The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) releases the Blu-ray 3D, a long-awaited standard for full 1080p viewing of 3D movies on home TVs.

The first Blu-ray machines for 3D will be shown at CES in Las Vegas in January and shipping later this year. 3D movies (yes, Avatar!) will be play on these Blu-ray 3D machines (they can also play regular 2D disks). Current Blu-ray players can't handle the new 3D format, but maybe adapters will become available.

The spec is display-agnostic, able to deliver the 3D image to any compatible 3D display, whether LCD, Plasma or other technology (and regardless of what 3D technology the display uses to deliver the image). The new spec allows PS3 game consoles to play back Blu-ray 3D content in 3D.

Blu-ray 3D calls for encoding 3D video using the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec, an extension to the ITU-T H.264 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) codec currently supported by all Blu-ray Disc players. MPEG4-MVC compresses both left and right eye views with a typical 50% overhead compared to equivalent 2D content.

Go Blu-ray 3D