Tonight's broadcast of the Eurovision Young Dancers contest from Poland might not have been as big a ratings winner as its cousin, the Eurovision Song Contest (the latter reaching a peak of 170 million viewers last month), but EYD continues to promote one of the goals of the Eurovision project - to act as a test-bed of new broadcast technology - with a combined 4K and 3D camera.
Back in 1956 broadcasting was in its infancy, and the European Broadcasting Union debuted the Eurovision Song Contest, a live music show which was the perfect way to test a simultaneous broadcast over the European continent with a microwave network established to carry the signal.
Now the Eurovision broadcast network is well established, carrying major events such as the Olympics and the World Cup for the members of the Union, the Vienna New Year Concert, as well as sharing news footage on the Eurovision News Exchange.
But the use as a technological test bed continues. Over the last few years there has been a push for more resolution in our TV shows, with HD and Blu-Ray becoming the standard. Film makers are using 4K technology for larger pictures with higher quality.
The Young Dancers contest has pushed the limits of current technology, with footage recorded in both 4K and 3D at the same time. This setup captures eight times more data than a typical HD TV camera and while there are no commercial TV sets that are set up to receive this style of broadcast, the value here for the EBU's Media and Technology & Innovation Department is to explore what the technology can offer, and they expect the edited footage to be used in countless trade shows and demonstrations around the world.
It's also a great opportunity for the production teams to study the demands of the format, and what would be needed to make it work in a broadcast environment. Competition, as always, is helping technology move forward.
