[A press release from 3-D Vision; see the 1 minute promotional video here]
World’s First 3-D Broadcast Nationwide for All TVs in Full Color
New York – October 25, 2010
The Rachael Ray Show, along with 3-D Vision, Inc., (both based in New York), are taking a major step forward in the exploding 3-D TV market. On October 29, “Rach’s Halloween Bash in 3-D” will be broadcast to millions of viewers with 3-D Vision’s revolutionary new 3-D process called “FullColor 3D™”. The Rachael Ray show is the first to use this revolutionary 3-D process in a commercial TV broadcast (sponsored in part by Sarah Lee). The show will be viewable in full-color and in 3-D on all existing TV sets, 2-D and 3-D, thanks to a new type of 3-D glasses which will be given away to over 2.4 million viewers in the October 25 issue of TV Guide Magazine. Gene Dolgoff, 3-D Vision’s CEO, commented “It’s gratifying to begin commercial application of our unique 3-D technologies with the forward-thinking innovators at the Rachael Ray show”. Joe Freed, the Co-Executive Producer of the show said “We’ve been dying to make a 3-D show for a long time and are excited to be working with 3-D Vision! We are looking forward to seeing how they bring this opportunity to life!”
Previous 3-D broadcasts shown on regular TV sets over the past 50 years used red and blue (or red and cyan) glasses referred to as “anaglyph” glasses. Although they provided 3-D, full color viewing was not possible with these glasses. In addition, due to an inherent brightness imbalance between the left and right eye filters used in the glasses, prolonged viewing created discomfort, eyestrain, and even headaches, imposing shorter 3-D segments. Recently, a new 3-D process called “ColorCode”, used during a Super Bowl halftime show broadcast, produced an even greater brightness imbalance between viewers’ eyes. The new “FullColor 3D™” process, however, uses glasses that eliminate these problems by providing full-color images in 3-D, utilizing patent-pending balanced brightness and color filters, that can be worn during an entire 3-D show without discomfort. 3-D Vision, Inc. is now making this new process available for use with all TV broadcasts. The same glasses also provide full-color 3-D viewing of all printed images for the first time ever, as demonstrated in the same upcoming October 25 issue of TV Guide Magazine. Contact the company for more details.
“FullColor 3D™” can bring 3-D TV to everyone right away without the need to buy a new 3-D TV set. During the past year, over 2 million “3-D-ready” TV sets have been sold which use either polarized 3-D glasses (the same type that are used in most 3-D movie theaters), or the more expensive “shutter glasses” (sold at an average cost of $150 each), which are the ones used with most 3-D-ready sets. These TV sets require a special format TV signal that can only be seen in 3-D on these expensive new TV sets, but can’t be seen in 3-D on the regular TV sets that most viewers have. With the new “FullColor 3D™” process, on the other hand, the same full-color 3-D can be seen on all TV sets.
Another revolutionary aspect of the new 3-D process used for “Rach’s Halloween Bash in 3-D” is the way the 3-D was made, allowing completion in a short time at a reasonable cost. Normally, 3-D shows can either be shot directly in 3-D using special expensive 3-D camera rigs operated by specialists with expertise in 3-D stereography, or they can be shot in conventional 2-D video and then converted to 3-D using a complex and expensive computer-assisted process that requires scores of graphic artists working simultaneously to convert the video to 3-D, frame by frame. Such conversion of a single full-length movie, for instance, can take several months and cost from $5-15 million just for the 3-D conversion alone. In contrast, using 3-D Vision’s revolutionary patented “Auto-3-D™” conversion process, the Rachael Ray 3-D episode took only 2 weeks to convert, utilizing only 3 computer operators, and was done at a fraction of the cost of conventional 3-D conversion.
Another advantage of this new “Auto-3-D™” conversion process is that it can produce a more natural-looking 3-D experience than the conventional conversion methods, which often produce images that look like a series of flat cardboard-like planes. This occurs because, in the conventional 3-D conversion processes, the graphic artists assign depth values to various parts of the image based on their own guesses about depth within the frame. The “Auto-3-D™” process, on the other hand, uses actual 3-D information present in 2-D video frames and automatically displays scene components at different depths based on the depth information in the original frames.
3-D Vision, Inc. developed these revolutionary patented and patent-pending technologies over the last 5 years based on its research on how the human brain works and creates the experience of 3-D, as well as on optics and TV technology principles.
About The Episode:
“Rach’s Halloween Bash in 3-D” has special guest Pee-wee Herman making Halloween treats with Rachael and magic tricks from Penn & Teller. Rachael and her husband John Cusimano also joined in on a Halloween dance party, where thirty-five dancers perform to Oingo Boingo’s “Dead Man’s Party” costumed as zombies. This episode will air on October 29th, 2010.
RACHAEL RAY, the 2008 and 2009 Emmy® Award-winning Outstanding Talk Show, is distributed and produced by CBS Television Distribution in association with Harpo Productions, Scripps Networks and Watch Entertainment. Janet Annino is executive producer. Joseph Freed and Shane Farley are co-executive producers. CBS Television Distribution is a unit of CBS Corp.
Contact Information:
For 3-D Vision, Inc. – Gene Dolgoff, CEO gene@3-DVision.com (516) 338-5000, 139 Linden Ave., Westbury, N.Y. 11590 (http://www.3-dvision.com/)
For – Rachael Ray – Hallie Goldfarb, Publicist (917) 332-3155 Hallie.Goldfarb@cbs.com