Primer: The Principles Of 3D Video And Blu-ray 3D
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Page 1:What Is 3D?
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Page 2:Depth Perception
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Page 3:Depth Perception, Continued
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Page 4:Stereoscopic Vision
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Page 5:Shooting 3D Video And Animated Movies
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Page 6:Encoding And Delivering 3D Video Content
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Page 7:3D Displays
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Page 8:3D Displays, Continued
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Page 9:3D Displays, Continued
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Page 10:Blu-ray 3D
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Page 11:Important Considerations For 3D Video
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Page 12:Connecting To A 3D TV
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Page 13:Other Considerations
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Page 14:An Audio Analogy
Other Considerations
Brightness
Because they block alternate pixels, rows, or frames of video from each eye (depending on the type of 3D display you have chosen), less than half the light from a 3D display system reaches your eyes. To minimize crosstalk on frame sequential display systems, active shutter glasses block both eyes during the transition period between the display of each video frame. For all of these reasons, it is helpful to choose a 3D display with high brightness levels.
It is also important to avoid any reflections on the screen of your TV or display, as these reflections will be seen at a fixed depth (the distance from your eye to the display), making it a bit harder for your eyes to naturally focus on whatever you are interested in.
Due to both concerns, (brightness and reflections) you will find that 3D video is best viewed in a dark room.
Accommodation Disparity
Although objects may appear to be in front of or behind the display, they are not really there. Because the image is really coming from a flat screen, to see the 3D video clearly, the muscles in your eyes must keep your eye lens focused to the distance of the screen. The fact that the 3D video is really only in focus on a flat plane creates a disparity between one visual cue (accommodation) and the other visual cues.
When your eyes try to focus on 3D objects that appear to be close to you, your eyes will naturally converge inward while trying to accommodate for viewing a nearby object. Unlike the real world, all objects in a 3D video will only be in focus on the display. If you try to focus on objects that appear to be right in front of your nose, you will be disappointed, as you instead lose focus.
Fortunately, it seems that most people are able to adjust to this disparity without much difficulty, letting them relax and enjoy a 3D video without losing focus.
Blur Disparity
In the real world, our eyes focus on the objects at which we are looking. Objects that are nearer or farther appear out of focus. Because a 3D video is presented on a flat screen, the blur gradient that we experience in the real world will not be seen in a 3D video. If the 3D video is shot with a wide depth of field, the majority of the scene will be in focus, allowing the audience to see any part of the scene clearly when they focus on the screen.
If the director or cinematographer chooses to use a narrow depth of field, scenes may be shot with the subject in focus and other areas out of focus. While this technique can approximate the blur gradient we experience in the real world, it has the drawback of causing objects that we would normally be able to focus on to be out of focus, and impossible to focus on.
Blur disparity is an unavoidable issue, regardless of how a 3D video is shot or rendered. Studies have suggested that blur disparity and accommodation disparity tend to provide a cue to the brain that although it is seeing a stereoscopic view of a three-dimensional scene (real or computer-generated), the actual 3D video presentation is on a flat screen.
Eye Strain
We naturally view our world in 3D, and so a good 3D production makes it easy to suspend the disbelief that we are not actually “on scene,” live and in-person. However, the viewer will naturally try to focus to different distances, depending on the apparent distance of subjects and scenery in the 3D video. When you not only scan your eyes from side to side, but focus in and out, your eye muscles get a bigger workout than you would get from watching a video in 2D. Once you are able to adjust to the brave new world of 3D video, you will find yourself relaxing and enjoying, instead of trying to actively focus on objects near and far.
Motion Sickness
Motion sickness is normally caused by a disagreement in your brain between what you see and the motion that you feel (by your inner ear, which gives you your sense of balance). Motion sickness can also be caused by a disagreement within the visual system of your brain. If a 3D video is shot, displayed, or viewed poorly, the 3D depth perception of the objects in the scene may conflict with the 2D depth information that we perceive. These conflicts can cause the viewer to suffer similar symptoms to common motion sickness (fatigue, headache, dizziness, or in the worst case, nausea).
3D producers know how to minimize the potential for problems by:
- keeping subjects in the 3D comfort zone, at roughly the distance of the convergence point of the camera (at least most of the time)
- avoiding focusing on objects that are extremely close to the camera (your eye will try to focus on the object as it if is close to you, when your eye needs to focus to the distance of the display)
- avoiding zooming in and out (which changes the scale of the 3D space)
- avoiding excessive camera motion (for example, flying through a jungle; the audience has suspended the disbelief that they are watching a movie, and now the subconscious part of their brains are more prone to be concerned when their eyes are telling them that they are flying through the jungle but the sense of balance from their ears is telling them that they are sitting still)
- keeping near subjects away from the edge of the frame (where the picture for one eye could leave the frame)
- being sure that all content is 3D (producers cannot use flat 2D backgrounds or effects in a 3D production)
- minimizing the use of a narrow depth of field (causing parts of the scene to be out of focus – causing problems for viewers who attempt to focus on these objects)
Fortunately, experienced 3D producers know how to avoid these problems.
