3D on DVD

[Rob Franks]

Vegas 10 now comes with 3d abilities… but really any multi track editor can do 3d so long as you have the proper footage on hand shot from a 3d cam.

Maybe you should have a look through this:

https://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=741481

[Dave Haynie]

Simple answer: there’s no “3D” stereoscopic format for DVD. You might be able to create something anaglyphic (color multiplexed monochrome) on DVD.

For proper, modern “3D” you need to author a Profile 5 Blu-ray disc (which of course, has to play back on a Profile 5 compliant Blu-ray player… these require a 2x Blu-ray drive and HDMI 1.4 compliant output).

So yeah, Sony built in support for editing stereographic video in Vegas 10, but they do not have Profile 5 support in DVD Architect. And far as I can tell, the only 3D output format Vegas 10 supports is Cineform Neo3D… an extra $$$ add-on); they don’t create Blu-ray standard AVC MVC output. You can do a little messing around to render both left and right views… but over all, not a finished solution.

Right now, stereoscopic Blu-Ray authoring is available in Sony’s Blu-print, NetBlender’s DoStudio, or Sonic’s Scenarist … all multi-thousand dollar programs. This was one my concerns when Sony bought The Sonic Foundry, and it seems well founded.

Companies protect their higher-end products. When SF was a stand-alone company, they certainly had to manage their development time, but there was no inherent limit on the features they could build into Vegas, Acid, Forge, etc. But you don’t see all of the features included in the “Studio” versions of those — they have to protect the higher value of the top-of-the-line.

Today, Sony’s high-end Blu-Ray authoring application is Blu-print, which they sell for about $50,000. Which helps explain why, other than some basic support for Blu-ray-modeled-as-a-DVD, DVD Architect hasn’t seen much of an upgrade in years. Vegas itself won’t produce higher bitrate AVC output, despite the fact that it can certainly edit many professional formats, and Blu-ray itself supports video bitrates up to 40Mb/s (72Mb/s for a Profile 5 MVC disc)… this sure looks like they’re protecting the high end.

With that said, it makes zero sense to sell Vegas Pro as a full authoring system, tout both “3D” and “Blu-ray” as major features, but not connect them. Sure, they do basically disclaim this; they only claim “3D Editing” as a top-level bullet point feature. However, they have a banner ad, showing on the Sony Media site right now, which says things like “Simplify 3D creation and delivery” and “Edit and produce 3D with speed and precision”. The editing is unquestionably there. Production… not so much. And delivery? I can’t find it.

I have no current interest in editing stereoscopic video or making “3D” discs, but the hole here is just a little gaping, for those who do want these things.

-Dave

[Roger Bansemer]

Thanks for the reply and answer to that question. It does seem almost like a bait and switch on the promise of 3D editing by Vegas and even though I don’t have a 3D camera like my friend does, he specifically purchased Vegas 10 because he thought by their promotions that he’d be able to produce a 3D DVD. I mean, otherwise really what good is it?
This is very bizarre.

[Dave Haynie]

It’s not entirely without precedent. For example, Vegas supported High Definition editing well before it supported any standard HD delivery mechanism, such as Blu-ray.

On the other hand, DVDA 5.0 did give us a basic HD delivery mechanism not long after Blu-ray became the established standard. And it was a “mid-release” upgrade to Vegas. So who knows, Sony could deliver an updated version of DVDA with 3D support before Vegas 11 ships. I wouldn’t hold my breath over it, but this kind of thing has happened before.

-Dave

[Roger Bansemer]

Again, this is a response from my friend in Alexandria who is working with the 3D. As I’ve said, I haven’t gotten into 3D but this is interesting.

