BBC plans to air Strictly Come Dancing in 3D, also on iPlayer

The BBC is to air the final to Strictly Come Dancing in 3D. The UK public broadcaster, which last year aired a studio-based special of the dance competition show in 3D for the annual Children in Need day, will use outside broadcast facilities to air the final from Blackpool in the format in the run-up to Christmas.

The show will be aired on Freeview, Freesat, Sky and Virgin Media and also be shown in 3D in selected cinemas. In a first, the BBC also plans to make the show available in 3D on its iPlayer catch-up platform.

“This time we want to add the fourth platform – BBC iPlayer.  We hope to make the 3D version of Strictly available to the version of iPlayer that appears on some of the internet connected 3D TVs and on some connected set top boxes,” said Andy Quested, head of technology, BBC HD and 3D, BBC Technology, on his blog. “It will be a technical trial and we cannot yet guarantee the results across all the different makes, models and types of receiver so we will need [viewers’] help to identify some of the issues and give us feedback for any future iPlayer trials.”

For the broadcast, the left and right pictures will be converted from 1080i25 to the 720p50 format, both images will be sub-sampled into a single top/bottom image and the data rate will be encoded for iPlayer distribution. Quested said that the current bandwidth requirement was “a bit on the high side” at 5Mbps.