Showing our 3D content on a 3D ready TV
 

Well the Panasonic 50 inch TX-P50VT20 3D TV is out and looks fantastic. The sony 3D Bravias are out this month as well. Pricey but they are super TVs.

So I sat down this morning trying to work out how on earth I am going to show my 3D movies on the Panasonic.

Blu-ray 3D? Easier said than done at the moment. Netblender, software I have never used before, are working on a solution to author 3D blu-ray DVD. Sony Scenarist can do it, but I would have to sell my house and spend a year learning how on earth the software works. Don't think the wife would appreciate me doing that.

Then I came across this.
NVIDIA Brings A New Dimension To PC Gaming With NVIDIA 3DTV Play For The Big Screen

It looks like a simple solution. Nvidia are about to release ( August) a little bit of software which allows you to stream directly to a Panasonic 3D TV via HDMI 1.4.

Solution solved until the Blu-ray authoring becomes more affordable.

I read somewhere in another forum that you can also create a side-by-side blu-ray disk and set the 3D TV to side-by-side mode to play your movie.

But what software will author a side by side Blu-ray DVD? Possibly only Scenarist and that costs the same as a small house.

Tim Dashwood may have the answer for you in his 3D Stereo Toolbox software plugin for Final Cut Pro.

50% squeezed side-by-side is simple (as long as the composit fits inside standard frame, e.g. 1920x1080) and any 2D BD authoring S/W can be used to generate the disc, such as Toast 10 (on Mac) and DVD Architect (on PC) (and slew of others on either platform). Properly setup 3D TVs will do the rest. It is MVC and frame packing mode on HDMI 1.4a, which doesn't throw away half the resolution, that are hard to author at this time. Most current workflows output SBS, AB, interleave, checkerboard, etc., which will throw away half the pixels. If that is o.k. with you, there are many solutions for a long, long time. That is what I use and I have no problem with it, but somehow I thought that you were interested in MVC and frame-packing mode, which is the only method I know of, preserving the full res and all the colors on blu-rays with the latest batch of 3D TVs, otherwise if you wish to be cost effective, you must start from two full streams and use the PC (3dtv.at, nVidia) players as I mentioned before. Future will no doubt change all this, but the whole system is still in transition, with respect to authoring for the new 3D BD standard.

If you want to save some money and don't mind using a 22 inch screen, you could always purchase a 3D computer screen. 3D viewing with the economy of scale of computer monitor manufacturing.

Andrew

But it still requires active glasses! No thanks.

I have a feeling the glasses are going to be with us for the next year or so.

Andrew

I don't mind glasses, it is the active glasses I do not care for. For one, I already wear prescription glasses and the active glasses do not come in as clip-ons. And, as Alister pointed out, if you break passive glasses, it does not cost much to replace them. If you break active glasses, it is a major expense. And, as the topic of this thread suggests, if you want to show your work to others, you need a pair of glasses for everyone in the group. And in that situation the cost difference is huge.

Absolutely agreed.

For a family viewing situation it begins to make financial sense to rig up two data projectors, each with a polarising filter set at the correct angle for the left and right sides of the passive glasses.

I don't know how easy it would be to set up for video, but it works well for the 3D photography club in Sydney when they hold their meetings to review each others work.

Andrew

Any examples of cheap data projectors one can set up at home for HD viewing?

Cheap is a comparative thing ... and not always the best mindset to be in. You'll be looking at 720P resolution for anything that is cheaper.

Here's a nice full HD projector if you are interested. ... Epson EH-TW4500 ... Why not buy two of these for the price that you might have paid a few years ago for a big screen TV?

Andrew

As long as we are talking of inexpensive 720p Epson projectors, the http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/644599-REG/Epson_V11H331020_705HD_Powerlite_Home_Cinema.html has good cutomer ratings at B&H, and accepts HDMI input. I do not own one, let alone two, but at $749.99 that one seems nice for the price-conscious consumer.

Thank you!

Just as a matter of interest do you use "old fashioned" vertical/horizontal polarising filters or the Real3D type circular polarising filters?

A photographer pal of mine in Manchester had a colleague many years ago who was well into 3D for multi-image AV using V/H polarising and in fact had two Practika 35mm cameras engineered quite elegantly as I recall into one for the origination. Apparently he considered the separation of a Stereo Realist (one of which is still in my collection) too limiting - and also he disliked that camera's square framing. The man's long dead now and when I had lunch with my pal the other day he couldn't recall the fate of the butchered Practikas.