NASCAR's first ever live streaming of 3D video racing with Silverlight

On July 3, the first ever real-time broadcast of a 3D video stream from NASCAR races will take place. The broadcast will take place thanks to Silverlight and Nvidia 3D Vision technologies and will be held at www.nascar.com/racebuddy3d . Broadcast organizers Turner Sports, Nvidia and iStreamPlanet.

Nvidia was the first to integrate support for its 3D Vision tool into the Silverlight Media Framework open framework , which iStreamPlanet will use to stream and create a fully functional video player in the user's browsers.

This broadcast has the following key features:

- This is the first broadcast in the history of real 3D video in the browser, carried out by a regular plug-in (Silverlight) without the need for special 3D players. “Real 3D” means the delivery of a discrete stereo image at a frequency of 60Hz, that is, without anaglyph or passive interlacing;
- if you are familiar with 3D Vision, then you know that 3D in it is only available in full screen mode, but this broadcast will allow you to watch 3D video in window mode;
- This is the first live broadcast of adaptive 3D video implemented using the HTTP protocol using Smooth Streaming.

Turner Broadcasting will create a 3D video stream at the race site and then transmit via satellite in 1080i format at iStreamPlanet in Los Angeles. The display format for the end user will be slightly different from the usual use of Smooth Streaming. The minimum image size will be 480 × 224 @ 600 kbps, and the maximum 1280 × 720 @ 3.45 Mbps. On average, users will be able to watch 3D video with a picture in a resolution of 640 × 720. This is not as much as we would like, but keep in mind that this is the first experience of direct video broadcast of 3D video on the Internet.

Website TNT RaceBuddy 3D is ready to show you the possibilities of 3D-broadcast and video player. Click on the Player Demo website to go to the demo videos. To view you will need a set and 3D stereo glassesNVIDIA 3D Vision Kit that comes with 3D computers, such as the Asus G51J laptop. Without glasses, some idea of ​​the picture can be obtained by squinting, but not completely closing the eyes.

The good news is for those who don’t have glasses and equipment from Nvidia, but have 3D TVs. Just set the resolution of your signal from the PC to the TV at 1280 × 720, run the player in full screen mode and you will get a 3D image on your TV!