High-Quality 3D Baseball Games Broadcast Live Using Stereoscopic Image Capturing, With Real-Time 3D CG Overlays To Ease Visual Fatigue Of The Viewing Audience

摘要

In 2010, 3D content broadcasting became viablein Japan as available 3D television receivers became moreprevalent. Among the aired sporting events, baseball gameshad not been broadcast in 3D in Japan until the year 2010.Live broadcast of baseball games in complete 3D has beenachieved by using six beam-splitter rig systems and CGplayout systems that were developed to generate dual “filland key” streams. Those equipments and productiontechniques produce totally different pictures compared to 2Dbaseball programs. At the same time, one of the mostimportant aspects of 3D broadcasting is to refrain fromburdening its viewers with visual fatigue. To handle thisproblem, captions appear on the screen about the necessityof using a 3D television receiver, along with parentaladvisories and other viewing requisites accompanied by anaudio announcement at almost every inning. This paperdescribes the entire production system and operationtechniques relating to live 3D baseball programs.