Still not working
 

Hello again,

So I installed the dongles exactly according to your method, Pavel, and this did allow for more than one to be used.

I tested the devices and they work one at a time (in the test device section of the SM configurator), but I'm getting only one image as it appears all of the USB ports on my intel desktop motherboard go through the SAME CONTROLLER. It doesn't matter what USB ports I connect to on my computer, I get only one image by the multiplexer. I have a port that is built into my case that connects to pins on the motherboard and apparently that is the same controller as the USB ports on the back of the computer. Even at the lowest res setting, I cannot get two images to appear.

Under device manager, I can see where the SIIG dongles are connected and they always are connected to different ports on the same hub. I did manage to get it to read that they were connected to different ports on different hubs but it did not resolve the issue.

Pavel: Could yoi please connect both dongles and tell me what device manager reports as their connected port and hub? I saw you plugged them into adjacent USB ports on your laptop and it worked with no issues.

By the way, the drivers on my CD were 2.84.0.33, very close to yours.

Also, just to note, if I change my cameras to standard def and connect them via firewire, everything works fine. This isn't usable for me as my cameras do not allow recording in HD and outputting over firewire SD. Another bummer to note is that I didn't realize it was a laborious effort to change how Stereo Multiplexer presents the images. I can't find any options like "Anaglyph, Page Flip, Onion Skin, Side-by-side, Over/Under, Interlaced" etc. which are common in other 3D applications.

One more bummer is that installing Stereoscopic Multiplexer broke my nVidia 3D vision stereoscopic player. Now, the nVidia program tries to use 3dtv.at's decoder and the eyes aren't synchronized. getting stereoscopic multiplexer to play nicely with 3DVision... If I use 3dtv/at's stereoscopic player it works fine with 3d vision. After loading the stereoscopic player for the first time, I was a little surprised at how nvidia's and 3dtv stereoscopic players are nearly identical. I assume nvidia licensed 3dtv.at's technology?

Robert, it sounds like you only have one USB controller on your PC. Bummer if the case.

Secondly, nVidia Stereoscopic Player and 3d.at look identical but the nVidia one is a stripped down version.

When you attach the dongles, you should open Multiplexer from inside stereoscopic player. File, Live Video, Sterescopic Multiplexer.

Then go to viewing method and chose the way you wish to viw the footage. Hope that helps.

It works on Parallels
 

I loaded XP 32-bit as a Parallels machine on my MacBookPro and installed stereo multiplexer and the SIIG dongles and it worked. Ultimately I'll be looking for a small laptop/tablet as you've mentioned here previously, but at least something is working at the moment. Now to figure out Graphedit and onionskinning....

Thanks for the hint about opening stereo multiplexer via the stereoscopic player to simplify choosing viewing method. I already fought my way through graphedit and built my custom filter chain but I will use the simpler method in the future.

I'm the developer of the Stereoscopic Multiplexer and would like to comment on a few issues mentioned in this thread:

OS/platform support: The Stereoscopic Multiplexer works on Windows XP/Vista/7. There are no plans to support Windows CE or Android and the ARM platform in the near future. Although the Stereoscopic Multiplexer DirectShow filter written in C++ could be recompiled for Windows CE quite easily, the GUI cannot because it is written Borland Delphi. Anyway, I expect that webcam drivers are not available for mobile platforms or that the performance is not good enough to compress and display two video streams. A tablet PC based on Windows XP or Windows 7 is a better choice and offers the greatest flexibility regarding capture device and codec support.

Mac OS: If you want to run the Stereoscopic Player/Multiplexer on Mac hardware, it is highly recommended to use Boot Camp. Although some features also work on Parallels or other virtual machines, full hardware acceleration cannot be guaranteed so that performance might be low or some features are not functional.

HD support: The Stereoscopic Multiplexer supports HD. For HDV camcorders connected via Firewire, select a resolution of 1440 x 1080 and YUY2 colorspace in the multiplexer. A MPEG-2 decoder, like the on included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 is required. If the camcorders have HDMI outputs, you can use two Blackmagic Design Intensity cards to capture left and right streams with the Stereoscopic Multiplexer. The proper setting is 1920 x 1080, HDYV colorspace in this case. On Windows Vista and Windows 7 it is necessary to turn off the User Account Control or run the applications with admin rights to work around a bug in the Blackmagic capture drivers (the drivers won't store the settings otherwise).

