3DTV is a Network of Excellence project coordinated by Btlkent University and funded by the European Commission sixth Framework Information Society Technologies Programme with a budget of 6.15 million euros. This four-year project, whose coordinator and leader is Professor Levent Onural of the Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, started on September I, 2004. It brings together a consortium of nineteen prestigious European entities, whose 100 scientists and 80 doctorate students have been working on planning and conducting the scheme. The prominent goal of the team led by Professor Onural is to deal with all aspects of the 3DTV in an integrated manner.

The primary objective of the 3DTV project is to align European researchers with diverse experience and activity in distinct, yet complementary, areas. Therefore, an effective network for achieving full scale 3D video capabilities integrated to a more general information technology base will be established and kept functional for a long time. The project will create a highly needed synergy among the European partners, at a critical time since 3DTV related research has been significantly accelerating throughout the world, thereby boosting the European competitiveness. Potential application areas and social impact of 3DTV will also be investigated.

It is believed that the 3DTV concept is well understood by a large majority of the public. For instance, it has examples in science-fiction movies keeping the public interest alive in the 3DTV trend. Nevertheless, it is contemplated to be an extremely advanced fashion of real-time visual communications, and might therefore be assumed to be a desirable but futuristic technological wonder in the public perception. However, the technological components necessary to bring 3DTV into reality have been significantly matured over the past two decades. The 3DTV Network of Excellence is aimed at being the catalyst for major breakthroughs in this key technology area.

There are 19 participants of the 3DTV project from 7 countries (Coordinator, Turkey), (Germany), (Bulgaria), (United Kingdom), (Finland), (Greece), (Czech Republic).