MLB in 3D - Yankees/Mariners on YES 3D - July 10 & 11, 2010

Originally Posted by runner66

who is your sorce for the info i have not seen anything about them having the game

YES Has Eight Distributors On Roster For 3D Yanks-Mariners Telecasts

Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision Join DirecTV, Verizon In Airing 3D Contests On July 10-11

By Mike Reynolds

It's eight distributors in for YES's 3D presentation of the July 10-11 New York Yankees-Seattle Mariners games from Seattle.

The contests will mark the first Major League Baseball games to be televised in 3D. Panasonic and DirecTV are the presenting sponsors of the two 3D telecasts.

In addition to DirecTV and Verizon FiOS, which previously announced that it was on YES's roster for the 3D telecasts, Blue Ridge Communications, Cablevision, Comcast, Cox, Service Electric Broadband Cable and Time Warner Cable will make the games available in the enhanced format this weekend.

FSN NW officials said Comcast would carry the 3D versions of the games throughout the state of Washington, while Time Warner Cable will make them available in the eastern part of the state. A spokeswoman said the RSN continues to talk with other carriers about picking up the 3D ballgames.

The Yankees-Mariners telecasts will be the latest in a recent run of sports getting the 3D treatment: part of golf's The Masters tournament were shot by ESPN and distributed by Comcast Media Center to a number of video providers; CBS presented the Final Four and championship game in the advanced format in select theaters; and MSG offered the New York Ranger-New York Islanders National Hockey League game, which was available exclusively to Cablevision homes and a theater at the MSG, in the format during late March.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup has been the leading attraction of the ESPN 3D network, which kicked off on June 11. Moreover on July 3, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks joined DirecTV's n3D network in televising Turner and NASCAR's 3D version of Coke Zero 400 from Daytona International Speedway.

Also on deck: ESPN 3D will air the State Farm Home Run Derby on July 12, while Fox will air the MLB All-Star Game in 3D the following night.

Back in the northeast, the aforementioned eight distributors will show the MLB games within the Yankees' home territory throughout New York State and Connecticut, north and central New Jersey, and northeast Pennsylvania accordingly: Blue Ridge Communications: channel 333; Cablevision: 1300; Comcast (N.J.): 981; Comcast (Conn.): 333; Cox: 784; DirecTV:103); Service Electric Broadband Cable: 831; Time Warner Cable (New York state): 483; Time Warner Cable (New York City); and Verizon FiOS: 575.

YES officials said the network is making the 3D games available at no extra charge to its affiliates.

YES's 3D coverage of the July 10 game from Safeco Field will begin at 10 p.m. (ET), while the enhanced telecast the following day begins at 4 p.m. Dave Niehaus, the Mariners play-by-play man and a member of the broadcasters' wing of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, will handle play-by-play duties for the 3D telecasts along with fellow Mariners voice Dave Sims. YES's Ken Singleton will provide color commentary.

YES and FSN Northwest will also produce traditional HD telecasts of both games.

YES Gears Up For 3D MLB

Will use six 3D cameras, expanded crew

By Glen Dickson

YES Network executives are approaching this weekend's games between the New York Yankees and Seattle Mariners without a scouting report---not on the teams themselves, but on the stereoscopic 3D technology YES will use to produce the first Major League Baseball games in 3D.

Consistent with its everyday production standards, YES isn't cutting corners on the 3D broadcasts this Saturday and Sunday, which are being co-sponsored by DirecTV and Panasonic and will be carried by DirecTV and a bevy of cable operators. The network has hired 3D specialist PACE and NEP's SS31 (formerly SS3D) 3D mobile truck, the same setup used by ESPN to produce coverage of The Masters this spring, and PACE CEO Vince Pace will be in the truck serving as 3D stereographer.

But YES executives freely admit that they haven't yet seen any baseball in 3D, and view this weekend's production as a grand experiment.

"I've never seen one piece of footage on baseball, so I don't know how great baseball [is] in 3D," says YES CEO Tracy Dolgin. "I have no idea. It's certainly worth a shot. If it does turn out to be good, I think it will soon be the best minds figuring out how to do [it] right, and we'll be in the forefront of doing it."

In the near term, Dolgin expects that what YES learns from this weekend's games should help inform Fox Sports' production of the MLB All-Star Game in Anaheim, Calif. on July 13 (Fox did shoot some 3D test footage using high-school players earlier this spring).

YES VP of operations Ed Delaney has been closely following 3D developments in sports production, but he also hasn't yet experienced baseball in 3D. On Thursday, he was overseeing the setup of PACE's 3D cameras at Safeco Field in Seattle, which he called a "very complicated process" compared to normal HD.

"I'm really excited about it, I have no idea what to expect," says Delaney. "It's always great learning something new. That's how we're approaching this."

Since the PACE/NEP configuration uses a "convergence operator" to adjust the depth of field for each camera, in addition to a stereographer and other support personnel, the number of people dedicated to the 3D production will be significantly higher than YES' team for a typical HD game. YES will use 46 people for the 3D broadcasts compared to 30 for the HD broadcasts, which will be separate productions.

"It's mind-boggling, the technology and how sophisticated it is," says Delaney. "Normally, you just have a regular camera guy, and he's worried about the zoom focus, and the composition of the shot. But now you have a convergence guy for each camera, who's looking at the depth info, and the z-axis. Then there's the stereographer. It's an incredibly sophisticated and very impressive setup PACE and NEP have."

YES will rely on six PACE cameras, five side-by-side "hard camera" units and a handheld "beamsplitter" unit for up-close shots. YES also plans to use 2D-to-3D conversion technology from HDLogix to incorporate some traditional camera feeds from the HD broadcast into the 3D production, such as overhead shots down the foul lines.

The 3D hard cameras will be placed in traditional baseball camera positions: "low-first" base, low-third, high-home and center-field; in addition to low-home, a position that isn't available in that many stadiums. Delaney is excited about the possibilities of the low-home position, which he says could be particularly dramatic for plays at the plate and may also be used to show pitches firing into the batter.

"That's what we're hoping is the money shot," he says.

High camera positions have generally been less effective for 3D coverage, and Delaney admits to being unsure how the center field camera position will work.

"It will be interesting to see," he says. "It all depends on how the depth of the backstop net shows up against the actual diamond. We may look at alternative positions during the show day, and avoid the net altogether."

Delaney says he was surprised that the transmission of the 3D signal is relatively simple. YES will take the left-and-right-eye camera feeds and feed them into a RealD encoder to assemble the side-by-side frame-compatible 3D format. Then it will pass the signal through a conventional MPEG-2 encoder to transmit it to DirecTV and other pay-TV operators.

"I thought that part would be more complicated," he says.

Originally Posted by advocate2

I was hoping to watch the game living in Vegas. I was able to see about three minutes of the pre-show, but then got a message that the program is only available to viewers in the New York area.

Originally Posted by Abilor

It's for 3DTVs with Active Shutter glasses. Red/Blues won't work...

Originally Posted by NM 156

Ok. I have the clear grey 3D glasses...

Originally Posted by Abilor

Same idea. Those are for dedicated setups with polarized screens. This is a different kind of tech, is a simple answer.