How to best watch trueColor3D video clips on Android tablets

I recently saw a trueColor3D video on a Samsung Galaxy Tab using the over/under method similar to my iPad experience.
Unfortunately the native Android Apps for vimeo and Youtube both limit playback to landscape videos, so I recommend to use the webBrowser to visit these sites.
And the limitations of framesizes and bandwidth are more strict as on my old iPad1.
There are some videos that play fine on iOS 4.2 but bring an "unknown" error on Android 2.3.x

If anyone knows more about these obscure limits, please tell me more, so I can finetune the presets of trueColor3D.exe

Gorgeous Women 1

I uploaded a slide show with depth-painted 3D stills made by the Youtube user XtraDefinition3D aka XD3D on flickr

Gorgeous Women in trueColor3D for over/under viewing

trueColor3D now also runs on OSX

First trueColor3D only ran on Windows, because it strongly depended on the AviSynth audio/video scripting environment that is tricky to run on non-Windows machines.


I started to reprogram many of the conversions from AviSynth to only use video filter commands in ffmpeg.
This is the first result.


On OSX, the following old/new stereo-layouts are supported :

Youtube: my3D, iPad (over/under 1080p)
Vimeo: my3D, iPad (over/under), PC (over/under)
home use: my3D, iPad (iTunes), iPad (AirVideo)


Download version 0.95 from my DropBox :
Source code only (v0.95),
Windows 32-bit binary (v0.94),
OSX 32-bit binary (v0.95)

ADRI EV stereoscopic music video for iPad and other tablets

Watch this on a tablet device locked to landscape, but oriented to portrait using one of the over/under viewers (KMQ, jpsOneEye or BerezinOneEye).

ADRI EV MUSIC VIDEO (iPad3D over/under) from Thomas Kumlehn on Vimeo.

This video was created with my open source tool trueColor3D

The creator is Gyro Tod for Kimera Productions.

New way to upload 3-D for iPad to vimeo

Me and many viewers don't like the way, vimeo degrades videos with a width below 1280 to SD quality bitrate. For normal widescreen content that's fine, but not for our special portrait over/under layout. I experimented in the past with rotation, scale to bypass this, but either vimeo degraded the content or the iPad refuses to play it, becaue it was regarded too HiRes.
Today I found a new way by omitting black borders on the top and buttom and by rotating to the right. So, clips originating on 16:9 can now be uploaded as 1280 x 1040. Viewed with an orientation locked to landscape and held as portrait, this results in 1040 x 586 per eye and a 108px gap. And this layout fits both the vimeo and the iOS size restrictions.
I hope to soon reupload in the new format, but for GRilli3D fans there is still no alternative to view from "Download".

New tags for Youtube 3D

Andrew Murchie's overview of the new Youtube 3D tagging.

So now, you can simply upload a trueColor3D made over/under (aka iPad3D) clip of 768x1024 to Youtube and tag it with
yt3d:enable=RonL

This way, it plays on all FLASH-enabled browsers in selectable 3D modes, also plays on iPad using the KMQ or compatible viewers and can be used with StereoPlayer and NVidia shutter glasses.

What's left ?
Okay - for smartphone support you still need an undistorted side-by-side version like the my3D with 1280x480px, also made with trueColor3D.

And for glasses-free viewing on iPad, we still need the GRilli3D1024 layout.

More and more openKMQ clips on Youtube

If you either type in "openKMQ" or follow this link, you will find a growing number of over/under (KMQ) compatible videos. For now, most of them are made by Andrew from EnhancedDimensions. Thumbs up!

Looking for 3-D content to co-market on iPad3D/iPhone3D

I'm currently preparing some Apps for the Apple AppStore and the Android market place. They will bring the first payed and DRM protected trueColor3D content to all smartphones (using Hasbro's my3D or a Lorgnette) and tablets (using the openKMQ over/under method). The concept includes instruction videos, embedded credit webpages and can either show a single 3-D video, a group of them with HTML5 title menu or even a slideshow/gallery of themed stereo pairs.

Please contact me by email, if you are interested to also sell your 3-D content.
The concept is based on open source and will become an open source framework, but obviously, your final product will be closed source.

Update for trueColor3D to version 0.93

Please visit the edited original blog entry.

New vimeo channel for trueColor3D on iPad1 with GRilli3D autostereoscopic lenticular sheet

Find an autostereoscopic version of the ECC/Home of 3D 2010 demo reel on the new vimeo channel openGRilli3D.
It was made with the version 0.92 of trueColor3D.exe

First trueColor3D stereoscopic slide show on vimeo

This video was created handing 129 stereopairs and captions over to the new program StereoBookMaker (SBM). SBM can also create dozens of true color 3-D booklet layouts and stereocards from this data set. Its Windows version is coming soon.

Many thanks to the Stereo-Photographer Eberhard Gehrke for providing pictures and text.

TrueColor3D Channel Kickoff

To encourage vimeo plus creators to bring their recent or new 3-D content also to vimeo using this method and channel, I managed sponsoring to ship starter kits to the first 50 registered. The kickoff starts now and ends end of march.
Here's the channel link http://vimeo.com/channels/openKMQ3D.

Register by eMail. If you don't like the method or decide not to upload content until april 5th, simply return the kit or you will receive an invoice end of april.

There's a simple reason, why you must be a vimeo plus user to participate. To provide a high bandwidth quality, most of the videos should provide a download of the original source. Vimeo uses a simple but outdated method to differentiate SD from HD content. Not the resolution (pixel count) but simply the line width. Therefor the streaming version of openKMQ compatible (764x1020) of My3D (960x640) content only gets a bandwidth of 2Mb/s instead of 5Mb/s they would need and deserve.

