3D on non-3D TV

My children were wondering about 3D movies and I told them we would need a 3D TV but then they said couldn’t we just wear glasses like at the theater?
So that got me wondering…
I have an LG OLED TV and a Vero 4K+.
Could I watch a 3D SBS MKV with the Vero and it will look 3D as long as they have those red/blue glasses?

Anaglyph isn’t really supported unless the video is encoded in that way.
I think only a few horror movies were really encoded with this method

Sam

I remember watching Hondo that way as a child.

So if, big IF, I purchased a “3D TV” for my children’s room and got them their own Vero, then it would be no issue watch SBS or OU, depending on which TV, as long as it’s an MKV file right?
The only real issues are with ISOs?

They need 3D glasses.

3D support for Vero is being worked on atm - including ISO support. If the TV you’d get was 3D capable you’d be able to play frame packed 3D content once 3D support is ready and OU as well as SBS with the 3D glasses that come along with your TV.

I’m not sure if there are any 3D-capable TVs still being sold, now. There are some 3D projectors still on the market, but as far as actual TVs are concerned, 2016 models were the last to do 3D well.

There were two 2017 models with 3D - the Sony ZD9 and the Panasonic EX750. It’s possible you might find one of those, but the 3D on both was quite poor quality.

For 3D at its best you’d need to track down a second-hand LG C6, E6 or G6. (The C6 had a curved screen, E6 and G6 were flat).

All LCD Panasonics are still 3D capabable. No OLEDs on the market are capable anymore though…

Do you have a source for that claim?

I do stand corrected… My information was old. Thanks for making me check again :slightly_smiling_face:

You’re right, there don’t seem to be any 3D TVs being sold anymore.

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Yes, it’s very sad. :sob:

I feel like the 3D surge came a couple of years too early, before 3D TV tech had quite got to where it needed to be to do the medium justice. The final wave of 3D-enabled LG OLED TVs are simply stunning in 3D - vastly much better than anything that had come before, and a far more satisfactory experience than 3D in the cinema.

Passive 3D on a bright, 4K screen was the key. Earlier passive 3D screens had a native 1080p resolution, which meant you halved the vertical resolution for 3D (and if you were watching a 3D TV broadcast, that was usually SBS, meaning the horizontal resolution was cut in half as well). Active 3D systems with shutter glasses gave you a full 1080p for each eye, but the glasses were bulkier, the image brightness poor, there was pronounced flicker, and significant cross-talk. The LG C6, E6 and G6 not only don’t compromise resolution, they’re also bright enough that (in a reasonably light-controlled room) 3D is just as bright as 2D, and cross-talk is very low.

If the manufacturers had kept things going for another year or two, I think some of the 3D nay-sayers might have been converted.

EDIT: Although, talking of conversion, all those dodgy 2D->3D conversions didn’t do the format any favours, either.

Ah, well. I will hang on to my G6 until it dies, as I am a total 3D whore. :rofl:

Just to clarify: 3D TVs do require the use of special glasses to ensure that each eye is seeing only one of the two images on the screen, but they don’t use red and blue colour filters to separate the images. There are two approaches…

Passive 3D systems used polarised glasses (the same as you find in cinemas); each row of pixels on the screen has a polarising filter in front of it, with alternate rows polarised opposite ways; so one eye sees pixel rows 1, 3, 5, 7, etc. and the other eye sees rows 2, 4, 6, 8, etc.

The other approach is active 3D where the images are rapidly alternated on the screen, and the glasses are battery-powered devices which have a little LCD screen of their own in each eye; they alternately black out one eye, the other, in sync with the switched images on the screen.

(There are a tiny number of videos in anaglyph - red/blue - format available, but you could play them on any TV with any media player. I’m not aware of any device capable of translating a 3D video into red/blue format on the fly - the colour would be weird even if you could).

Any media player can feed OU or SBS video in any format, but if you own a decent 3D TV, you shouldn’t use OU or SBS unless there’s no available alternative. 3D blu-rays are designed to be output frame-packed - that is, as 48 1920x1080 frames per second, one frame in each pair of frames being for the left eye and the other for the right. This means each eye is seeing a separate 1920x1080 image. If you use SBS then each eye is seeing 960x1080; OU means each eye is seeing 1920x540.

