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 The information on the web site is then incorrect and most likely out of date in this respect.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.