Low Cost Ways to Show A 3D Short Film?
 

We're currently working on a 3D short film and have all the gear for shooting (beam-splitter rig, cameras, DIY polarized 3D Monitor, etc.) so are now looking at our options for showing the movie to an audience.

We are very tight on money, so are looking for a low-cost way to show it to at least 10 people at once.
At the moment are options appear to be:

- anaglyph (yuck),

- shutter glasses + a 3D projector (we already have a PS3 for playing content and a 3D projector, I think it's the Acer X1161, but the 3D shutter glasses tend to be very expensive),

- using 2 projectors + a silver screen (very expensive, how essential is it? or does anyone know any silver-screen alternatives?) + polarized glasses (cheap)

So does anyone know any other ways we could show 3D content for cheap?
Are 3D shutter glasses going to come down in cost over the next few months?
If using 2 polarized projectors, are there any alternatives to using a silver screen?

Thanks.

You've just learned one of the big lessons of working in 3D: nothing is cheap.

You might want to see if there's a 3D capable screening room in your area that you can rent for the occasion. Be aware, though, that they may require a Digital Cinema Package, which will cost you a bit to have made.

If that's still out of your price range, I think that a blue-amber anaglyph, like Colorcode, retains a more natural look than any other.

Thanks for the reply, Arnie.

As far as I know the only local place capable of showing 3D is the big cinema, which uses Dolby Digital 3D, which is expensive to get encoded.

I hadn't heard of Colorcode, so thanks for that, I'll look into it.

Hi

if you cannot afford a silverscreen with two projector, go for the 120Hz,
and a few shutterglasses. They will be cheaper by the time, and if you order
10 piece maybe you get discount.
If the movie is more than 5 minutre, then forget the old anaglyph method!


"DIY polarized 3D Monitor"
write more about this! :-

Thanks for the reply, Prech.
Hopefully 3D glasses will drop in price as 3D TVs become more popular. Good idea about looking into a bulk discount. :)

The DIY monitor we are using is based of this video here: YouTube - The Vizard: DIY 3D Viewing Station
It's a fairly basic design, although the glass you need to use is quite expensive.

As i see here, the right eye see a lot darker image than the left? :O

What resolution do you need to project at? Acer have some really cheap DLP projectors at the moment (DLP is best for polarized). The X1130P is around $300. It's only 800x600 but reasonably bright. A pair of them makes a good polarized rig. You will need a silver screen or a screen that retains the lights polarization. There are some not too expensive screens for 3d including the DaLite Versatol range that start at around $120 US. Throw in some RealD glasses and use the lenses from the glasses on the projectors (not too close or they will distort due to heat) and for under $900 your good to go. 3D polarized projection is not nearly as expensive as 10 pairs of active shutter glasses at $90 each for wireless.

Use a Matrox DualHead2go. The DualHead2go takes the 2 (800x600) projectors and combines them as a single external 1600x600 monitor. Make up your videos as 1600x600 side by side clips and you can even play back off a laptop without any special drivers or software simply by playing back full screen.

you can make a cheap silver screen with silver paint (best in spray can).
if you use 2 polarized projectors with cheap RealD glasses (about $4 on ebay) it should cost you almost nothing except projector rental or purchase.
You can play the movie with any computer and the 3D player from 3dtv.at
ideally you would shoot in 720p at 60fps but 30fps would be ok too since no eye switching is involved.
Benq is making high lumen output very cheap.
you can get the 4x4 polarized filter for $25 at Polarization.com

really nothing wrong in anaglyph if you conform it to your screening facility correctly.

Wow, thanks for those tips Alister and Giroud.
I'll be sure to check all that stuff out :)

Any opinion on the Viewsonic PJD6531w DLP 3-D Projector? It costs $689 at B&H, but you only need one and has the resolution of 1280 x 800, which is a 16:10 variety of 720p (but it also accepts 1080p and 1080i input).

you need only one, but then it means you go with expensives shutter glasses.

