in the UK, which is why it regularly plays host to world premieres," says Julian Pinn, Business Development Manager, Production Services Group, Dolby Laboratories. "…Dolby Production Services worked with Barco, Empire, and Twentieth Century Fox to ensure the best combination of brightness, image sharpness, and color accuracy to display this spectacular new movie as director James Cameron intended."

GoWatch the movie trailer, Avatar

Eastman Kodak Company will sell all the assets associated with its OLED business to a group of LG companies.

Yes, Kodak has been a pioneer in developing technology associated with OLED displays.

Yes, in the 1970s Kodak scientists developed the world's FIRST viable OLED material.

No, Kodak no longer wants to lead the charge into OLED. The cost to get to the mass market now discourages this American giant who needs every penny to make the transistion from traditional photo & office products to the new digital landscape.

To understand the pressure Kodak is under, you can look at this year's losses or you can look at their corporate-structuring which has been on-going since 2003! (See corporate re-structure timeline.)

Laura Quatela, Kodak's Chief Intellectual Property Officer and manager of the company's OLED business says, "… OLED intellectual property portfolio is fundamental; however, realizing the full value of this business would have required significant investment."

The story doesn't end there: in a separate announcement, Kodak says it has also entered into a technology cross-license agreement with LG Electronics. (The companies also agreed to conclude their patent litigation.)

That deal will allow each company broad access to the other's patent portfolio... but is royalty-bearing only to Kodak.

This move will tighten Kodak's investment focus and strengthen its financial position: and, in theory, let LG carry the heavy weight of developing OLED while allowing Kodak future access to any further OLED technology developments.

Go Kodak Out of OLED

Go Kodak Strikes a Deal