3D Vision Blog

Last month Sigma Designs and RealD jointly announced their partnership in order to introduce the upcoming availability of support for the stereoscopic RealD Format in Sigma Designs’ Media Processors. This integration should enable manufacturers of set-top boxes, televisions and other consumer electronics such as Full HD multimedia players to play high definition stereo 3D content with no additional hardware required. This was very important announcement as the media processors produced by Sigma Designs are quite well spread and used in most of the standalone Full HD multimedia players like Popcorn Hour, NMT Media Tank, Western Digital TV (WDTV), Dvico TviX and a lot more. I still haven’t seen that promised stereo 3D support available anywhere, but it will soon start appearing in new devices and firmware updates for the already available models. Sigma Designs’ media processors are lately getting serious competition from Realtek who also introduced their own similar products that are already available in some devices, but Realtek still hasn’t said anything about upcoming S3D suppot…

And while we still don’t have the stereo 3D support in any of the mentioned above devices, we got an announcement from PopBox who are saying that they will ship their PopBox devices 3D-ready at launch (they are based on Sigma Designs media processors), so consumers will be able to enjoy 3D content on all 3D-ready HDTVs. The PopBox devices make it simple and affordable to play all the movies, music, home videos, and photos from your home PC, network-connected devices, and content streamed from the Internet, on your High Definition TV. PopBox is expected to be available very soon, and is currently available to pre-order at Amazon.com. PopBox has retail price of $129.99 for the normal version, without WiFi, and the PopBox Wireless model is available for $149.99.

Considering that the PopBox builds on the success of Syabas’ Popcorn Hour lineup of Network Media Tanks, the Popcorn Hour A-200 and C-200, all Popcorn Hour A and C series devices will also have access to the RealD 3D Format to enable the support for stereo 3D video playback on compatible 3D-ready displays, but they will need a free firmware upgrade to get that additional functionality. And we are most likely not going to have to wait much longer after PopBox hits the market and we get an update for PopCorn Hour in order to see other manufacturers of similar products based on Sigma Designs’ media processors to start adding stereo 3D support.

- To visit the official website of PopBox device made by Syabas Tehcnology…

The 3D Vision Video Player has finally been updated from version 1.5.2 to 1.5.5a adding some new and interesting features that were already introduced in the Stereoscopic Player (the 3D Vision player is based on). One of the most notable new additions in version 1.5.5a of the 3D Vision Video Player is the option to watch online streaming 3D content, a feature that might come in handy pretty soon with all the 3D craze going around. And here are two interesting pages where you can find some more stereoscopic 3D movies that can be played with the 3D Vision video player on your PC: stereo movie gallery Kawagoe that have some 3D videos you probably still haven’t seen.

Here is the complete changelog:
- Adds online 3D streaming capability via File > Open URL.
- Added QuickTime source DirectShow filter.
- Added MXF splitter DirectShow filter.
- Added QuickTime Stream Splitter, Flash Stream Splitter, MXF Stream Splitter and MJPEG2000 Video Decoder categories to the preferred filters configuration.
- Added JPS descriptor support. The player does not ask the user to select the stereoscopic format for JPS files anymore.
- Added support ARGB input format in the Stereo Transformation filter.
- Fixed crash when leaving dual screen fullscreen mode.
- Fixed invalid library items when opening movies failed.
- Added synchronized command execution to effect control.
- Added GPU-based YUV to RGB conversion in OpenGL mode.
- Added: Improved performance and image quality in OpenGL mode.
- Changed: Merged DirectX and OpenGL Stereo Renderer filters.
- Fixed access violation when opening a DVD the first time.
- Added support for separate left/right still image files.
- Added kiosk mode.
- Added option to set slideshow interval.
- Added trace to error log files.
- Added GetZoom and SetZoom OLE Automation commands.
- Added MJPEG Decompressor as default MJPEG video decoder.
- Changed settings dialog.
- Changed behavior of ‘full screen unscaled’ command: now sets zoom to 100%.
- Fixed crashes when viewing stills on graphics cards with small memory.
- Fixed wrong colored pixels on the border of the screen.

- To download the free Nvidia 3D Vision Stereoscopic Video Player 1.5.5a…

Stereoscopic Player is probably the most versatile software player for stereoscopic 3D content, supporting the playback of 3D photos and 3D videos on a wide array of systems including, but not limited to 3D Vision, iZ3D, Interlaced, Quad Buffered OpenGL and of course a lot of different Anaglyph modes. The player offers an easy to use interface similar to the classic Media Player look and is able to play very wide array of file formats with extensive functionality for configuring file splitters and decoders. The Stereoscopic Player also supports the playback Windows Media Dual Stream S3D files, a format which allow you to see 2D content when played back with a normal player and 3D only with an S3D capable player. There is also an option to capture video from live sources, including a TV tuner for example and displaying it in 3D with the option to process the file over a video filter for example to make 2D to 3D conversion of live 2D TV programs. So this is definitely great to have, especially if you own more than one Stereoscopic 3D solution and/or are an S3D enthusiast. Just have in mind that the player can be freely used, but is limited to 5 minutes playback and a personal license to lift the limit will cost you about $55 USD, but it is worth purchasing it.

In the new version 1.5.5, aside from the normal fixes of some issues, the Stereoscopic Player has added support for QuickTime Video Decoder and Stream Splitter DirectShow filters, MXF Stream Splitter DirectShow filter and MJPEG2000 Video Decoder DirectShow filter to allow more control to the user in terms of what codec to use for different formats. Another interesting new feature is the added JPS descriptor support that will help the player not to ask the user to select the stereoscopic format for JPS files anymore.

- To download the latest version of the Stereoscopic Player…