Since the Avatar blow, the 3D industry that had been making steady growth is now in full blow. It is undeniable that this 3D phenomenon is here to stay. Not only are movies shot in 3D, but 2D movies are being converted into 3D (even past blockbusters can make a 3D comeback), and furthermore 3D panel TVs are selling like hot cakes. Korea has definitely not been shy in this growing 3D market, and I am going to introduce two key players (one S/W and one H/W respectively) in this industry: 3D content conversion company Stereo Pictures Korea and later this week the Samsung Full HD 3D LCD TV.

Stereo Pictures Korea (SPK)

Currently at work on Warner Brothers “Cats& Dogs 2″ scheduled for worldwide release coming July, this 3D content conversion company from Korea stands competitive amongst other companies in Hollywood, such as In-three and Prime Focus.

SPK’s competitive edge is in their “superior quality, fair pricing and efficiency.” With their advanced “Dynamic 3D” software, they range around an average of $5 million for each movie conversion, and with a time efficiency of 7:3 compared to some other converting firms in the US, SPK sells and delivers.

Tsui Hark, a Hong Kong filmmaker, who had been particularly impressed by a 3D conversion portion of the movie “300,” personally made a visit to SPK a month ago, in plans to convert his upcoming movie into 3D. SPK has also talked with Paramount, Fox, MGM and is expecting to obtain at least 10 more orders this year.

SPK had further opened its LA branch in December 2007 for marketing and development, and has former Warner executives James R. Miller and Dan Romanelli as corresponding managing and senior partners.

SPK’s business has positive outlook. With the growing demand for 3D, filmmakers now see the advantages of 3D converting compared to shooting in 3D. Filming in 3D from inception showed limitations when filming extensive landscapes and projecting fully three dimensional pictures when CG and actual images are combined. With SPK’s Dynamic 3D technology, and 3D converting & retouching engineers, the contour, depth and volume are adjusted to bring the directors vision into live. SPK is currently on a hiring spree in plans to hire around 3000 more employees by this September to meet the growing demand of conversion orders.

Keep up with Koreaninsight for the next issue on the Samsung Full HD 3D LCD TV.

Yesterday (15 Sep. 2009), I got very excited from early morning. It was due to a TMT related conference held in Seoul, Korea. The conference was officially called ‘Telefonica Global Project Conference’, organized by KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency).

[Global Collaboration between Telefonica and KOTRA]

Telefonica (if you don’t know this company, just Google it!) in fact came to Korea to find potential business partners in Korea. The conference was structured mainly in two sessions: 1) Understanding of Telefonica (the company, its global business, and technology/service); 2) Private meetings between Telefonica and potential Korean partners. Since Veyond Partners is not mobile service provider, we attended the first session only.

Kim Faura, the CEO of Telefonica, Cataluna, gave presentation on ‘Where does Telefonica come from’, ‘Where Telefonica is now’, and ‘How Telefonica is evolving’ to give big picture of the company and its strategy. Followed by this, Dr. Gerard Mula, Area Manager for Internet and Multimedia Technologies at Telefonica I+D (R&D center). He focused more on ‘How they innovate their technology and services’, ‘How they collaborate with global partners’ and ‘What areas they want to collaborate with potential Korean partners’.

[Presentation by Kim Faura]

They seem to visit Korea because Korea’s mobile tech companies have so advanced technologies and services. They are basically highly flexible in terms of business partnership area but their hypothetical fields of interests include mobile 3D video, mobile contents download, User profiling services, mobile advertisements, mobile social network, u-Health, etc.

There were less than 100 attendants in the conference. But next conference in 10th November by KOTRA seemed even more interesting. The ambitious conference was called ‘Global Mobile Vision 2009’ (www.globalmobilevision.com) Next time, I expect to meet not only Telefonica but also many other global companies (113 companies) such as T-Mobile, Sprint, NTT DoCoMo, Nokia, etc in one place.

I am also going to post the summary of interview with Kim Faura with one of Korea’s leading newspapers soon.

Dear Korean Insight readers!

How are you doing? Today, I would like to update what I am doing these days.

I am currently working with two clients for one project. One of them is one of the Korea’s biggest conglomerates and the other is global top manufacturer.

I am helping to draw a long term strategic roadmap for their new business in Korea. The three months project is going well so far (60% of the project). I suppose I will have an opportunity to share with you about this emerging business in the near future.

Prior to that, I was working with one of the government’s body in New Zealand. They wanted to know about Korea’s super-fast broadband. Our research project for investigating the Korea’s innovation from broadband to super-fast broadband was successfully completed and we are now waiting for a next chance beyond the research. In other words, we are seeking an actual business execution by connecting them to Korea’s broadband players. Since then, we began to receive increasing number of queries about Korea’s broadband. To meet such intellectual needs of our global TMT fellows, I updated our company brochure. You can download it by following the link

here.

Of course, I am always open to communicate with you. Good luck~

Yunho Chung