Do you know that, or are you assuming it? Because the page only talks about "3D glasses" without specifying what kind. And it talks about "millions of microscopic mirrors in its imaging chip" which can mean it is producing two separate polarized images. It does not show them at the same time, but if it uses different polarization for each eye, you would not need shutter glasses, you would need polarized glasses.

But it does not say it clearly, which is why I am asking. Someone here is bound to know.

3D ready projectors
 

Straight from the source:
3D Projector - 3D Ready - 3D DLP - Classroom Projector - Education Projector - School - Video | DLP - Texas Instruments

The viewsonic requires, as has been pointed out expensive active shutter glasses. The cheap Acer 1130P's that I am using my cheap(ish) polarised rig can also do single projector 3D with active glasses.

OK, thanks. Active glasses is not a good solution, except perhaps when used by an individual, but not practical for a group.

This is disappointing. If I could come up with the right idea, I am surprised TI engineers have not come up with it. Perhaps we need a massive letter writing campaign to explain it to them and to demand it.

It is quite simple. Let the chip double the number of pixels, separate pixels for the left view and the write view, with the micromirrors made to produce opposite polarization for each view. Then project it all through a single lens, both images at the same time. This would produce perfect 3D image, perfectly aligned, etc. And it would not require active glasses, just good ole' polarized glasses.

the active glasses are the solution. No special screen, only one projector or screen.
Add the DLP 3D-ready technology on it and you got the perfect system, simple, efficient.
The only problem is the price of glasses, but we can expect it goes low very soon.
After all it is just 2 small LCD windows with a 1$ electronic chip.
You find many free devices (giveaway) with much more complicated LCD screens that cost almost nothing.
So a $20 lcd shutter glasses seems not impossible.
Polarized glasses is just a temporary workaround, because polarized technology has no room left for improvement and cannot be really cheaper. It alway will require glasses, special screen, loose a lot of light in the process, have ghosting.
LCD shutter technology can go cheaper by a 10 factor easily, improve in quality (not limited in resolution and fps) , can be implemented on projectors and screens, does not add special requirement on devices (they do not need to be fitted for 3D, they just need a level of performance to be able to play 3d, a polarized screen need a special layer, a 3d ready screen for shutter glasses just need to be able to display 120Hz, something that all screen will do soon).

Let me guess... You do not wear prescription glasses, do you. Because not a single person in the world who has to wear glasses already might think that having to put a pair of glasses over his pair of glasses is a solution, let alone the solution to anything. I know, because I am one of those people.

According to glassescrafter.com, about 64% of adults in the US wear glasses (and another 11% wear contact lenses). I know it is hard to extrapolate US statistics to the entire population of the world, but it shows a potential of billions of people wearing glasses. And that is why if active glasses are the solution, 3D is already doomed.

People like me prefer 3D clip-ons (and we hate Robert Rodriguez profoundly for his glasses-on-glasses-off gimmick—yes, kids wear glasses, too, and adults watch kids movies), which are readily available in a variety of 3D methods, all except active glasses and, for whatever silly reason, colorcode. No 3D technique will ever become the solution if it is not available as clip-ons.

Add to it that many people who wear glasses buy polarized lenses for their glasses already. Unfortunately, these are not the same as the 3D polarized glasses because they are not fine tuned the same way and they use the same type of polarization for both eyes. But once there is a standard (right now, unfortunately, we have several incompatible ways of using polarized light for 3D) and 3D movies are the norm, a lot of people who wear glasses will simply have their prescription lenses made with the proper type of polarized lenses. They do not interfere with using their lenses outside of the movies and actually help against the glare of the Sun reflecting from car windows in many parking lots during certain times of the day.

You say "polarized technology has no room left for improvement" as if that was a bad thing. It means that polarized technology has all the bugs worked out. It has been perfected. It needs no improvement. Develop the chip I have suggested (something perfectly feasible with modern technology), and you can have a polarized projector with a single lens, one that can project both images at the same time, perfectly aligned, and you have no need for active glasses, no need to synchronize every single pair of glasses with the projector.

glasses over glasses stink bigtime. But I see studios making money anyway - so I think the market will bear it for quite some time.

