The US Display Consortium (USDC) and Insight Media have officially announced the formation of the 3D@Home Consortium, a non-profit alliance of high-tech industry leaders mobilising to provide consumers with quality, yet affordable in-home 3D entertainment.

The 22 international founding members of the Consortium were revealed at an opening meeting during the NAB conference and include board level members Philips and Samsung, leadership level member Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment, and 19 other members including Thomson, IMAX, TDVision, 3DIcon, Corning, Planar Systems, QPC Laser, SeeReal, 3ality, DDD, In-Three, Quantum Data, Sensio, Fraunhofer Institute IMPS, Sim2, Setred, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Holografika and Volfoni.

"This strong international group of founding companies is a testament to the widespread interest and possibilities in stereoscopic 3D home entertainment," said USDC CEO Michael Ciesinski. "We expect many more to join in the coming months with our efforts to help speed adoption of 3D in the home to begin immediately."

At the Consortium's first informational meeting at the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, Insight Media, USDC and several founding members, provided more details about the consortium's charter and direction.

The 3D@Home Consortium has been formed to accommodate the desire within the 3D industry to speed the commercialisation of 3D home entertainment, while delivering the best possible 3D viewing experience to a worldwide audience of consumers. To achieve this objective, the group is focused on three primary short-term goals:
• Creating and publishing useful technical roadmaps
• Developing educational materials for consumer and retail channels
• Facilitating the development of industry standards and their dissemination

"This consortium represents an important next step in driving advancements in the burgeoning 3D market," said USDC CTO Dr. Mark Hartney. "We see a host of new opportunities for cooperation and innovation on the horizon - not only for display providers, but for those within every facet of the 3D technology chain - and we look forward to working with the consortium members to promote these efforts."

Driven by the success of 3D in digital cinema, an entire new ecosystem is forming to develop the hardware, software, content and delivery mechanisms to bring 3D entertainment into the home. This will include 3D gaming, sports, movies and other entertainment. "In 2008, millions of TVs, capable of showing stereoscopic 3D content, will be purchased by consumers," said Chinnock. "The value of DLP, PDP and LCD TVs sold in 2008 that are capable of showing HD-quality stereoscopic 3D content is expected to exceed $2 billion dollars, making this market large enough to attract the interest and attention of many players."

To organise the consortium, Insight Media and USDC listened to the concerns and objectives of many of the key industry players and crafted a mission statement and consortium focus that represents these concerns and objectives. As a result, the consortium includes four steering teams, to be filled as members come on board, organised around technology scope and function: 3D Content Creation and Production; 3D Content Storage, Transmission and Distribution; 3D Promotion; and 3D Displays.

www.3DatHome.org