3D Vision Blog

The Nintendo 3DS portable gaming console has finally received the anticipated feature for recording 3D video with the latest firmware update, but much more people are actually willing to use the console for 3D video playback and not 3D video recording device. The 3DS can be used as a nice portable 3D video playback device and thanks to the autostereoscopic 3D display that does not require to wear 3D glasses it is even more convenient. As a result there is now a handy little tool with an easy to use GUI that relies on ffmpeg to help you convert most stereo 3D video clips in a format that the Nintendo 3DS console can play. The software can easily convert both 2D and 3D videos (Side by Side or Top/Bottom formats) for playback on the Nintendo 3DS. You can change the Quality between the default of 1 (best) and 31 (lowest) and use the Advanced options that allow you to select Bitrate or change the FPS of the converted video. You are welcome to try the software (it is free and open source) and report how it works for you if you have a 3DS and if you find any bugs you should also report them to the authors of the software, so that they can fix them…

- For more information and to download the 3DS Video conversion software…

Today CyberLink officially released their new PowerDVD 11 media playback software for PC with the new version being announced as an universal player that is designed to be the only application you’ll need to view Blu-ray and DVD movies, videos, photos and listen to music. PowerDVD 11 comes with a lot of new features including support for playback and transfer of content from iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Android phones and tablets to PC. In addition to support for media from smartphones and tablet devices, the new PowerDVD can also play from remote media sources such as DLNA servers and popular social networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr and YouTube. Furthermore PowerDVD 11 users owning an iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch or Android-based devices can download and install the PowerDVD Remote application that will turn their mobile device into a remote control for the PowerDVD playback functionality tight from the comfort of their sofa.

Among the interesting new 3D-related features you will get in the top version of PowerDVD 11 are for example: Playback of recorded 3D TV (ISDB-T Standard), 3D Photo support (MPO/JPS), TrueTheater 3D functionality for for photos including ones from Facebook and Flickr, and the ability to Upload 3D video to YouTube. I’ll be doing a review of the new functionality added in the PowerDVD 11 Universal Media Player in the next few days, so expect more information about the new version of the PowerDVD media player very soon.

Key Features in the new PowerDVD 11:

- Play any HD media: Whether it’s Blu-ray, upscaled DVDs, videos or photos, PowerDVD 11 can play them all flawlessly with optimized CPU/GPU hardware acceleration. And new ultra-fast Instant Seek lets you search for movie scenes in your DVDs in a flash.
- Play any 3D media: Experience the hottest new movie and video technology with Blu-ray 3D and native 3D video support. You can even convert your 2D DVDs, videos and photos and enjoy them in 3D.
- Play media from anywhere: From Apple and Android devices through to online media, DLNA server content, and Blu-ray and DVD discs, PowerDVD 11 plays it all.
- Play in upscaled quality: CyberLink’s unique TrueTheater enhancements allow you to upscale the image quality of your movies, videos, while TrueTheater Surround gives you a surround sound experience using only stereo speakers.
- Play social media: Watch TrueTheater-enhanced video from YouTube and view Facebook and Flickr photos and slideshows all from the one application. Easy, convenient and a great time-saver – no more searching!

The new PowerDVD 11 is already available online, supporting the following languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean, Russian and Portuguese. CyberLink offers OEM versions to PC and CE manufacturing customers, while a free trial download is also available from the CyberLink website. In order to get all the features available, including the Blu-ray 3D movie playback you will need to get the PowerDVD 11 Ultra that is available for $99.95 USD. The slightly more affordable PowerDVD 11 Deluxe version is $69.95 USD and while it still supports most 3D functions, you will not be able to play Blu-ray 3D movies with it. If you own a PowerDVD 10 Ultra license you can do an upgrade to the new 11 Ultra version for $59.95 USD.

- For more information about the new Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 Universal Media Player…

By now you should be well aware that the 3D Vision Video Player and the Stereoscopic Player sometimes can behave a bit strange when you try to play some stereo 3D video files, even though you have the right codecs installed and setup in the player. This strange behavior can sometimes be annoying, especially after you mess with the codecs and the player settings in order to fix the issue, but nothing seems to help in resolving the problem. So instead of trying to recompress the video file to more “friendly” formats and thus having to wait more or loose some of the original quality you can try another alternative workaround that may help you play the 3D video…

I’m talking about the use of a simple AviSynth script to warp the video into an AVI compatible stream that should help you play the 3D video file in the 3D Vision Video Player or the Stereoscopic Player. You need to download and install the free AviSynth for this method to work. Then you need to create a text file (name it for example workaround.avs) and enter the following line in it:

DirectShowSource("sailboats-stereo-3d.m2t")

You can either place the AVS file in the same directory as the video file and just change the name of the video, in this example sailboats-stereo-3d.m2t or to enter the full patch to the video file and have the AVS script anywhere you like. Then you just need to open the workaround.avs script in the 3D Vision Video Player or the Stereoscopic Player instead of directly the problematic video file, you need to choose the 3D format and then the video should start playing. Of course this workaround may as well sometimes behave weird and not work, but it doesn’t take time and it won’t hurt to try it out if you are getting trouble with some stereo 3D videos you want to watch.