Auto3D plugin for MediaPortal 1.2 - 1.12 (GUI & TV/Beamer) (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter Marcus Venturi
- Start date
I get jerky playback of 3d files with this plugin enabled, it works fine with my viera for switching to 3d automatically (only if glasses are switched on 1st) but the playback is jerky, the same files play very smooth if the plugin is not enabled and I switch to 3d manually.
1st time i've really used the plugin though as I could not get it functioning fully on my old Samsung so not sure if it's new with this version.
- March 23, 2012
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- #553
Please post your logfiles. 
Hi guys. this question is unrelated to the plugin, but I don't know of a more appropriate place to ask. My apologies if this is in bad taste and mods please delete if you feel appropriate.
I am wondering how to get the most resolution out of a 3D BluRay backup through a passive-3D TV.
A passive 3DTV outputs the left and right eye frames at the same time (unlike active which switches each eye). To achieve this with only 1920x1080 pixels to work with, the TV polarises the first row of pixels for one eye, then polarises the second row for the other, this alternation continues all the way down the length of the display. Therefore, the TV is outputting 1920x540 pixels for each eye.
I can store a straight ISO of a BluRay and use frame packing to playback (the official BluRay 3D way), but I always reencode because the storage becomes ridiculous. So I've been reading online and there seems to be two methods: side by side and top and bottom (SBS & TAB).
So the final resolutions for each eye becomes:
SBS: 960x1080
TAB: 1920x540
But the /final/ output on a passive 3DTV (P-3DTV) means halving the vertical pixels again, so:
P-3DTV -SBS: 960x540
P-3DTV -TAB: 1920x270
270 pixels vertically is so lossy it surely becomes visible. Therefore the best method appears to be SBS.
But here's my thinking. If I store data using the TAB method, I end up with each frame having 1920 pixels of horizontal resolution, and 540 pixels of vertical resolution -exactly the output resolution per eye of a passive 3DTV. If I encode TAB style, are the passive 3DTVs smart enough to alternate the vertical pixels when playing back TAB content so as to not lose vertical resolution?
Another way to look at it is this, if I get clever with the encoding, I could theoretically encode a 1920x1080 frame that has its first row of pixels coming from the left frame of the source, then the second row coming from the right frame of the source, then alternate the whole way through.
This way you could send the frame to the TV, don the glasses and you've got a 3D image. This would mean every frame would store 1920x1080 pixels, and you would end up with 1920x540 each eye. Ideal. This would only be possible if the TV /always/ polarises the light. Perhaps it doesn't for 2D content, I dunno. Notice that storing TAB is effectively the same thing as this, but instead of alternating the rows of pixels yourself you simply stack the frames on top of one another and hope the TV does the job. But does it do the job? Does it put them together the clever way, or does it halve the vertical resolution like it would a SBS? I don't actually get the telly until tomorrow and hope someone knows.
I am wondering how to get the most resolution out of a 3D BluRay backup through a passive-3D TV.
A passive 3DTV outputs the left and right eye frames at the same time (unlike active which switches each eye). To achieve this with only 1920x1080 pixels to work with, the TV polarises the first row of pixels for one eye, then polarises the second row for the other, this alternation continues all the way down the length of the display. Therefore, the TV is outputting 1920x540 pixels for each eye.
I can store a straight ISO of a BluRay and use frame packing to playback (the official BluRay 3D way), but I always reencode because the storage becomes ridiculous. So I've been reading online and there seems to be two methods: side by side and top and bottom (SBS & TAB).
So the final resolutions for each eye becomes:
SBS: 960x1080
TAB: 1920x540
But the /final/ output on a passive 3DTV (P-3DTV) means halving the vertical pixels again, so:
P-3DTV -SBS: 960x540
P-3DTV -TAB: 1920x270
270 pixels vertically is so lossy it surely becomes visible. Therefore the best method appears to be SBS.
But here's my thinking. If I store data using the TAB method, I end up with each frame having 1920 pixels of horizontal resolution, and 540 pixels of vertical resolution -exactly the output resolution per eye of a passive 3DTV. If I encode TAB style, are the passive 3DTVs smart enough to alternate the vertical pixels when playing back TAB content so as to not lose vertical resolution?
Another way to look at it is this, if I get clever with the encoding, I could theoretically encode a 1920x1080 frame that has its first row of pixels coming from the left frame of the source, then the second row coming from the right frame of the source, then alternate the whole way through.
