This article is more than 1 year old

HDMI tunes into 3D TV broadcasts

Standard updated

The organisation behind HDMI has updated the digital TV connector standard to ready it for the 3D era.

HDMI Licensing said the new version, 1.4a, mandates the support of 'top-and-bottom' and 'side-by-side' modes for broadcasting the picture data that will be present to each eye, thus creating the illusion of 3D.

Until now, the standard supported 3D modes for games and pre-recorded movies, but not TV programming.

Side-by-side works with broadcast field-interlaced, 1080i pictures, while top-and-bottom is used with progressive-scan video at either 720p or 1080p resolution.

For pre-recorded movies on Blu-ray Disc and games presented in 3D, HDMI 1.4 already supports the frame packing technique, which is essentially top-and-bottom, at resolutions of up to 1080p at 24f/s and 720p, respectively.

By adding all these formats, HDMI Licensing said, the standard will ensure interoperability between hardware devices. Both the display and the content source - if they use HDMI rather than, say, DVI - have to support the formats. Hardware makers have 90 days to prepare their products for HDMI 1.4a certification, the licensing body said. ®

More about

More about

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like