TOS-3D

[toonloon]

Hi guys.

I just discovered by accident that my Power DVD player software converts SD into 3D. I watched "The Man Trap" and then "The Galileo Seven" and I was amazed at how much fun I was having.

Sadly, it doesn't work with the blu-rays (that must take too much processing power) but the field of depth in the SD versions was really good, especially the outdoor stuff in Man Trap.

In case anyone is interested, I was using a long HDMI cable to out put to my 37" TV and my TV is NOT a 3D capable TV. I used a pair of the red/green glasses. Now, before you all go "eurgh", I noticed that most of the colour palette remains almost the same because there are a lot of blues and variations of in TOS' photography.

If you have Power DVD 11 Ultra, give it a go. It's great seeing TOS from a new 'perspective'.

 

[Trekker4747]

I'm going to go pop so popcorn.

 

[JarodRussell]

How the hell does that work?

 

[toonloon]

You need a pair of red/blue glasses - I had some free with piranha 3D, and all you do is click the 3D button in power DVD and hey presto! TOS-3D.

 

[JarodRussell]

And how the hell does that work?

 

[plynch]

And how the hell does that work?

Yeah, you'd still need two different pictures, from slightly different cameras, right? They only dd that on set with Omega Glory for Viewmaster, and let's not get that started again.

 

[toonloon]

Sorry, maybe I'm not being clear.

All I had to do was press one button on Power DVD's onscreen console and hey presto! 3D! You need a cheap pair of those red and cyan glasses but it still looks terrific as all the blue stays the same colour. Spock looks more or less exactly the same because of his yellow pallor.

Download Power DVD 11 Ultra and just click the 3D button and you're off. I used a long wire to plug my PC into my TV but it works just as well on your monitor.

 

[Tosk]

And how the hell does that work?

It doesn't really, of course. It's basically a fake 3D image made from 2D, but because of the nature of red/cyan 3D it gives the image a "pop" effect.

 

[toonloon]

Tosk is right, although he doesn't exactly give it the rave review I did.

If you have Power DVD, try it. Try a shipboard episode because the colours won't change that much. It's great fun!

 

[22 Stars]

I tried this about 3 months ago. It is fun, but hardly revolutionary. Power DVD takes the frame and creates a second frame and offsets it slightly (there is a slide control to tell it what 'level' of 3D depth you want) and then tints them to the blue and red.

Of course it doesn't differentiate what is truly 'closer' to the viewer than other things, but by and large it does the job of making a 'viewmaster' like effect for the moving image.

 

[toonloon]

Well, yes, of course you are right. It's hardly revolutionary. 3D movies have been mainstream since the '50's.

But having it in the home and seeing TOS with some depth perception was a lot of fun. I'm not a big fan of 3D but I genuinely had a great time re-watching these episodes that I've seen many, many times before.

I just thought I would pass on my enthusiasm in case anyone else wanted to try it.

 

[Patrick O'Brien]

^ Sounds cool, thanks for the tip

 

[22 Stars]

Yeah, it really is fun. I've been meaning to send it to my projector and see how it does at 100" diagonal

 

[Destructor]

I'm still a bit confused- how can there be depth illusion without an image from two sources?

 

[Tosk]

I'm still a bit confused- how can there be depth illusion without an image from two sources?

I presume it's because many shots have a depth of field already, and the blurred portion is more likely to be ignored by the eye/brain, making the sharper item seem more prominent. Just a guess though.