Panasonic unveiled its "fully operational" Blu-ray 3D Advanced Authoring Center located at Panasonic's R&D facility, Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory. The Advanced Authoring Center was recently upgraded and equipped with the latest 3-D technological innovations, based on standards developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). It now offers studios and filmmakers image processing, interactive programming, authoring and disc certification services, which are capable of making Blu-ray 3D Discs commercially available as early as Spring 2010.
Long before the Blu-ray 3D specifications were finalized within the BDA, Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory collaborated with studios and the creative community in Hollywood to conduct 3-D encoding as well as menu and subtitle authoring trials. This type of early collaboration and research has given the Advanced Authoring Center expertise in guiding and advising companies during the key early planning stages of a 3-D title.
"Given Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory's vast experience with HD image processing, we are confident that we lead the industry with MPEG-4 MVC (Multiview Video Coding) 3-D image compression technology," said Jeannine Patton, Vice President & General Manager of the Advanced Authoring Center. "This laboratory, located as we are in the world's entertainment capital, is proud to offer the filmmaking community the industry's first complete, end-to-end Blu-ray 3D™ encoding and authoring facility. Blu-ray 3D is an exciting new space for the home entertainment industry and our early research and collaboration was extremely helpful in determining what will provide the most compelling experience and optimum performance when designing for Blu-ray 3D."
In that connection, it is worth noting that British home theater site AV Forums recently visited Panasonic Hollywood Laboratory and reported on the whole Blu-ray compression and authoring process, also touching briefly on the 3-D component at the end (although it's not the main area covered - for instance, the film being compressed is Ponyo, a 2-D animated movie). See video below.
Neat. What an amazing amount of work that goes into creating just one blu-ray movie, especially when amplified by the amount of work needed to create 3-D blus.
Very fascinating. The video explains the work involved to master a movie onto a blu-ray disc. There is one moment that touches on 3-D technology, but it is brief. The last person interviewed is an Asian woman. I could barely understand a word that she said. She pronounced "blu-ray" as "badoo-d-deh."