Stereoscopic Player and 3D Vision Player are indeed similar, the 3D Vision Player is a customized edition of the Stereoscopic Player.

Hello Peter. I was under the assumption that the Stereoscopic Multiplexer only handles SD, based on the line on your web site, that states that: "However, HDV multiplexing is not an official Stereoscopic Multiplexer feature yet." The information on the web site is then incorrect and most likely out of date in this respect.

Your are right, it needs an update...

Cinetal davio box will do that for dual DSI inputs in HD , not sure if it will accept other signals or the cost. I doubt its cheap. Works great though.

Cine-tal™ Collaborate - Process - Display | visual media

Previewing
 

I use a pair of USB EasyCaps fed by the composite output of a pair of Sony HC7s on a mirror rig. Computer is an Asus eeePC 901 netbook with Win7 Home. Software is a combo of Stereoscopic Player and the demo version of Stereoscopic Mux. Everything works right out of the box... nothing special other than installing one copy of the EasyCap driver. Stereoscopic Player lets me preview in Anaglyph, Side-by-Side, or whatever; and will flip the mirror bounced image to the correct orientation. The netbook is a perfect fit just behind the mirrorbox, it has 6+ hr. battery life and is rugged because of the solid state disk. Using a dual Lanc controller the cameras are synced within a millisecond or so. However, the Stereoscopic Player/Mux and Netbook have about 1/2 sec. lag on the preview. Nonetheless, it works well for setting up shots.

Regarding HD preview, when using Stereoscopic Mux with 2 HDVs over 2 firewires, you need 2 separate firewire controllers; a single controller with 2 ports will not work. I don't think this is Peter's fault, but rather an issue with firewire protocol. Sadly, I can't find a netbook with 2 firewire controllers, so I'm stuck with SD preview and HDV recording.

The delay over Firewire is quite high, especially in HDV mode. This is caused by the MPEG-2 compression/decompression that uses motion compensation and bi-directional prediction. It transmits the frames in coding order, not display order. Thus, you always have a few frames delay.

There is virtually no delay when using HDMI, which transmits uncompressed video.

On notebooks, you can use the internal Firewire port and a CardBus/Express Card for the second Firewire port. That's how I run the Stereoscopic Multiplexer on notebooks.

I picked up a Viliv 7 inch pc tablet. Image quality is very good but the bad news is that it doesn't work with Multiplexer. It has two USB ports, one full size, the other mini USB. But when connecting two cameras it only sees one. My guess is the mini and the large USB is a shared single port.

I will be sticking the Viliv back on Ebay next week. Shame as the screen quality is much better than the 10 inch pc tablet I have which does work.

I have since found this one.
7" Touch UMPC Notebook Laptop PC Pierre Cardin S7 EMS A on eBay (end time 24-Aug-10 21:21:26 BST)

Has two USB ports.

Hi Steve. I have been trying the setup with the new Asus Aspire One 521 netbook, and I normally also only discover one of the dongles, if I power up with both of them in. If I power up with one of them inserted, and after booting into windows, I then plug in the second one, the system discovers both, and everything works fine. I don't know if you have the same issue, and it is probably a specific BIOS issue, because I don't have the same problems with my other computers, but it might be worth a try. If I boot in this scattered way, I just start up the Player, and everything works o.k.

What an excellent thread for a beginner like myself, thank you!

I've got a couple of tiny laptops (MSI Wind U100 and Asus eeePC) that might be exactly what the doctor ordered. Both have two full-size USB ports and I can install Windows 7 on them if need be.

I found an EZCap-equivalent at a Finnish store. It's based on a Trident TM5600 chip and has inputs for composite and S-video. So, if I get two of those, plug them into a laptop and install some software, I could have a passable monitoring solution, right?

But are you limited to monitoring in anaglyph 3D only? I have Nvidia's 3D Vision Kit with active glasses, but have no idea whether they could be used in this setup.

The nVidia 3D vision won't work because the laptops screen is not a 3D monitor with a fast enough refresh rate. You will be only able to monitor in anaglyth, but that is better than nothing!

You don't need windows 7 to monitor. Windows XP, and Vista both work fine.
Cheers
Steve

Did you try an USB hub? It is possible to run two cameras on the same port. The highest resolutions might be unavailable because the two cameras share the USB bandwidth.