A Raspberry Pi can already play 3D blu-ray rips with frame-packed output. Some other media players also can (e.g. the Zidoo X9S). As Chillbo says, frame-packed 3D output on the Vero 4K is under active development - there are test builds available already, although it may be a while longer before everything is fully debugged.

What size LG G6 do you have?
I’ve never really enjoyed 3D at home too much because it feel like your looking through a window, where as at the cinema you can sit closer and the screen is so big you feel like your in the picture.
So yeah, if you have a 77" LG G6 than that’s probably pretty awesome, but something smaller for my boys room probably not so much.
And you know how children are, the novelty would probably wear off and they’d break all the glasses, etc.

Projectors are the way to go for 3D. Partly - yes because new 3D tv’s are no longer available.

But even a 65" tv is dwarfed by a relatively basic 100" projection screen - its 136.69% bigger. And watching 3D in a blacked out environment that is needed for projectors really helps.

65". I would have to have been an awful lot richer to afford the 77". (I got the 65" one for only a little over half-price, or I couldn’t have afforded that either.)

There were 55" versions of the E6 and C6 if you’re looking for something smaller second-hand.

A bigger screen is always better, other things being equal; but I would much rather watch 3D films on my TV than in the cinema these days because of the vastly superior image brightness. I watched Wonder Woman in 3D in the cinema, for example, and the scenes on her home island which are supposed to be set in bright, warm sunshine looked like they’d been shot at dusk in the middle of Winter.

A good home projector might well be a better compromise, but that really requires a dedicated room with superior light control, etc.

Replacement 3D glasses for passive 3D are easily available and very cheap. They’re exactly the same as the ones used in the majority of 3D cinema showings. (Well, there are three different systems used in cinemas: IMAX 3D and Dolby 3D use different glasses; but the most common system uses the same glasses as passive 3D TVs). Active glasses a bit more expensive to replace, but there are still generic brands you can buy.

if you have a PC, there are a few video players capable of playing 3D movies in anaglyph mode (as in, take a SBS or OU formatted movie, and render it as red/blue anaglyph) including mplayer, and kodi. But that is only supported on OpenGL and DirectX, and not OpenGLES, which means no ARM devices. https://kodi.wiki/view/3D#ARM_.28Android.2C_iOS.2C_Raspberry_Pi.29

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Thanks, that is what I was looking for but with the Vero.
I know VLC did it on PC.
No worries, my children are spoiled enough already, they don’t need 3D.

I have two 3D devices: a passive LG 55 curved OLED (C6), and an active Sony HW45ES Projector (with a 120” screen.)

(I originally intended to use the OLED for 3D gaming but there is such a huge image lag that it makes gaming not practical.)

Both devices have a Raspberry Pi 3+ running KODI (due to ability to play back frame packed 3D ISOs.)

For 3D, I prefer the passive. It’s easier on the eyes IMO.

On the Sony, I have Samsung active 3D glasses and they work but there is a bit of crosstalk on one eye. I wish there was a way to adjust sync on the projector to offset the active timing for the 3D so that I can try to correct the slight crosstalk.

I have considered getting 2 projectors to do passive 3D, but have not been able to justify the cost vs benefit.

just adding to the discussion

what do people here think of 3D in VR glasses etc?
It will give you a giant cinema size screen since it is up close to your eyes…

There is a 3D VR player for the playstation VR
not sure about other VR glasses though.

Anyone tried 3D in VR and offer their review/opinion?

Not a serious proposition. The resolution is way too low, and the headset far too bulky and claustrophobic.

So you tested 3D movies on PSVR and other VR headsets?
Besides the low resolution Is the 3D effect similar to how it would look in the cinema
since we are getting a cinema size screen?

Yeah i know the resolution is too low for now
but the tech will improve more with each new generation…

This looks like the way we are heading if we want 3D movies watching
since there no more 3D TVs made anymore.
The second hand 3D TVs are harder to get now since those people would want to hold onto the last made 3D TV ever or they want a very high price for it.
Not to mention there is no warranties on those TVs anymore now…

BTW I wasn’t proposing anything…
Just asking if anyone tried 3D in VR.