After searching the web for a way to burn my homemade 3D HD videos to DVD to share with the family on our 3D TV with shuttering glasses, I hit on one person who accomplished this via a $110 software package called Roxio2011 Pro: https://www.roxio.com/enu/products/creator/pro/overview.html . The program will take you to burning an “AVCHD” disc on either a standard DVD or BluRay (with an optional add-on) after selecting “RealD” option. BluRay seems to only affect the length of the video you can put on the disc as it has 7 times the capacity of a standard DVD. Even though the preview screen in Roxio shows analglyph red/green stereo of the movie, it’s only for editing purposes. Another option earlier is how you want the left and right images encoded. I chose “side by side – Full” as it is one option available to select on the 3D TV itself. My source was from the Fuji W3, but there are other options that are software packages like the free StereoMovie Maker https://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stvmkr/ for making stereo 3D video streams from all sorts of stereo image sources. Sony Vegas 10 is supposed to be helpful in all this, but so far it seems to only parallel the StereoMovie Maker in 3D capabilities with no 3D burning. If you know differently than any of this, let me know.

[Dave Haynie]

Curious stuff… I looked it up. The RealD they mention there… same company, but a different technology. In the theater, RealD uses passive, circularly polarized glasses to deliver the proper image to each eye. In a conventional theater, this is generally via a DLP projector and a polarization wheel in front of it, but IMAX (which sometimes uses RealD, and sometimes other technologies) typically uses two projectors, one for each eye.

The “home” RealD format is, however, a “side-by-side” format… half the resolution, much the same idea as the video you get from the Panasonic SDT750. And, despite this “side-by-side” format having existed for over 100 years (“stereographs” were a fad in 1900, actually went commercial in 1849, and of course, there was the “Viewmaster” I had when I was a little kid), RealD seems to have some kind of patent on it. But I digress…

So yeah… apparently they’ve added some tag to the AVCHD format to indicate a side-by-side recording. This is NOT, however, how 3D is stored on standard Blu-ray video (MVC format). You can get players for computers that support shutter-glasses 3D on your PC using this format, too. This doesn’t actually require a 3D Blu-ray player, either, but without one that understands this other 3D format on AVCHD, you have to tell your TV to go into side-by-side 3D mode… assuming it understands that.

-Dave

[Roger Bansemer]

Another response from my 3D friend says:

I guess the responder, Dave Haynie, is saying that there is a more robust encoding technique. That seems to be the case, since the TV doesn’t find my 3D encoding technique automatically, as it does when a store bought 3D video is played. However, the 3D option I chose was for “full” resolution in “side-by-side” encoding not “half”, which is also a choice, so that there would be no reduction in image quality. So far it looks like there is no reduction in resolution and the Roxio software didn’t balk when it was chosen nor did the Panasonic 3D tv. Another option was to use “FujiW3” encoding and let it play at whatever resolution that inherently is, most likely “Full”, too. I hope to get the full answers to all this in time.

[Dave Haynie]

Blu-ray supports exactly one 3D format: MVC (Multiview Video Coding). MVC is based on AVC; it encodes one “normal” video channel and one “difference” video channel. So in essence, you get a full left-eye view, then a track of just the differences on the right… so it compresses much better. The player itself creates two full frames, one for each eye, from the Blu-ray format.

HDTVs and HDMI 1.4, on the other hand, support at least 7 different formats. Just as when HDMI devices hand-shake on resolution, your BD player and your TV will presumably handshake on 3D format. Since your BD player knows the disc is 3D, the TV reacts automatically.

The fact that you have to set the TV manually for the AVCHD disc implies that the BD player has absolutely no knowledge of the fact you have a 3D disc there. That pretty much limits the format to 3D side-by-side, half resolution, since that’s the only format the BD player would understand that’s fully transparent to the AVCHD/BD format — same principle Panasonic uses in their new 3D camcorder. It’s just a regular camcorder doing normal HD, and the 3D aspect is all interpretation of the video shot with the 3D lens attachment.

