Problem with 3D material question

[Seeker47]

Placing this in the Conversion section, since I don't know anywhere better to put it, and this might possibly be amenable to a conversion solution.

I came across this 3D file. (It happens to be 12.5 Gb. in size.) [Side Note for any "forum police": this item was never released in the U.S., and I have a strong hunch that it never will be. Nor is it available here from any of the conventional sources. And that's all I'm gonna say about it, other than some tech stuff.] Now, the issues:

When viewed on the computer, or from a WD Live playing to my TVs, I'm seeing two equal and identical horizontal half-screen images, side by side. 3D content Yay or Nay does not even come into the question, yet. This is not like any other 3D material I've ever seen before, all of which occurs within a single frame. That's not what I was expecting. I happen to have a collection of 3D glasses, from the old cardboard red lens / green lens throwaways given out by 7-11 around 25 years ago, up to the kind you get at a 'Real 3D' presentation today. My initial thought had been that one of these glasses ought to do the trick, but I think we have a more fundamental format issue here. (I could try running the file through MediaInfo, if that is even of any use.)

None of my TVs happens to be a 3D tv. That said, I have watched a few 3D movies on them, as 3D, using one or another of those 3D glasses . . . but that may come down to the way in which said content was broadcast. Both TCM and local stations have had such broadcasts, infrequently in the past. But this case appears to be something else. For whatever it may be worth, I believe my Oppo BR player is 3D ready, and it does have some ability to play ISO files, among other things . . . but again, the TVs are still conventional flat panels, from a bit before the 3D capability started to become fairly standard or at least common.

Is there any way to view this content as 3D, or will it just be something to toss ?

[jagabo]

side-by-side is one of the common 3d formats. You need a 3D TV to view it properly.

Here's an old thread that discusses it:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/333552-What-program-to-convert-sbs-left-right-to-an...e+3-d+anaglyph

[Seeker47]

side-by-side is one of the common 3d formats. You need a 3D TV to view it properly.

Here's an old thread that discusses it:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/333552-What-program-to-convert-sbs-left-right-to-an...e+3-d+anaglyph

Thanx. Well, that type would be one of the few 3D formats I had not encountered, until now. I'll look through that thread. If it can't be converted to something more accessible (for me), I guess I'm out of luck on this one.

[P.S.: I recently saw the 2nd. Hobbit installment: save some cash and 3 hours of your time, unless you have a thing for Evangeline Lilly. (Which might be a legitimate reason to bother with this at all.) Man, have they ever padded and drawn this whole thing out, to an unprecedented degree, and to very little avail. The HFR process -- which I'd no previous experience with -- was somewhat interesting, though. Anyway, I've never seen that side-by-side 3D used in a cinema, so I'm left wondering if it's a tv or video thing, exclusively.]

[Seeker47]

@jagabo,

O.K., did a very quick flip-through the thread you suggested. At first glance, this looks to be much more techie a project than I'm likely to want to tackle anytime soon. Unless there is some cut-to-the-chase shortcut, along the lines of what is mentioned in post #49 of that thread. If so, I'd need to decide on an output format, and -- if it worked -- what type of glasses from my collection might be appropriate.

[Endoro]

SBS (Side by Side) and TAB (Top and Bottom) 3D video formats are used almost exclusively for MKV Blu-ray copies. The Blu-ray itself is encoded in MVC.

[jagabo]

There is a specialized 3d player for Windows that can handle most of the different 3d formats and glasses.

[hello_hello]

As you didn't mention which movie it is...... movies shot in 3D generally look quite good. Movies filmed in 2D and then converted to 3D look like "fake 3D" to me. In my opinion they look average at best, but generally the whole 2D to 3D conversion is a complete waste of time. I'd rather watch the 2D version, and mostly I do. I've re-encoded a few side by side 3D files as 2D for that reason.

That's easy to do. Open the MKV with pretty much any encoder GUI. Crop the video to remove the right side completely (it probably doesn't matter which side). If the remaining video contains black bars you can crop those too if you like. Resize the remaining video to an appropriate 720p resolution (ie 1280x?). There's probably no point resizing back to 1080p.
If you use an encoder GUI which calculates aspect ratio distortion as you crop and resize, it should report the aspect ratio distortion as being 100% when you're done (because you're stretching the video back out to it's proper resolution).

If you're really fussy and use an encoder GUI which will do it, you might consider reducing the gamma or brightness a tiny bit. Not that I've been able to make enough comparisons to know for sure, but it seems some "3D" video has the gamma or brightness increased a little compared to the 2D version. Probably because for the type of 3D video you're referring to, the glasses alternate between blocking out each eye which tends to make the video look a little darker.

Or does your Bluray player have an option to output 3D video as 2D? I'm not sure if they tend to.... it's not something I've had to think about.

[Endoro]

You can also crop and resize without reencoding by setting the associated properties in the Matroshka container. It works with MPC-HC and VLC. I will test it soon with a WD TV.

[Cornucopia]

SBS (Side by Side) and TAB (Top and Bottom) 3D video formats are used almost exclusively for MKV Blu-ray copies. The Blu-ray itself is encoded in MVC.

SbS and TaB are the 2 most popular forms of general-purpose, frame-compatible 3d. No exclusivity about it, even IF they are commonly used for mkv conversions of 3dbd rips.

And it certainly isn't difficult or complicated to do a conversion...

Scott

[Seeker47]

SBS (Side by Side) and TAB (Top and Bottom) 3D video formats are used almost exclusively for MKV Blu-ray copies. The Blu-ray itself is encoded in MVC.

SbS and TaB are the 2 most popular forms of general-purpose, frame-compatible 3d. No exclusivity about it, even IF they are commonly used for mkv conversions of 3dbd rips.

