3D television broadcasting appears to be on the wane - done in by consumer reluctance to adopt the technology, but also cost as well as a lack of enough content. It means that the possible (if ever) roll-out of 3D TV broadcasts in South Africa remains but a pipe dream.
3D TV channels are mostly suited for sport broadcasts, showing movies done in 3D at the box office, like the recent Frozen, and natural history documentary programming featuring nature in the form of plants and animals.
A new report from IHS Technology notes that there's now more 3D TV channels closing down than starting in the world, with another one - which quietly shuttered in January on a Nordic pay-TV operator.
TV channels broadcasting in 3D started in 2010 but after three years the appetite for this programming has not seen fast growth and consumer and viewers adoption. Where 19 3D TV channels were launched in the world in 2010, it slowed by 2012 and last year more 3D TV channels were shut down than were started.
South Africa is still struggling to up the number of basic high defintion (HD) TV channels.
The free-to-air OpenView HD (OVHD) satellite platform from Patco Digital (a TV division of Sabido) has one HD TV channel in the form of e.tv HD.
On Digital Media's (ODM) StarSat now runs two HD TV channels since the roll-out of its new HD enabled StarSat decoder on its pay-TV satellite platform: NBA TV HD and Star Bollywood HD.
MultiChoice's will be upping another of the SuperSport channels on its DStv satellite pay-TV platform to HD level when SuperSport 7 becomes an HD channel from 22 April.
DStv now delivers 14 TV channels in high definition. It also has high definition TV shows on its DStv Catch-Up video-on-demand decoders that's from TV channels like Disney for instance, which is still broadcast in standard definition (SD) in South Africa.