How to embed over/under clips in your blog posts

For embedding over/under vimeo clips in blog postings, I personally prefer the following settings for my narrow blog layout :

In the src= parameter, edit the options in the vimeo URL to
?title=1&byline=0&portrait=0&color=ffffff

and for the iframe parameters, use these values
width="400" height="650" frameborder="0"

First clip made from DualFullHD content available on vimeo in trueColor3D

For my Berlin based friend Paul Stutenbäumer, I converted his demo reel to the new channel on vimeo, using over/under true color stereoscopic viewing instead of legacy anaglyphs.



But I encountered some pitfalls in the vimeo internals.
If you upload a video 768px wide, vimeo ignores the height and assumes it's an SD european clip that needs non square pixel treatment. Fair enough, but this cripples XGA portrait mode clips optimized for iPad use.
And to achieve HD quality bandwidth, a video needs 1280px width or wider. This sucks as well. Again, vimeo ignores the height.

So if you want your clip to be watched on vimeo including iPad users, please use a slighty smaller res of 764px x 1020px and encourage your viewers to download the original video for optimal local play or import to the iPad Photos App.

And please ask vimeo staff to change the policy ignoring height for bandwidth decisions.

Beta release Win32/OSX of the openKMQ 3-D video converter (aka trueColor3D.exe)

For all Windows 32-bit and OSX (64/32bit) users willing to give the new application a try, feel free to download the zip archive from my DropBox account and install it together with ffmpeg and AviSynth (not on OSX).
It converts your own or downloaded side-by-side and over/under videos to be viewed with openKMQ or GRilli3D.

Download version 0.99 (OSX) or 0.94 (Win) from my DropBox :
OSX 32-bit binary (v0.99),
Windows 32-bit binary (v0.94)

The source code is available at github

I have downloaded some trailers from YouTube using firefox/greasemonkey and the userscript "YouTube HD Suite" and now I can watch them full color on my iPad1.

For me the EXE works fine and the later conversion produces both files to upload to vimeo, view 3-D on any 2D display - and iPad as mentioned before.
It also has an option to stream your 3-D content from PC/Mac/Linux using the AirVideo App (the free version handles up to 3 movies in your folder - should be enough for a day and then you replace them with others). For all who already have received a GRilli3D lenticular film for iPad, this is also supported, but I couldn't test if I ordered L/R the right way ;-) Please test drive and swamp me with errors (hope not) and suggestions (hope yes!).

Merry Christmas and a Happy new year.

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Update:
From version 0.92 on the program is called trueColor3D.exe
From version 0.93 on also GRilli3D for iPod and ACER 3D laptops are supported.
From version 0.94 on also my3D and Lorgnette on iPhone4 or iPodTouch4 are supported. (see sister blog openMy3D.

From version 0.95 on, also OSX is supported.
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Here are sample out files to play in true color 3-D on iPad
For over/under and for GRilli3D glasses free .

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And here is the link to the first new vimeo channel for "3-D true color openKMQ videos" and the experimental vimeo channel for "3-D true color autostereoscopic videos for GRilli3D (iPad1)".

Developing a conversion tool to create openKMQ compatible videos

Right now I'm figuring out ways to convert side-by-side videos (either frame compatible or not) to the openKMQ format that directly plays on vimeo and also on iPads.
My goal was to create a true cross platform application starting with Windows, Linux and OSX and so I decided on using the GPL ffmpeg for processing and Qt for the user interface.
Unfortunately some video filter functionality vital to my approach are not released yet.
So I will first implement a variant using AviSynth and a ffmpeg config enabled to work with avs files.

Features to be implemented first:
Play 3D videos directly either with a DirectShow compatible player or ffplay using tiny avs script files.
Convert those downloaded 3D videos so that the new files can be imported to your iPad3D for offline viewing.
Convert 3D video edited with the new breed of 3-D capable editing tools VegasPro, MAGIX, etc to be played full color on vimeo

Later
Also support conversion to My3D compatible videos.
as well as the new 3df33d video portal
Port to OSX and Ubuntu when the needed features in ffmpeg become mature.

Please comment if your see need for more to be added

Animated short "Elephants Dream" rerendered in 3-D

Watch it on vimeo in full color over/under 3-D.
Unfortunately the video is not prepared for iPad3D as it's full res and stacked with a tiny gap.
But it works for manual over/under viewing.

Elephants Dream 3D - stacked version from datenwolf on Vimeo.

Update: The short film was awarded the first price at the European 3-D Film Festival. My congratulations to Wolfgang Draxinger and the original Blender Foundation team.

Apple goes 3-D with Haspro on mobile devices

Haspro announced that early next year it will sell My3D, a plastic "viewmaster"-like viewer to plug on an iPhone or iPod touch to watch side-by-side video and play 3-D games. Content providers like Dreamworks will follow as well.

I very much hope for iPad they will go the over/under route :-)

YT 3-D video introducing to over/under photo books (german)

Richard Hebstreit's 3-D interview with me on YouTube

openKMQ videos can be hosted on vimeo

Vimeo is less restricted in terms of aspect ratio and resolutions than YouTube.
So many vimeo contributors have uploaded not only Anaglyph 3-D videos but also side-by-side up to 4K (3840x1080). Since yesterday, you can also see my first over/under video (768x1024 XGA portrait) optimized to play on iPad in full color 3-D and on any LCD in fullscreen mode (switch scale to ON) either landscape or rotated to portait. Silent 3-D Test video (Berlin fleemarket)