News Stories

Stereoscopic 3D Player for PC

4.21.2011

[from the product website]

Are you looking for a high-quality, flicker free solution to watch your favorite 3D movies? Try Stereoscopic Player, a versatile 3D movie player for your PC!

A first glance…

Stereoscopic Player is a versatile 3D movie player. It allows you to play stereo scopic videos and DVDs (external decoder required) and also allows you to watch live video from a capture device. Since it is based on Direct Show, it can handle almost any media format, for example AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF and MOV. Videos can be coded in several different stereo scopic formats. Please see the feature list for supported input and output formats.

… and a few more details

Why is it necessary to use a special software for 3D movie playback? The reason is that there are a lots of different ways to watch stereoscopic content as well as different ways to store the content. In the past, it was necessary to encode a stereoscopic movie for each viewing method, for example you had to create an anaglyph file, a interlaced file for use with shutter glasses and a side-by-side for for free-viewing without glasses. Quality was often low. For example, most video codecs don’t handle interlaced content well or subsample color information (reducing color resolution to quarter of original resolution), which reduces anaglyph quality significantly.

 

The solution to above problem is creating just one file and convert it in real-time to the desired output format. The Stereoscopic Player is such a real-time conversion application. Using the player is easy: Load your stereoscopic movie, tell the player how it is encoded and finally select the desired output format (called viewing method). For your convenience, the Stereoscopic Player remembers input settings for each stereoscopic movie in its integrated video library so that you don’t have to re-do all the configuration steps again and again. For the most popular 3D-DVDs and 3D video files, Stereoscopic Player can even retrieve the proper settings from a web server. If you are creating content yourself, you can ship your video files together with a Stereoscopic Metafile (*.svi), which also eliminates the need to specify the input format.

For professional use, command line parameters, OLE automation and the Sony 9-pin protocol are available to automate the Stereoscopic Player. Furthermore, it can control external effects via a serial port or DMX512.

What about 2D-3D conversion?

Please note that Stereoscopic Player can not convert 2D content to 3D!  There is no real-time conversion algorithm available which works reasonably well. Computer are not smart enough to understand what’s in the foreground and what’s in the background yet. Since Stereoscopic Player is a high quality product, no inferior conversion algorithms were incorporated into the player. Stereoscopic Player requires real stereoscopic movies, containing both left and right view.

See the original post here: http://www.3dtv.at/Products/Player/Index_en.aspx

3D real-time on-screen video capture

4.21.2011

[by stereoscopynews.com]

You have a 3D video from a PC file, a Blu-ray disk or a game and want to capture it? The answer is Fraps !

fraps-250px

Fraps is a free tool you just need to download and use.Fraps supports now Windows 7 SP1 and is able to capture 3D Vision displays under DirectX10 and DirectX11, including at 1920×1080 and 1920×1200 sizes. Fast anf big hard disks required.

Fraps is ready to be downladed here.

See the original post here: http://stereoscopynews.com/hotnews/3d-technology/software-a-hardware-tools/1446-3d-real-time-on-screen-video-capture.html

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Specification for Naming VFX Image Sequences Released

ETC’s VFX Working Group has published a specification for best practices naming image sequences such as plates and comps. File naming is an essential tool for organizing the multitude of frames that are inputs and outputs from the VFX process. Prior to the publication of this specification, each organization had its own naming scheme, requiring custom processes for each partner, which often resulted in confusion and miscommunication.

The new ETC@USC specification focuses primarily on sequences of individual images. The initial use case was VFX plates, typically delivered as OpenEXR or DPX files. However, the team soon realized that the same naming conventions can apply to virtually any image sequence. Consequently, the specification was written to handle a wide array of assets and use cases.

To ensure all requirements are represented, the working group included over 2 dozen participants representing studios, VFX houses, tool creators, creatives and others.  The ETC@USC also worked closely with MovieLabs to ensure that the specification could be integrated as part of their 2030 Vision.

A key design criteria for this specification is compatibility with existing practices.  Chair of the VFX working group, Horst Sarubin of Universal Pictures, said: “Our studio is committed to being at the forefront of designing best industry practices to modernize and simplify workflows, and we believe this white paper succeeded in building a new foundation for tools to transfer files in the most efficient manner.”

This specification is compatible with other initiatives such as the Visual Effects Society (VES) Transfer Specifications. “We wanted to make it as seamless as possible for everyone to adopt this specification,” said working group co-chair and ETC@USC’s Erik Weaver. “To ensure all perspectives were represented we created a team of industry experts familiar with the handling of these materials and collaborated with a number of industry groups.”

“Collaboration between MovieLabs and important industry groups like the ETC is critical to implementing the 2030 Vision,” said Craig Seidel, SVP of MovieLabs. “This specification is a key step in defining the foundations for better software-defined workflows. We look forward to continued partnership with the ETC on implementing other critical elements of the 2030 Vision.”

The specification is available online for anyone to use.

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