Consumers can minimize the potential for problems by:
- choosing a high-quality 3D display and 3D glasses solution (minimizing ghost images caused by crosstalk)
- minimizing reflections on their TV or display (reflections are 2D)
- viewing 3D content from the center of the direction that the display is facing (or from the center of a 3D theater – keeping the relative distance of all parts of the scene centered and in proportion)
- What Is 3D?
- Depth Perception
- Depth Perception, Continued
- Stereoscopic Vision
- Shooting 3D Video And Animated Movies
- Encoding And Delivering 3D Video Content
- 3D Displays
- 3D Displays, Continued
- 3D Displays, Continued
- Blu-ray 3D
- Important Considerations For 3D Video
- Connecting To A 3D TV
- Other Considerations
- An Audio Analogy
Unfortunately I am one of those who recently purchased a new TV. It will be quite some time before I upgrade.
I understand the author's preference for shutter glasses (especially since it's a certain product's preferred method of choice) even if I don't share it, the major limitation is having to buy a pair for all your friends coming over, which gets impractical until they are more commonplace.
Also polarized solutions are not limited in resolution if they are set-up beyond just the example provided in this article (like they do in the theatre with dual projectors [like the THG review by Don see: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/3d-polarized-projector,2589.html]) and may have an improving single source future with 2K and 4K displays on the horizon. It's a question of preference, but it seems like the full story wasn't explored on that subject.
Now on to a pet peeve: I love the part about "While set-top Blu-ray players will need to be replaced, PC-based Blu-ray player software can be upgraded." as a subtle product benefit plug.
Unless it's a free upgrade, you are still replacing the software, not upgrading it (it's not a plug-in), and you're likely forking out nearly the same amount of money for the 1/100th of the cost to produce that software update, so it's not like it's a major advantage. Especially when upgrading requires a FULL upgrade to the most expensive model Power DVD (version #) Ultra 3D, and I can't simply add it to my existing PowerDVD bundles thus potentially changing my backwards compatibility (Ultra 9 already removed my HD-DVD support from Ultra 7 that I upgraded on my LG HD-DVD/BR burner [that I also used for my old Xbox USB HD-DVD player too).
Make it a ~$20 independent 3D add-on and then you have a point [ooh I can save $5 'til May 25
Also can someone explain this statement;
"Blu-ray 3D video decoding solutions can be expected for ATI Radeon 5000-series graphics in the future."
Didn't Cyberlink already show their BR-3D solution on ATi hardware last year? So what's the issue?
Also why is it limited to "GeForce 300M-series mobile graphics" when often the core is the same a previous generation 200M series (example GTS 350M / 250M )?
And this section "Full-quality 120 Hz frame-sequential 3D video (such as Blu-ray 3D) is only supported through a High Speed
HDMI cable to a HDMI 1.4-compliant TV. " seems to miss the DVI dual-link to monitor option currently being used for 3D on PCs, and also the dual 1.3 input monitors/TVs.
A nice little article for people unfamiliar with 3D, but there's a subtle under-current of product preference/placement in it, and far too many generalities with little supporting information.
also some info on AVRs and how a 1.3 hdmi AVR might pass on 3d video and still decode bitstream audio, or not - do we need 1.4 hdmi AVRs to decode audio from a 1.4 source? we shouldn't need 1.4 receivers since the audio standards haven't change, but I'm understanding that in fact we do neeed new receivers.
This piece is a prelude to tomorrow's coverage, by Don, of Blu-ray 3D on a notebook and a desktop. Perhaps that one will answer any of the questions you were left with here?
As for AMD, Tom and I went back and forth on this piece, and we agreed that it was critical to get AMD's feedback on Blu-ray 3D readiness. The fact of the matter is that it isn't ready to discuss the technology. It's behind.
The mention of dual-link DVI was in the first revision of this piece and removed in a subsequent iteration. I've asked the author for additional clarification there and should have an answer shortly.
It turns out the demo (I think it was at CES?) only used CPU decoding over an ATI graphics card; the Radeon did no software decoding.
