Mediaset Launches The World’s First Low Bandwidth 3D TV Service

In what can be termed as a big step towards the 3D revolution, one of the biggest Italian television broadcasters, Mediaset, has now announced the launch of an all new 3D TV service that is not only cheaper than other existing services, but will also be consuming a lot less bandwidth than other similar services. The all new service called, 3VOD, will provide the subscribers with their choice of movies from a selection of 50 films on offer and the entire service will be running through Bestv set top box from Motive. One of the most compelling features of the 3VOD service is the fact that against the conventional 3D TV services that till now were available only through high speed pay-tv on satellite and cable platforms.

The incredible 3VOD service is able to accomplish the low bandwidth as the service send the huge movie files that are almost twice the size of regular 2D movies to the set to box in pieces 24 hours a day. The Bestv set top box then saves these files on its hard drive and thus can even operate optimally at low bandwidths. Even though Mediaset has termed its new service as VOD (video on demand), yet the 3VOD service isn’t exactly the conventional VOD, as this service only serves a limited number of 3D choices, whereas other 3D video on demand services such as Netflix, provides users with their choice of movies and content as and when required. Also a major difference is the way the 3D content is played, as in conventional 3D VOD services, the content is stored on remote servers and then streamed directly to the subscribers’ television. However, in 3VOD’s case, the files are stored on the hard drive of the set top box and are available for offline viewing as well.

According to Giuseppe Flores d’Arcais (Director, Motive),

“I believe this is a world first. You don’t need 10MB into the home. Within a multiplex you will always have different kinds of content. So on one channel you may have a soccer match that requires a lot of bandwidth, maybe on another channel you may have a cartoon or news bulletin. Within multiplexing you can always find some free space, even during primetime. We really extract the value of these networks.”