GDC Technology (“GDC”), a world leading digital cinema solution provider, is pleased to announce today that on June 17th Korea Lotte Cinemas broadcasted live the FIFA World Cup match between Korea and Argentina in 3D to 52 of its cinemas using GDC servers.
Held once every four years, the FIFA World Cup is arguably the greatest sporting event on earth. Korean soccer fans who were unable to travel to South Africa were pleased to watch the FIFA 2010 match in 3D, thanks to Lotte Cinemas’ live 3D broadcast using world’s most widely adopted RealD 3D systems and GDC servers. Lotte Cinemas alsoconfirmed to bringing more live FIFA World Cup matches to its 52 cinemas in 3D.
The match between Korea and Argentina on June 17th attracted overwhelming fans to Lotte’s 52 cinemas with live 3D broadcast – the very first live 3D FIFA World Cup broadcast in Korea and also the world’s first 3D FIFA World Cup broadcast, made possible using GDC’s SA-2100 series of servers. As a technology leader, GDC has always been quick to respond to technology innovation in digital cinema, and always strives to bring to its customers the best and latest cinematic experiences. Live 3D FIFA World Cup broadcast is made possible using network streaming for live broadcast technology, a unique feature in GDC servers. The 3D MPEG2 signal from FIFA is transmitted via satellite and upon receipt by the GDC server, gets decoded and converted from 2D to 3D, before finally appearing as true-to-life 3D images on the screens of Lotte’s 52 cinemas. Wearing light andergonomically designed glasses from RealD, cinema audiences can enjoy watching a full 90-minute match without feeling any discomfort or image blurring. On the other hand, 30 Lotte sites have been retrofitted with RealD-endorsed Etoniq SS-2400 silver screens to give audiences an even higher level of visual 3D enjoyment.
“We are very pleased to have chosen GDC servers because other than their impressive reliability, the speedy software upgrade to enable live 3D telecast has saved us much time and costly new hardware acquisition needed,” said Edward Muk Choi, Technical Manager of Lotte Cinemas. “The GDC solution has also greatly reduced the hardware complexity. As a matter of fact, GDC server is currently the only one on the market that has a built-in integrated 3D receiver-decoder in its digital cinema servers so as to seamlessly support 3D live broadcast without additional boxes.”
“The success of live broadcast of 2010 FIFA World Cup in 3D exemplifies not only GDC’s technical capability, but also our vision in digital cinema technology. The existing GDC servers can be upgraded to include an integrated 3D receiver-decoder capability through a software upgrade and there is no need for any extra hardware whatsoever. After successfully carrying out two separate demonstrations of this capability in Beijing and Seoul about a month ago, we are pleased to win the confidence of Lotte Cinemas to adopt GDC solution to bring live 3D FIFA World Cup broadcast to its cinemas,” said Dr. Man-Nang CHONG, founder and CEO of GDC Technology. “This project would not have been successful without the technical support given by Lotte Cinemas and Eugenetek, a GDC dealer and South Korea’s leading cinema equipment and service provider. Together, we are proud to have brought to soccer fans in Korea the first-ever live 3D FIFA World Cup broadcast.
