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London will play host to a historic event next year as the 2012 Olympic Games will be the first to be broadcast in 3D.

The Olympic Games that open in London on July 27 next year and close on August 12 will be the first ever to be covered live on television in full 3D, courtesy of a collaboration between Panasonic - a worldwide Olympic sponsor, the Olympic Broadcasting Services and the International Olympic Committee.

More than 40 venues will be filmed using the technology, with a myriad of sports including athletics, gymnastics, diving and swimming being aired in 3D, through participating rights-holders worldwide.

Yesterday, Panasonic Corp. announced that more than 200 hours of live coverage of the 17-day sporting spectacle will be beamed around the world in "immersive 3D."

Panasonic will provide 3D equipment including camcorders, TV monitors for the on-site production, with a technical team for live 3D TV production to capture the best of the action, the company said.

Panasonic managing executive officer, Takumi Kajisha described the venture as a production that will “drastically change” the way viewers experience the sporting event at home.

“The Olympic Games has always been a pioneer in the development of TV broadcasting technologies, and has been on the cusp of innovation since the first live over-the-air broadcast was introduced in London 1948,” he said.

Panasonic has been played a relentless part in supporting the Olympic Host Broadcaster since the first digital broadcast in Barcelona 1992, right through to the first HD broadcast in Beijing 2008 where they delivered more than 5,000 hours of HD coverage.

Mr Kajisha said the company was proud to announce the partnership with the IOC and OBS, to “create another successful era in Olympic broadcasting”.

“There is no doubt that the Olympic Games will provide some of the best content for the 3D market in the future, and that 3D TV will drastically change the way we experience this great sporting event in our living rooms.”

Manolo Romero, MD of OBS explained the complications of broadcasting in 3D, noting that viewers would notice a difference in coverage with the new format.

“We do not want to do tricks with sport. We want to show it as it is but we also want to show what is possible in 3D,” he said.

“For example in high jump we want to see the jumper and how they clear the bar but for the viewer we also want to be as close as possible.

“In a track race it is different because we want to show the whole thing from far away. We'll have a tracking camera and a head-on camera to see the depth of the story.

“We will study to see how to change the coverage of the traditional sports. We have producers studying how to do this.”

Speaking at the IFA technology conference in Berlin, he said the first live 3D Olympic Games will make the London 2012 Olympic Games “one of the most significant in the history of broadcasting technology.”