We looked at the four newly announced flagship players from the four biggest Blu-ray companies, LG, Panasonic, Samsung and Sony. Any self-respecting Blu-ray player today has Pandora and Picasa, and of course Netflix subscription streaming video. They also have some form of pay-per-view movie download service, from Vudu, Amazon or Roxio’s CinemaNow and Blockbuster apps.

This year, though, the companies turned up the juice. LG added a built-in hard drive;  Sony surprisingly built a remote-control iPhone app.   And now all top Blu-ray players will go 3D. Integrated Wi-Fi was a stand-out feature last year; this year it’s par.

These won’t be out till the summer, and there’s no pricing announced yet, but already we’re excited. See, putting everything but the the kitchen sink into a firmware upgradeable $200-to-$300 box is way smarter than jamming it all inside a $1500 TV,  where picture quality should be the chief concern.

read more at Gizmondo.com

What is Blu-ray 3D ?

Blu-ray 3D is the new movie format from the Blu-ray Disc Association, which allows for the playback of true stereoscopic high definition content in the home.  This should not be confused with the existing red / blue ‘anaglyph’ 3D blu-rays which have appeared over the past couple of years.  3D Blu-ray should offer a comparable 3D experience to that seen in a modern 3D D-cinema presentation, but in the comfort of your own home.

3D Blu-ray is based around a new profile for players, known as Profile 5

1.0 being the original players

1.1 entitled ‘Bonus View’ and offering Picture in Picture, and

2.0 entitle ‘BD Live’ offering network connectivity.

What do I need to watch a 3D Blu-ray?

As a new format, you will need new equipment to experience 3D Blu-ray.

Route 1 – The Living Room

• A 3D compatible display – LCD / Plasma flat panel.
• 3D glasses compatible with your chosen display – passive or active.
• A 3D Blu-ray set top player on sale May 2010– Playstation 3 to be firmware upgraded in Q3 / Q4 2010.

Route 2 – The Home PC

• A 3D compatible desktop display.
• 3D glasses compatible with your chosen display – passive or active.
• A graphics card that supports MVC Decoding (Unless you have a very fast CPU).
• A 3D Blu-ray software player, such as Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 Ultra.

What happens if I put 3D Blu-ray disc into a normal 2D player?

The good news is that 3D Blu-rays are designed to be backwardly compatible with current 2D Blu-ray players. This means that you can author a 3D disc and 2D Blu-ray  players will play it back in 2D.

Should we make separate 2D and a 3D Blu-ray skus?

Yes if you wish to take advantage of the potential premium price attached to 3D content.

It is perfectly possible to create a Blu-ray disc that displays 3D on 3D TVs and 2D on 2D TVs. Some of the advanced functionality of Blu-ray is lost on PS3s

What’s the deal with Playstation 3, can they be upgraded to 3D?

Yes, it is thought that the 3D Playstation games market is going to be a massive driver for 3D in the home, like it was for Blu-ray player numbers.

The games firmware upgrade was released June 2010, with the blu-ray 3d upgrade due         before the end of the year. The caveat is that Playstation 3 does not support all of the    advanced features of the 3D Blu-ray Spec and only HDMV Movie mode authoring is  supported. That means no BDJ or BD Live support.

How do the menus work?

Profile 5 players allow for 3D menus and subtitles, in both cases this is a depth set  above the video.  3D menus either position the menu pages at a distance above the video, or a more complex method by which the buttons are positioned floating above the menu page which is also above the video.

How is Blu-ray 3D different to Broadcast 3D?

As broadcasters showing 3D have to fit two eyes worth of information into an existing HD broadcast chain there have been some workarounds as follows:

• “Side by Side “where the left and right images are squeezed horizontally into the frame, meaning they have a lower horizontal resolution (960×1080 as opposed to 1920×1080).
• “Up and Under” where the left and right images are squeezed vertically into the frame, mean they have a lower vertical resolution (1920×540).
• “Interlaced” where the frames have the same resolution as “Up and Under” but instead of being placed on the same frame, they are interleaved, alternating a line of each view.

Blu-ray 3D brings a new method to the table, which offers full HD resolution.  In this scenario, the frames are interleaved in their entirety, alternating between left and right eyes.

This is achieved by:

• Increasing the maximum bitrate that 3D Blu-ray can be encoded at.
• Doubling the read speed of the disc.
• Using a new compression system, known as MVC (Multiview Video Codec) to squeeze the video down by only storing the differences between the main eye (base view) and the other eye (dependant view).

This method also means that 3D Blu-ray can offer backward compatibility for 2D Blu-ray as older players can only decode the base view, as they won’t understand the data in the dependent view.

What is the difference between Active vs Passive Glasses?  

The two main ways two experience 3D is by wearing either Passive aka Polarised Glasses or by wearing Active aka Shutter Glasses.  Note that these are completely different ways of viewing 3D and you have to get glasses that match your display.

• Passive / Polarised Glasses are the system currently used in D-Cinemas to show 3D, and are based on filtering different polarities of light

The lenses on polarised glasses are each designed to let through one orientation of light, so the clockwise spinning light from the right image can only pass through the right lens and the anti-clockwise spinning light from the left image can only pass through the left lens.

Pros – The glasses are cheaper to buy / manufacture,

Cons – The screens are more expensive.

• Active / Shutter Glasses have liquid crystal lenses that either display or blank each eye. By “synchronising” with the display, via Infra Red for example, the glasses can cover the left eye when showing the right eye’s image and visa versa.

Pros – The screen are more economical

Cons – The glasses are more expensive & bulky

What do materials do I need to make a Blu-ray 3D?

The authoring process is very similar to 2D blu-ray authoring, so no real changes there.     When it comes to the video the easiest way to supply your content for 3D Blu-ray mastering is by supplying separate left eye and right eye HDCAM SR masters.

SPEC:

1920 x 1080p 24p (23.976fps)

Left eye HDCAM SR + Right eye HDCAM SR

or

Uncompressed L + R QuickTime/.AVI files

or

L + R D-Cinema DPX files

L +R Sync is really important!

Does re:fine author 3D Blu-rays?

Ahem… yes of course!

Contact Symon (dot) Roue @refine-group.com

www.refine-group.com