Motorola zoom can play trueColor3D over/und clips in portrait mode

I recently took a coach to Vienna to attend the http://www.3dimensionale.at and found myself sitting next to a zoom 1 user. I showed him the KMQ s3D viewing method on my iPad and we also tried to watch one of the KMQ clips on vimeo. After many disappointing failed attempts with older Android tablets who always forced video to landscape orientation, I was surprised - the zoom was able to play a portrait video in portrait orientation.

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)

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.

What is better for viewing on next gen 3DTVs - SBS or OU?

I recently was asked, what method (and format to use) to upload a 3D clip to vimeo.

My answer was :
Let the visitor decide and upload several clips. As a PLUS user simply use your monthly volume to upload one clip per viewing method and then use descriptions to crosslink them.

Variants to upload :

• Keep including an Anaglyph version.
  Many viewers still assume anaglyph glasses are the only 3D glasses available.
  But please add a title and a cover pic that mentions other variants available and don't forget to mention WHAT filter colors are needed in their anaglyph glasses..


• trueColor3D made my3D layout as 1280x480 or bigger in height,
  as 480 is the minimum height for any video on vimeo
  and 1280 is the minimum width to grant HD bitrate/quality.


• trueColor3D made Over/Under (KMQ) layout to let viewers enjoy all the colors on any LCD and even see an undistorted image with naked eyes.


• trueColor3D made GRilli3D verticalled interleaved layout for use on glasses free iPads


• Please also provide a Download of a 1280x720, frame compatible 3D video.
  Please don't use side by side, like most do, but over/under, because the next/better generation of 3DTVs and many 3Dmonitors use passive glasses and the xPol polarization technique.
  This cuts vertical res down to 360 per eye anyway and by using SBS, the viewer ends up effectively seeing 640x360 per eye of your content, instead of 1280x360, even when the display itself claims FullHD 1920x1080(2x540).

Edit for the introduction of Apple TV 1080p (March 2012):
You can now use your AppleTV to play vimeo HD/FullHD videos. And again, for most 3DTVs it's best to play over/under squeezed (frame compatible vertcally stacked) .

Update for trueColor3D to version 0.93

Please visit the edited original blog entry.

trueColor3D becomes flattr-ware

I decided to make trueColor3D my first "flattr"-ware. That means, it's free and open source, but users who want to thank and encourage me may use this new micro donation system. It' s like a donation flat rate for the web. You donate 2€ per month and every "thing" on the www with a flattr button can be clicked once. The creator of that thing then participates on this. I suggest you use this as well for your 3-D content. Visitors can then say "thank you" to you as well. My upcoming but much bigger tool StereoBookMaker will be flattr ware as well.

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)".

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.

How to create 3-D videos in the openKMQ, open over/under layout

If you want to also convert your private videos to openKMQ layout or want to upload them to vimeo, please use this layout.

Such a video plays on any LCD in fullscreen mode (VCL can play on portrait mode displays), even iMacs, iBooks, iPad, iPod Touch 4, iPhone 4. For the 960x640 displays of the 4th gen iPhone/iPodtouch you need a special viewer not yet released.

UPDATE for vimeo content:

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 764x1020 and encourage your viewers to download the original video for optimal local play or import to the iPad Photos App.

My new free conversion tool trueColor3D will automatically take care of that, from version 0.92 on.