Thanks Steve! Yeah, anaglyph is definitely better than nothing, which is what I have right now :)

Umm. I'll just throw this out there as a very likely numbskulled idea: could nVidia glasses work at a lower refresh rate? 30 frames per eye on a 60hz display instead of 60 frames per eye on a 120Hz display, in other words. 30fps per eye might still look better than anaglyph.

No, at least 100 Hz are required. In addition, it only works with certified displays and projectors.

Thanks Peter. Anaglyph monitoring it is then.

You could of course buy a 3d ready laptop. There are a few out there and that would certainly work. I'll see if I can find one at a sensible price. A 3d ready tablet PC would be simply perfect but I don't know of one.

There's a few 3D ready laptops about. These work with nVidia 3D active shutter, so monitoring in the field with full colour 3D is now possible. Plus the laptop can be used for a myriad of other uses. I found these in a couple of mnutes.

ASUS G51JX-3D 15.6" 3D Vision Replaced by G51JX-3DE on eBay (end time 27-Aug-10 02:48:54 BST)

Toshiba Satellite A665 3D-Ready Laptop

Cheers
Steve

Mods. Please consider removing me from this checking of my posts before posting. I am not an abusive poster and think I add to a discussion. I have said before I will not mention our companies products on this forum without seeking permission first.

Got an idea for monitoring with active glasses: a 3D-enabled laptop PC.

I'm getting one in for a review from Asus sometime next week. Should be interesting...

There are many ways to monitor 3D starting from anaglyph and using glasses, using 3D laptop, etc. I chose to use the Vuzix stereoscopic glasses, because they have a controller attached, that allows me to see either the anaglyphs or side-by-side for alignment and general camera monitoring, or select 3D viewing. It has a built-in de-anaglyph and side-by-side to 3D converter. The added benefits are that it saves battery power, since the display is a major power sink (right after the disc drive) and lets me see the "viewfinders" in bright light, which is otherwise a major problem for me. I made a video showing my final rig and posted it here: YouTube - Part 4 - Articulated Amateur 3D Rig Experiment - Partially Red & Cyan 3D HD Anaglyph and here: .

Nice rig and nice video, Pavel. Thank you. One question: which model Vuzix glasses are you using? Is it the Wrap 920?

Thank you. The glasses are "Vuzix Wrap 920." The resolution is only SD, but good enough as a viewfinder and quick quality checker. Setup can be done with the PC display or any external display or TV equipped with either the VGA or HDMI ports.

Nice video Pavel but I have to admit to have almost burst out laughing with you in those glasses! Lol!

Now this seems to work well for you and I will look into these glasses. Trouble is though I am not sure it would go down a storm wth me at the front of the church filming the bride from behind the vicar! The bride and groom would probably fall about in histerics if I had that setup.

I still think a good quality small tablet pc attached by hotshoe to the rig, with a Hoodman hood to keep the light out, is a good way to go. There's a few 3d laptops out there now, just needs a company brave enough to produce a 3D ready tablet PC!

Thanks Steve. I am fortunately little older and much less concerned about people laughing at my looks. The most important think is that it works well. I am not a professional either, so I don't need to impress people with the gear, just with the results. This allows me certain freedoms and happiness's, many people cannot have. I understand why you like the tablets. BTW, Asus and I think MSI just announced new Win 7 tablets with couple of USB ports and Win 7. They all take the ideas from iPad. That could be a good option for folks like yourself. Look over at Engadget. I really, honestly cannot even see the LCD screens here, in Southern California, outdoors, most of the year. This way I solve several problems at once - making sure that both camcorders are aligned and working correctly, saving battery power and being able to see under just about any condition, while being able to look around. When I was taking some of the mountain biking video's, I realized that there would be no way to climb there with a big rig. I'd have to use a helicopter to get there with big 3D rig.

HI Pavel I really hope you didn't take any offence because none was meant.

I wish we had the same problem in the UK as you have in California. All we get here is rain, overcast skies with the sun poking through every few days or so. Dreadful summer yet again in the UK.

A shame those glasses are not 16:9 720P. Seems strange that they are 4:3 and only SD. I looked on their site and they don't seem to have anything in that direction.

I'll take a look over at the Asus site to see when these tablets are due. They must be of a higher quality than the Chinese Shanzhai tablets. Now if they were only 3D ready..................

