The DVB-GEM (Globally Executable MHP) Profile for Plano-Stereoscopic 3DTV has been recently approved and published by ETSI (TS 101 600 V1.1.1).

The profile specifies the extensions to the DVB-GEM middleware to enable applications that are aware of frame compatible plano-stereoscopic 3DTV services. This is achieved with a new horizontal 3D profile which can be applied to all GEM targets. The 3D profile extends the display model and presentation APIs, to enable additional 3D display modes and drawing functions, with varying capabilities. For the more capable 3D modes a new drawing API is introduced, which is a stereoscopic extension of the java.awt.Graphics2D API set.

On devices with hardware support for accelerated 3D graphics based on OpenGL ES, the profile specifies an additional 3D mode, which enables the rendering of a 3D volumetric scene to a stereoscopic display. On these devices Open GL ES based drawing is also available for 2D display modes.

A plano-stereoscopic system creates a 3D illusion for the viewer by delivering two images (left and right) that are seen simultaneously by the left and right eyes. This can be achieved by various techniques on a TV set, such as shutter glasses, polarizer glasses and others.

Since 2010 many 3D-enabled consumer products have appeared on the market starting with Blu-ray players and TV sets. DVB has taken into account the need to support planoscopic 3DTV for broadcast services and developed a specification to define the delivery system for plano-stereoscopic 3DTV services that are compatible with 3DTV capable displays that are already available in the market.

GEM based TV middleware specifications are adopted in different markets. The present document specifies an extension to the DVB-GEM middleware with a new horizontal 3D profile. This 3D GEM profile ensures that interactive applications and graphics are aware of 3D content and can handle drawing situations, where the application graphics are superimposed to 3D movie content.

The specification can be downloaded here:

webapp.etsi.org/workprogram/Report_WorkItem.asp?WKI_ID=38914