The 3D formats include field alternative, frame alternative, line alternative, side-by-side half, side-by-side full, L + depth, and L + depth + graphics + graphics depth. Only side-by-side half is transparent .. you could play that on a non-3D BD player and the 3D TV, set manually to that mode, will work. Field, frame, or line alternate send twice as many field/frames.. the video looks like 1080/48p or 720/120p, etc. A regular Blu-ray player would not have a clue about how to play such a video disc, in BD or AVCHD. Similarly, side-by-side full is practically the same as frame/field alternate, only you’re sending what appears to be a 3840×1080/24p or 2048×720/60p video… double the normal pixel rate, no non-3D TV would have any idea what to do with it. The L+ modes are even more clever.. that’s sending essentially what’s on the BD itself … left view plus difference, as I understand it. You let the TV assemble the final frames, rather than the BD player, that’s all.

The frame alternative format, also called “Frame Packing”, is mandatory on all 3D TVs that meet the SMPTE standards. All televisions are required to accept 720/50p, 720/60p, and and 1080/24p in this format, which again, is really much like 720/120p or 1080/48p… twice the video, twice the data rate, two complete images in full HD. All other formats are optional.

That’s the salient point here. Yeah, you can encode half-rez side-by-side and play it on any TV that conforms, but it’s lower resolution, and isn’t guaranteed to play. Real Blu-Ray 3D is guaranteed, because the player has all of the information, and can deliver whatever format the TV requires. I don’t believe you can do full 3D side-by-side … the BD player wouldn’t likely accept it. That’s twice the data… more overhead than a regular 3D BD, and not something a BD player is ever expecting to play. It would have to understand that format… the half-rez, it doesn’t have to… that’s a pass-through. I believe you when you say the software says it does this, but I don’t believe the software… particularly if your 3D BD player doesn’t recognize the disc as 3D.

FujiW3 encoding from Fujifilm’s W3 digital still camera. It has a 720p-ish video mode, which encode RealD side-by-side video in an AVI. This is a format you might want to input to a DVD/BD authoring program. A 3DTV with full side-by-side support could play this, but you could not encode that onto a legal Blu-ray as is… you need the MVC format.

In short, I agree that Roxio’s stuff (very consumery.. my Mom uses it) is the first consumer 3D disc creation system I’ve seen anywhere. Of course, when I got into video disc creation, we all made Super Video CDs, because VideoCD sucked and DVD wasn’t out yet. So it’s not a huge surprise that there’s some monkey business going on here… they are not delivering standardized 3D discs that you might expect to be able to play on any player 10 year hence. And while I’m sure they accept full HD or half HD or W3 as input, I seriously doubt they can produce any output format other than side-by-side half. Any other format requires your BD player to understand that format… and as you’ve pointed out, it doesn’t.

-Dave

[Kiran Mahindra]

Thanks Dave for your valuable suggestion.

I did create 3d video file with side by side with half using sony vegas 10 and copied this file to USB pen drive.
I connected this USB to Samsung 3D tv and able to watch this file in 3D by selecting side by side 3d format using remote.

Same USB I connected to Sony 3D TV and not able to watch it in 3D.
Do we need to encode diffrently for Sony 3D TV ?

pl advice.

Thx
Kiran

[Stephen Buczinski]

My Fuji W3 generates an HDMI 3D output that is clearly not a side-by-side image for stills or video that both a Panasonic 3D and Samsung 3D tv recognizes and automatically starts playing in 3D. Even the static *.mpo image files and *.avi video files from this camera, which do not show up in any normal jpeg player as side by side images, play in 3D on the same tvs. The second stereo image of each pair in any frame is never available unless the Fuji software is used to extract it. I called Fuji and they said they used MVC encoding after some consultation amoung their staff. I am wondering if anyone else out there can confirm this by signal analysis as it took them a while to cinfirm this and since the Fuji software can convert home made stereo images into Fuji video or stills, i.e., by MVC encoding I can only assume. Roxio’s software does not do this, but rather creates a conspicuously side-by-side image format when you select their Fuji format output. When you select their side-by-side full output, not half, the image looks the same. I’m still trying to get an engineer’s confirmation on this from Fuji or anyone else out there who has the equipment.