Hi Steve. Please don't worry. I am absolutely not offended. I just tried to explain my reasoning. When I post these videos, I am trying to inspire and help to show my experiences and keep some creativity in the technology. Otherwise it will be only in the hands of the elites, who will tell you what you should like. The fact that you want to "make it your way" is actually something I like. I was merely trying to explain why I used the glasses. I will be the first one to say that they are not perfect, but solve some issues that direct view technology just does not - for mine, and perhaps someone else's needs. It is actually more interesting to me what other ideas and solutions clever guys come up with, then about the most fancy and expensive gear. So as far as I am concerned, do it your way and share your experiences. Thanks.

OK I picked up a 4 port USB hub today.
4 PORT HIGH SPEED USB 2.0 MULTI HUB EXPANSION SPLITTER on eBay (end time 26-Aug-10 17:53:56 BST)

Plugged the cameras in, used the hub and hey presto! The Vilv 7 inch PC tablet works. All systems are go! Now to attach this to a shoe there's a bit of fiddling about. I got one of these:
New Car Mount Holder kit Stand for Apple ipad 3G Wifi on eBay (end time 23-Jul-10 09:22:13 BST)

Which holds the tablet PC percetly well. The downside is that is has a car mount and I want to mount it onto a camera. It has a metal ball joint which is slightly oversized so I am going to file it down and fit it in a Manfrotto 3102 rapid adaptor.
Manfrotto Rapid Adapter, Converts Standard 5/8" Lightstand Tip to a 17mm Long 3/8" Male Thread. (#3102)

Instead of using the thumbscrew to tighten the ball joint I wil use one of these.
Pro Type 1/4"-20 Tripod screw to Flash Hot Shoe Adapter on eBay (end time 26-Aug-10 12:02:27 BST)

and then should be able to mount it on the camera. The tablet PC and plastic mount don't way very much at all.

Unless anyone knows a more simple way of mounting the tablet PC ( it has no thread on it to mount direct)

Thaks
Steve

I may be wrong in my thinking but usually when 720P video is discussed it is HD and digital format, whereas the SD is an analog format. It is not the pixels but the video stream digitization that presents a problem. With SD you have sync and framing pulses and the raw video but with the digital stream you are getting some compressed data format, etc. It would be nice if someone with some good expertise in this would explain it fully since I am not that person but I think it is a major point of understanding that we all need clarity on.

It is true that some of the older analog resolutions are SD, but digital can be SD as well. There are 18 (36) formats total. Wikipedia has good background explanation. High-definition television - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The HD/SD difference is based strictly on pixel resolution, and has nothing to do with compression, analog/digital, etc. The picture is always analog, but it is digitized in pixel uncompressed form for the HDMI/SDI outputs. For broadcast, to save bandwidth, it is digitized, compressed and then unwound back into pixels in your TV. The A/V R outputs from the Sony camcorders are analog and SD, to save pins and to make the design more practical (EMI, etc.). Some of the early HD broadcast experiments were actually analog, but took at least couple of channels.

I picked up SD glasses, to match the outputs from the camcorders. It is true that I loose even more resolution due to the 16:9 aspect ratio, but I am using the glasses more less mainly as a viewfinder. For alignment I can use the PC screen. It would be of course better to use the HD outputs and the displays/glasses (all that does exist). Unfortunately the costs and weight of the rig goes up exponentially with resolution. To handle two HD streams, I need fairly powerful PC, and if it is a notebook, it needs a USB3 I/F. This will be easy to get in a year or two, but right now I don't find it economical or practical. No doubt it will come, but I wanted something now. In the future, I hope I don't need to be making 3D stereoscopic rig out of two, poorly matched camcorders.

Pavel I agree with much of what you wrote, but I was not thinking in terms of your particular camcorders. It was a guess on my part that Steve Shovlar may have had a newer camcorder that uses AVCHD and he wanted to display that directly like you could to a TV. My own camcorder has AVCHD out and SD out, the SD is analog and you can connect directly to an composite input of a TV. I don't have the cable to connect the AVCHD to a TV, something like a mini-hdmi or firewire I think. But watching the video from the SD output simultaneously as recording the AVC to a memory stick is possible and that is similar to what you are doing I think. I couldn't watch your video, download restrictions it seems.

Back to the glasses, for a set of wearable glasses to display an AVC video stream would require a lot more electronics in them than the SD video in my understanding. That was my only real point. I am thoroughly enjoying your posts on creating 3D video, keep up the good work and effort.