And it certainly isn't difficult or complicated to do a conversion...

Scott

What I meant was, have you ever seen that SBS technique used professionally, in a movie theater ? I haven't, and I've been observing the 3D phenomenon ever since 1960s revivals of "House of Wax" and "It Came From Outer Space", not to mention "The Stewardesses in 3D", whatever that western was that was released in the late 70's or early 80's, and so forth, right up until today. I can enjoy 3D as much as the next movie buff, even as I consider it to most often be just a flimsy marketing gimmick, and not worth the premium ticket price it commands in recent years.

"Hugo", from Scorsese, remains by far the best use of the medium I can recall seeing . . . but that was not a boxoffice success.

In view of the replies here, I may take a shot at a conversion, after I take a look at the manual for that BR player.

[jagabo]

What I meant was, have you ever seen that SBS technique used professionally, in a movie theater ?

You would never know because it's not meant to be watched directly. It has to be processed and displayed with the proper software/hardware.

[Endoro]

What I meant was, have you ever seen that SBS technique used professionally, in a movie theater ?

Not in a cinema. It depends on your assessment of whether it is a profession to copy Blu-ray discs.

[hello_hello]

What I meant was, have you ever seen that SBS technique used professionally, in a movie theater ? I haven't, and I've been observing the 3D phenomenon ever since 1960s revivals of "House of Wax" and "It Came From Outer Space", not to mention "The Stewardesses in 3D", whatever that western was that was released in the late 70's or early 80's, and so forth, right up until today. I can enjoy 3D as much as the next movie buff, even as I consider it to most often be just a flimsy marketing gimmick, and not worth the premium ticket price it commands in recent years.

SBS works by alternatively displaying the left eye and right images on the TV, assuming the TV is 3D capable. The glasses are basically LEDs which alternate between blocking out the light for each eye in sync with the TV. In order to do that they need to connect to the TV. It's only somewhat recently the glasses have fallen to a non-silly price, but even so for Cinema use they'd probably need to be considered "disposable" which would make them expensive even today, and maybe hundreds at a time would need to be synced to the video. It's probably just not practical for Cinema use, yet it does work quite well for home theatres.

I think the main difference between SBS and multiview encoding is the latter can use the whole 1080p worth of resolution, whereas for SBS it's split between left and right, and multiview is "backwards compatible" so non-3D Bluray players can decode the video and display a normal 2D picture.

[Cornucopia]

@hello_hello, no that is NOT how SbS works. SbS is mainly a storage & transmission format, NOT a display format (freeviewed Parallel & Cross-eye, and Holmes/Stereopticon formats excepted).

Modern consumer 3D TVs and projectors display in only 1 of 3 ways: (Double-framerate) Alternating images for use w/ Active LC Shutterglasses, FPR-patterned (aka row-interleaved) Polarized TV screen for use with Polarized glasses (usually circularly), and - specifically for projectors - Active + Passive "RealD" format that uses an alternating polarity Full-screen filter in front of the alternating images for use also with Polarized glasses. This last thing REQUIRES a non-depolarizing screen to work.

SbS can be converted & used with ALL 3 of those display formats, as can TaB and Frame-packing. Even older storage/xmit formats such as interlaced can be converted (in the TV/Projector) for use with one of those display formats.

There are a few additional gotchas when using SbS or TaB compared to MVC, mainly having to do with compression inefficiencies dealing with the boundary between the 2 images, but otherwise YES, main difference IS full resolution MVC vs. 1/2 rez SbS/TaB and Backward 2D-compatibility vs. incompatibility. But that is why there are goals to make "service-compatible" formats available in all distribution media instead of just "frame-compatible" formats.

@Seeker47, yes SbS (or TaB) has seen regular use in theatres from the 60s to the 90s. I've seen it. You probably DID see one, you just didn't know it. Beyond Anaglyph, it was probably the most often used 3D projection format. However, I'm not talking about how it actually shows on the screen, as an onscreen version of that would be extremely distracting and hasn't been tried since experiments in Russia in the 20s & 40s.
No, what gets DISPLAYED is either Anaglyph or Polarized (or only more very recently, LC Active Shutter alternating), with polarized being the preferred. Non-digital projectors achieved this by using a weird contraption that sits in front of the image and optical (through prisms) SPLITS the image into 2 separate paths, where it is then passed through the 2 projecting lenses (anamorphic ones, to stretch them back to their original AR) and then through Polarizing filters (1 of each polarity) then onto the non-dep. screen.
It wasn't until the advent of digital projectors when 2 full images were able to be provided in perfect registration & synchrony that the old method fell into disuse. (Some non-digital Imax screens still use this or a non-anamorphic version of it).

Sorry to hear you're so jaded that you don't see the artistic possibilities of 3D. Of course it can be used as a gimmick - every artistic advance in media has been overused as a gimmick at one time or another: StopFrameAnimation & Editing, Sound, Color, Widescreen, HiFi (remember "Sensurround" and Earthquake?). Every one of those is a valued addition to the filmmakers' (& filmgoers') palette. It is just up to the producers/directors to be able to use it wisely. Yes, I've been viewing 3D since the same era as you, but I think you're overlooking good quality 3D: Creature from the Black Lagoon, House of Wax & Dial M for Murder were well-done in the 50s even though they did have their gimmicky side. Recently, Life of Pi, Monster House, Meet the Robinsons, & Prometheus also joined Hugo in doing really artistically well-done 3D as well as having good photography/editing/story in general. And though not all of them were officially blockbusters (nor all meant to be), all of those were quite successful, particularly their 3D percentage.

I'm looking forward to 3D moving away from artistic toddler-hood and spreading its wings as an adolescent. That might change a few people's minds...

Scott