I agree with you.
Rather a silverscreen than lots of shutterglasses.
Maybe when 200Hz will be very common, i dont see any more flickering.

"Let me guess... "

...wrong guess, and wearing polarized or lcd glasses does not change the problem.
If you really want to extrapolate, LCD can be clip on too or you could find corrective LCD glasses.
I have seen Avatar with lcd shutter and it was totally ok, something i cannot say when working with pol glasses on my Zalman monitor.
For polarized projection with only one projector, it exists already, it is the RealD technology that adds a polarized panel in front of a regular projector, but it cost the hell, and you still need the silver screen, and be in the correct viewing axis, since silver screen are pretty directional.
too complex for home use, and not performant enough for commercial use, polarized has no future, but again , today it is an affordable workaround.

A good silver screen is not directional and has a very wide viewing angle, otherwise cinemas would have big problem with those seated to the side of the theater. I can view my polarised system at well past 45 degrees to the screen. A 6ft silver screen can be purchased for the price of 2 wireless pairs of shutter glasses. Presciption polarised glasses are easy to make, the same cannot be said of active as the LCD shutters are flat, circuitry and batteries make them bulky and heavy plus they must be re-charged regularly.

I don't think cinema operators would be too keen on having to keep re-charge hundreds of pairs of glasses, just imagine the amount of effort and space needed to do that.
The Zalman is not a good example of a polarised monitor, it has a very narrow vertical viewing angle. Today I was working with a 24" Sony polarised LMD monitor and it has a broad viewing angle. I was demonstrating 3D to 100+ delegates at a conference with up to 20 at a time crowding around the monitor. With cheap realD glasses this was easy, there is no way I could have done this with active glasses. During the day I lost about 5 pairs of glasses, so what, they cost a dollar each.. Active glasses loose light too, they are not completely clear when open. Both systems are full of compromises, but polarised wins hands down if you want to show your content to more than 4 or 5 people.

Polarised has not reached the end of it's development. For LCD and OLED displays it is still in it's infancy. In the future we will almost certainly see displays where the individual pixels can be polarised or the entire panel can alternate left/right polarisation giving a hybrid active/polarised system that can work similar to RealD or be used with shutter glasses. For DLP projectors it is pretty easy to add a second spinning filter wheel to polarise the light so expect to see more cheap polarised 3D projectors come on the market. It's also fairly easy to add a polarising shutter to an existing DLP projecter. This will be one of the products I hope to launch in my range of low cost 3D products later in the year. Possibly a complete single projector polarised system for less than $600.
As a parent with children, I expect my 3D glasses to get sat on, stepped on, lost or just broken from time to time, with shutter glasses this, even at $20 a piece is not welcome, with polarised glasses at $1 each it's no big deal.
Active has one insurmountable issue, you can only send the image to one eye at a time and this will lead to temporal issues. Obviously faster shutter speeds will help, but there is a limit to how fast an LCD shutter can operate. Many of the cheap shutter glasses on the market today are already struggling to switch fast enough at 60hz leading to crosstalk.

I think for home use glasses will be obsolete in the next five years...not for cinema screens though

Polarized projection is here to stay. It's much cheaper for theater owners, and that's who makes this decision. Polarized glasses are cheap enough to throw away, so they don't need to be collected & cleaned between uses. For theater owners, who make most of their money selling popcorn & soda to the movie audience & virtually nothing on the ticket sales, this is key. If they had to pay people to collect the glasses, any type of glasses, 3D would not be commercially viable.

BTW, not all theatrical projection is RealD. There's also a dual-lens method that's compatible with the RealD glasses. It's being used by a lot of theaters right now.

And for home viewing, many people will opt for passive polarized systems for much the same reason. The Zalman monitors are crap, but several other brands use the same type of Xpol filter with much better results.