My camcorders also have HDMI (HD), or through the A/V-R connector, I can get analog c-video, s-video or component video - (SD). Either of these can be connected to TV set fairly easily. Most new TVs in the US have either HDMI or DVI ports. Just about all new US TV's are HD and generally have all these inputs. Portable PC's are a different issue. Most new ones have USB-2 ports that can be used for inputs, some have extension PC slot and compact flash inputs - that is just about it. There are generally no video inputs, so any non-USB input must be converted to USB first.

The other problem is that we are dealing with two input streams, and if they are HD, these would start taxing average notebooks at the moment. If you want to use the HDMI ports, the Black Magic design, something that Adam and others mentioned previously, could work fine: Blackmagic Design: HDLink . They also have a variety with dual SDI in and HDMI out (I believe), so it could be used for the processing as well as driving any plain HDMI HD monitor. You'd just have to convert HDMI from the camcorders into SDI for the BM box inputs. When I started, this option was not quite available. In addition, I was concerned about cost, portability and about powering all these devices on portable rig, so I took the netbook path.

I strongly suspect that all this will be a non-issue fairly quickly, as the standards solidify and the market grows, because the need is fairly clear. In the meantime I see most 3D camcorder solutions being just little too low end or too high bulk and cost, so many of us have to help ourselves.

Thank you for your kind words.

Hello

I also like to monitor my 3D alignment, colors, etc. on the field.
I have a laptop with XP.
Now i search a cheap usb dongle, and found the EASYCAP DC60 for very low price.
2 of them will work with the Multiplexer or only DC60+ do the job?

Regards!

FYI the Nano3D now provides an anaglyph output option for field monitoring of two HDSDi streams. Not a cheap device but lots of bang for the bucks.

Thanks, but now i have everything for monitoring, except the usb easycaps.
So, DC60 will work?

I answer my question :)
Yes, DC60 work.
I ordered two easycap but have some problem after installing and using it.
At every windows boot, i get a message about a new hardware and have to show the driver folder, and install it. But only for one easycap, for the other i don’t have to, it’s installed.
Why is this? I do it on an Acer laptop with 4 USB2 port, with XP SP3.
Multiplexer and the player works fine!

The problem with loading the driver most likely with your Acer BIOS or with the driver itself. I would ask the customer service of both Companies for help. I had bad luck with ACER so far and, ended up buying Sony Netbook, that works like a charm, after loosing the battle with two different Acers.

The reason why you load the driver just once is in the driver itself. They tie the driver with the type of device. In my case, with the SIIG, they tied the driver with the actual individual device, so I had to install it twice.

With the Acer, I couldn't use external hub, with the Sony, I can. Again, either H/W or (most likely) BIOS issue.

Thanks.
You tested with Acer aspire one?
Maybe i will buy this. Quite good spec:
8,9" display, 1.6ghz atom cpu, etc..
But if it also detects one easycap at every boot, and need to install,
then i look for another model. Maybe Asus eee 900 or Msi wind.

Yes, I did test with the Aspire One, but the one I tried used AMD CPU and ATI graphics accelerator (Acer Aspire One AO521-3530 - Athlon II Neo K125 - ATI Radeon HD 4225). The AMDs run notoriously hot, and the computer died in 15 days. 1 day after my return period expired, 3 days before my trip to Asia. The dealer had no replacement either, so I traded it in for a slightly larger one (Acer Aspire AO721-3574). That one didn't work with the digitizing dongles. It did recognize them, but it didn't display any video. I had no time to troubleshoot the turkey, so finally I traded that one for a Sony netbook (PCG-21313L), with Intel CPU. That one works well for the 3D monitoring application, but it is noticeably slower for general computing and 3D HD playback from YouTube. I took it to Okinawa in early September, with it's notorious heat, humidity and couple of typhoons, and it lasted just fine.

Unfortunately, we are using the H/W beyond what it is meant to be used, and I don't think the manufacturers test the BIOS very well. The netbooks are meant for light weight web browsing, and the digitizing dongles are meant for digitizing old video tapes, so the system similar to digitizing two video streams is probably never tested. Most of the low cost manufacturers just slightly modify the IC manufacturers reference designs. They, as quickly as possible, put their logos on it and ship it. In my experience, Sony has higher corporate quality standards, so their products cost little more, work better and are more reliable in complex applications.

I have better experience with Intel then with AMD chips as well (I used to design PCs). I had thermal management issues with AMD chips for years.