Experimental service of 3DTV cable broadcasting using dual HD streams

An experimental service of 3DTV cable broadcasting was made by delivering stereoscopic 3D video to the users in dual HD stream format. Also, an experimental attempt was made to provide backward compatibility for conventional 2D Set-top Boxes (STB) receiving and displaying only one stream of stereoscopic 3D video signal called reference video. For the experimental service, stereoscopic 3D video signals are encoded with 35 Mbps and transmitted over single broadcasting channel by using the existing cable headend and transmission systems. Prototypes of the software-based 3D encoder and 3D STB were also used for the experimental service. Through the experimental broadcasting service, it was possible to provide HD 3DTV broadcasting service under legacy cable environment and to support backward compatibility for the conventional 2D STBs to receive HD broadcasting by using the reference video. A survey revealed that about 60% of the viewers answered the image quality of stereoscopic 3D video in dual HD stream format was better than that in single HD stream format.