The Cyberlink rep tells me that Blu-ray 3D software decoding is extremely CPU-dependant and might even require a quad-core CPU. He said all four threads were being stressed under software decoding, not sure what quad-core CPU they were using though.
Definitely something I'd like to test out in the future...
These implementations, while ever more impressive, are still being threshed out. Because of possible physiological side effects, I think I will NOT be a first adopter, with this (particular) tech (3D).
Anyone ever watch that movie "THE JERK", with STEVE MARTIN ??
= Opti-Grab =
... I can see all these class-action suits by parents of cross-eyed gamers ... hope not, tho ... I *AM* very much looking forward to the fully refined "end game", for 3D ...
Additionally, the very best desktop workstations are only just now catching up to standard (uncompressed) HD resolution ingest and edit/render ... since that bandwidth IS shared, between both eyes, this may be a non-issue.
I will let the kiddies and 1st adopters take-on all those risks and costs.
Please let me know when it is all "fully baked" and field tested!
= Alvin = (not to mention "affordable").
While AMD has not yet announced their specific plans and schedule to support Blu-ray 3D MVC hardware accelerated decoding on ATI graphics, they were willing to confirm that a solution is coming for Radeon 5000 series graphics.
Tom Vaughan
Cyberlink
Ah that makes more sense (of what was trying to be said, not ATi/AMD's method) which is Ala AVIVO X1K series, make it 'sound' hardware accelerated, brilliant!
So, it's still available, just not hardware assisted. It's not like it's not possible as that statement would suggest, just you don't get any hardware benefit. Notice they kept the intel portion separate mentioning only the dual stream HD decoding (available since the HD4600 series, and GF9600 series) infering it's doable on intel, but not on the next stated option which would be in the future, not well written in that section if providing clarity is the goal. One would assume by the statement that A) 3D BR is not possible if running on an new HD5770 with a Core i7 920-980X, and B) that when it is 'made possible' it will only be on the HD5K series.
Yeah sorta gets back to the VC-1 H.264 decoding of the early generation HD-acceleration GPUs.
Still unclear why it's nV G300M-centric though based on the relationship of the chips as stated above.
BTW, need to get you some new projectors for a 1080 stereo projector setup. Isn't it tax return time?
To clarify, while it's possible to play Blu-ray 3D on a PC without video decoding acceleration (video decoding on your graphics processor), it takes most of the CPU power of a quad-core CPU to do software decoding of Blu-ray 3D MVC. GPU accelerated decoding is really the way to go, if possible.
Tom Vaughan
Cyberlink
Well grape, that's where things get interesting. It might be *possible*, but it can't be *available* until they develop something.
in Nvidia's case, they have their own 3D Vision infrastructure in place, so you plug in the 3D Vision stuff and you're off to the races.
Radeons on the other hand, I think it's safe to say they'll never be 3D Vision compatible. So AMD has no way I can think of that they will be able to provide a full-resolution 3D solution... in the near future anyway. maybe they'll someday be able to plug into 3D TVs and utilize their proprietary glasses, but for that they'd need HDMI 1.4, not sure if the 5000 series can handle that with the current hardware.
There's a lot to talk about, but it's easier to direct you toward my article that's coming out tomorrow. Then we can chat.
Take care,
- Cleeve
Great comments, but ATI is not showing for the game. If a product is not on the shelves, it will not sell. It is simple like that, as NVIDIA learned the hard way with Fermi.
The 3D modes are a lose-lose alternative: it is either an expensive display coupled with inexpensive glasses, or a mildly expensive display coupled with mildly expensive glasses.
NO matter which one goes, you lose performance or resolution: single DVI and HDMI cant display 3D over 1080p60Hz links. HDMI 1.4 was the salvation of 3D, if one can accept 24 Hz signals...
DisplayPort would be the way to go, but TVs are HDMI domain, and will remain so for the next decades, thanks to HDMI audio.
The point is that i see more benefits from higher resolutions than from 3D, and ther is no consumer grade cable today that can deliver 60Hz of 1080p or higher resolutions on 3D. But even modest systems demand such computational power that heat dissipation issues comes into play, much like the Graphics war of performance and Heat.
It would take a massive change on the way consumer grade Tvs and players are manufactured to bring the high end visual experience of 3D images and 4K resolutions to the living room. There is no way to produce viable chips on 90nm or bigger-hotter processes.
hixbot - an HDMI 1.4 3D source (HTPC, Blu-ray player, or other device with HDMI 1.4 output) can choose to support one of several mandatory 3D video signal formats. If an HDMI 1.4 sink (device with input) signals that it supports 3D, it must support all mandatory 3D modes (it can advertise support for additional modes).
Tom Vaughan
Cyberlink