This way you could send the frame to the TV, don the glasses and you've got a 3D image. This would mean every frame would store 1920x1080 pixels, and you would end up with 1920x540 each eye. Ideal. This would only be possible if the TV /always/ polarises the light. Perhaps it doesn't for 2D content, I dunno. Notice that storing TAB is effectively the same thing as this, but instead of alternating the rows of pixels yourself you simply stack the frames on top of one another and hope the TV does the job. But does it do the job? Does it put them together the clever way, or does it halve the vertical resolution like it would a SBS? I don't actually get the telly until tomorrow and hope someone knows.
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- March 23, 2012
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- #555
Your assumptions for SBS are correct, but the resolution in TAB is 540 lines and not only 270.
Some time ago, I already answered this question in the german forum:
Auto3D Plugin für MediaPortal 1.2 - 1.6 (GUI & TV/Beamer)
So I just translate this:
In SBS every picture (left/right) has a resolution of 960x1080 pixels, i.e. a total of 1920x1080.
As the TV drops every second line the real resolution for every eye is 960x540 pixels.
The TV stretches every half from 960 to 1920 pixels in width (with interpolation), but that doesn't make it better.
In TAB every picture (top/bottom) has a resolution of 1920x540 pixels.
The TV has no need to stretch the width as it has already the necessary width, and there is no need to drop lines in height as the upper Image is displayed in the odd lines (1, 3, 5 ...), and the lower Image is displayed in the even lines (2, 4, 6 ...)
Therefore for todays full HD TVs with passive 3D, TAB is the better choice, as the real resolution per eye is twice as high (compared to SBS).
In pratical the difference is not as significant, as the interpolation used in stretching produces very good results.
But if you have good eyes, you will notice, that the image in SBS is, compared to TAB, less sharp (but only a bit).
An alternative would be to rip every movie in full HD SBS or TAB. Then your movie has either 1920x2160 pixels (TAB) or 3840x1080 Pixels (SBS).
In that case you always have the best picture on your current TV Independent from SBS or TAB, and if you later buy a 4K TV you will benefit from the full resolution, as it will display a 3D movie in Full HD resolution (so you don't have to rip your BluRay stuff again).
Full HD SBS and TAB is already supported by the Auto3D plugin. (I used DVDFab for my full HD rips)
Some time ago, I already answered this question in the german forum:
Auto3D Plugin für MediaPortal 1.2 - 1.6 (GUI & TV/Beamer)
So I just translate this:
In SBS every picture (left/right) has a resolution of 960x1080 pixels, i.e. a total of 1920x1080.
As the TV drops every second line the real resolution for every eye is 960x540 pixels.
The TV stretches every half from 960 to 1920 pixels in width (with interpolation), but that doesn't make it better.
In TAB every picture (top/bottom) has a resolution of 1920x540 pixels.
The TV has no need to stretch the width as it has already the necessary width, and there is no need to drop lines in height as the upper Image is displayed in the odd lines (1, 3, 5 ...), and the lower Image is displayed in the even lines (2, 4, 6 ...)
Therefore for todays full HD TVs with passive 3D, TAB is the better choice, as the real resolution per eye is twice as high (compared to SBS).
In pratical the difference is not as significant, as the interpolation used in stretching produces very good results.
But if you have good eyes, you will notice, that the image in SBS is, compared to TAB, less sharp (but only a bit
).An alternative would be to rip every movie in full HD SBS or TAB. Then your movie has either 1920x2160 pixels (TAB) or 3840x1080 Pixels (SBS).
In that case you always have the best picture on your current TV Independent from SBS or TAB, and if you later buy a 4K TV you will benefit from the full resolution, as it will display a 3D movie in Full HD resolution (so you don't have to rip your BluRay stuff again).
Full HD SBS and TAB is already supported by the Auto3D plugin. (I used DVDFab for my full HD rips)
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Thank you very much for your reply. So the TVs are clever enough then to take a 1920x1080 TAB and alternate the upper and lower rows of pixels for a final 1920x540 frame for each eye. That's what I had hoped!
If I did that I'd still only end up with a 1920x540 frame for each eye. So I'd effectively be storing 1080 redundant rows of pixels every frame, i.e., 1080 pixel rows that I would /never/ be able to see with my passive 3DTV. That's 2,073,600 pixels of data wasted every frame (540x1920 + 540x1920).
FWIW, I'll tend to not try and "future proof" myself like that because it seems that the technology moves along past the point of your source. An example would be DVD images. A long time ago my mate asked why I bother to recode in XviD considering I had a fair whack of storage, why not keep the DVD ISOs for future times?
Well when HD displays came around we ended up getting HD content too, the ISOs would not have been worth the storage. When I get a 4K telly I'm sure I'll be interested in 4K resolution for each eye's frame rather than the (then) meagre 1920x1080.
