3D Vision Blog

I’m sure that not everyone is fond of Golf as a sport, but this year you might be willing to watch the 2010 Masters Golf Tournament at least for a few hours a day. The reason for that is, because the tournament will be shot in 3D and then broadcasted on a special 3D TV channel and online. For that purpose the golf field will be equipped with multiple 3D cameras placed strategically throughout the course providing views to the audience just like being there, while they’ll be sitting comfortably in their homes. Unfortunately it seems that the live 3D broadcast will be distributed only to those in the United States with 3D-capable television sets or 3D-capable computers. It is still not known if the live online 3D feed will be accessible from outside USA, but if it isn’t people that have access to it will be more than welcome to record the stream and share it with other 3D enthusiasts around the world.

Unfortunately you won’t be able to watch the whole tournament in 3D, but still it should provide you with a good insight on what to expect from the future 3D TV broadcasts of sports and other type of live events. The 3D broadcasts will consist of two hours of live afternoon coverage that will be available each day beginning during Wednesday’s Par 3 Contest on April 7th (3-5 pm EST) and continuing throughout the four Tournament rounds, Thursday, April 8th – Sunday, April 11th (4-6 pm EST on Thursday and Friday and 5-7 pm EST on Saturday and Sunday).

More information on how to watch the live 3D stream online is available at the official website, but you’ll need to stay tuned and check back before the tournament starts for the exact streaming URL. The good news is that if you own a 3D Vision kit and a 120Hz monitor you’ll be able to watch the 3D stream either through the 3D Vision Video Player (the latest version 1.5.5 supports streaming 3D content) or through the Stereoscopic Player (even with other 3D setups… most likely). It seems that the broadcasted 3D TV stream will be in a Side by Side multiplexed 1080i format which is the standard for the new 3D-ready TV broadcasting as defined in the HDMI 1.4 specs. The exact format for the online broadcast still has not been officially announced, but it might as well be 720p to ensure better user experience and less problems with regards to internet speeds, and the format will be Side by Side with 16:9 aspect ratio.

- For more information on the 3D Online streaming feed of the Masters Golf Tournament…
- For more information on the 3D TV broadcasts of the Masters Golf Tournament on TV…

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…

The updated version of the free Stereoscopic 3D player includes a lot of fixes, some improved and new features and the new version 1.5.2 of the player seems to be working quite well, so you should download and install it if you have 3D Vision available.

Here is complete list of what is new:
- Added support for still image files (mpo, jpg/jps, tif, gif, png/pns, bmp).
- Added folder browsing (next image/previous image commands) for stills.
- Added folder playback (plays all stills in a folder).
- Added prefetching for folder browsing.
- Added reading parallax from MPO files.
- Added support for still images in playlists.
- Added Shirt+A..Z hotkeys to directly jump to playlist items beyond 35.
- Added call stack to error log file.
- Added low resolution rendering if image resolution exceeds maximum texture size.
- Fixed incompatibilities of HDV capture devices with certain MPEG-2 decoders.
- Fixed deadlock when switching to fullscreen mode while paused.

And now comes the big question that some people have been asking today, regarding the news about the Blu-ray Disc Association announcing the final Blu-ray 3D Specs – will the 3D Vision Video Player support the new format? Unfortunately there is no such support being announced for the free player, but there are already some partners of Nvidia that have announced support for Blu-ray 3D in their future commercial video player solutions. These are Arcsoft with TotalMedia Theatre, Corel with WinDVD, Cyberlink with PowerDVD Ultra and Sonic with Roxio CinePlayer BD and all these players should have GPU-accelerated hardware decoding of the Multiview Video Coding (MVC) codec and support 3D Vision on compatible Nvidia-based video cards. But it is still to early for Blu-ray 3D movies and players at the moment, we’ll probably have to wait at least a few more months before things actually start moving, in the meantime what you can do is update the 3D Vision player…

- Download 3D Vision Video Player v1.5.2 (Windows 7/Vista, 32/64-bit)