If I did that I'd still only end up with a 1920x540 frame for each eye. So I'd effectively be storing 1080 redundant rows of pixels every frame, i.e., 1080 pixel rows that I would /never/ be able to see with my passive 3DTV. That's 2,073,600 pixels of data wasted every frame (540x1920 + 540x1920).
Right you are.
FWIW, I'll tend to not try and "future proof" myself like that because it seems that the technology moves along past the point of your source. An example would be DVD images. A long time ago my mate asked why I bother to recode in XviD considering I had a fair whack of storage, why not keep the DVD ISOs for future times?
Well when HD displays came around we ended up getting HD content too, the ISOs would not have been worth the storage. When I get a 4K telly I'm sure I'll be interested in 4K resolution for each eye's frame rather than the (then) meagre 1920x1080.
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- March 23, 2012
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- #557
You are right, but when I moved to HD I didn't buy every DVD again as BluRay and I won't do that if I switch to 4K. In that case for me the best solution would be got get the best quality from what I already have.
To get the best results on a HD TV (without redundancy) the best format at the moment is 1920x1080 TAB.
Cool. Thanks for your thoughts Marcus. That is the realisation I've come to and have already started my first conversion. If you're interested, here is a fantastic set of AVISynth funcitons that makes the job easy-peasy.
Interestingly, I've realised there's more waste compared to the 2D method of reencoding and muxing to MKV.
One rarely sees a film shot in exact 16:9 widescreen, normally they're wider and so letter-boxing is common in BluRay releases. When encoding one crops this "letterbox" out as it's wasteful to store a length of persistent black pixels as H.264 data. Once those pixels are gone, the aspect ratio of the video is destroyed (if played back at 1:1), so the aspect ratio is mentioned within the MKV's meta-data. The player is now responsible for reading the aspect ratio from the MKV file and generating the appropriate black bars upon playback.
As far as I can tell, this nicety is lost when we backup 3D content using the two current methods, SBS & TAB. In every frame of a SBS and a TAB film that's not 16:9 there are black pixels being stored. Unfortunate.
If we are going to be as clever with this we would probably have to update the MKV spec to allow a 3D flag in the meta-data so that players know how to correctly apply the letterboxing. The flag would need to have three states: sbs/tab/none
Anyway I can't complain. Nothing's perfect, is it? And 3D at home is awesome
Edit: This has already been thought of and resolved. I really must learn to Google things before I open my trap. The flag has fifteen different states and is called 'StereoMode'
Interestingly, I've realised there's more waste compared to the 2D method of reencoding and muxing to MKV.
One rarely sees a film shot in exact 16:9 widescreen, normally they're wider and so letter-boxing is common in BluRay releases. When encoding one crops this "letterbox" out as it's wasteful to store a length of persistent black pixels as H.264 data. Once those pixels are gone, the aspect ratio of the video is destroyed (if played back at 1:1), so the aspect ratio is mentioned within the MKV's meta-data. The player is now responsible for reading the aspect ratio from the MKV file and generating the appropriate black bars upon playback.
As far as I can tell, this nicety is lost when we backup 3D content using the two current methods, SBS & TAB. In every frame of a SBS and a TAB film that's not 16:9 there are black pixels being stored. Unfortunate.
If we are going to be as clever with this we would probably have to update the MKV spec to allow a 3D flag in the meta-data so that players know how to correctly apply the letterboxing. The flag would need to have three states: sbs/tab/none
Anyway I can't complain. Nothing's perfect, is it? And 3D at home is awesome
Edit: This has already been thought of and resolved. I really must learn to Google things before I open my trap
. The flag has fifteen different states and is called 'StereoMode'
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- March 23, 2012
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- #560
@u095538 : I'm using DVDFab for my BluRay rips. There you can select if you wan't to rip a movie with or without black bars. I always do my rips without black bars.
@vuego: You are right, bars are compressed really well, but there is one problem with movies ripped with bars.ViewModeSwitcher does not work with movies that have encoded black bars. So if you want to zoom a widescreen movie to 16:9 in order to remove the black bars on the TV, you will only succeed if a movie was encoded without black bars.
Edit: This is not correct. See this post of @wouter1971 for a solution:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...1-6-gui-tv-beamer.116708/page-57#post-1078080
@vuego: You are right, bars are compressed really well, but there is one problem with movies ripped with bars.
Edit: This is not correct. See this post of @wouter1971 for a solution:
https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/...1-6-gui-tv-beamer.116708/page-57#post-1078080
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