Anyone have 3D movie success?

[archahc0]

I have been trying to preserve my 3D blu-ray movies and I'm not having any success with the 3D aspect. My current setup includes a PLEX server running on a QNAP NAS, the PLEX client on an NVIDIA Shield Pro, HDMI output through a Yamaha TSR-5830 receiver (3D capable), displaying on an Optoma UHZ66 DLP 4K Laser projector (3D capable), and using active shutter 3D glasses. I have previously run a 3D blu-ray player into this receiver and my 3D movies play fine, the projector switches to 3D mode automatically, and my shutter glasses work perfectly.

(I have tried searching, but this forum makes it tough because it ignores "3d" and "3d blu-ray" as being too common of words. Google results mostly seem to be from almost 10 years ago and are mostly dead ends so I'm wondering if there is any "fresh" information out there. I know this post is long, but I wanted to provide as much detail as possible to kick things off on the right track.)

I believe the first step in the right workflow is "solved" in that the right first step is to rip the contents of the disc with MakeMKV by selecting the video track as normal, but also selecting the secondary MVC track. That part seems to be working fine as I get files that are quite a bit larger than the 2D rips when I do that and do not get any errors. I have not been able to validate the resulting MKV file however to definitively "prove" that it is a good rip containing 3D data. Playing the MKV in VLC player just plays the movie in normal 2D and searching for playing 3D in VLC player mostly point to enabling the anaglyph filter, which is not what we're trying to do here. I found references from 2018 to VLC supporting MVC playback in version 4.0, but they're still today on 3.0, so maybe that's vaporware.

This is where the first real mystery comes in. Others online have made mention of a "video stereo mode" setting in the header of the file that is normally set by MakeMKV to a value of 13 and having to remove that header element for 3D to work. In my trials, I have tried leaving that header element intact and removing it with no change to the final playback (using MKVToolNix). I also cannot find any documentation for what the value of 13 means (MKVToolNix says the value could be 0-14).

The next mystery is the file name. Some references I found say the file name matters and some say it does not. The only definitive example I found of what a 3D movie file name should be is "movie.h-sbs.mkv". I have tried my movies with normal file names and with that style of name with no change to the final playback.

The next mystery is if the NVIDIA Shield Pro is capable of 3D playback. Results I'm finding are mixed, with most people pointing to the server and client software being issues and not the hardware itself, but I have no way to validate that as I can't find any available 3D content sources on the Shield to compare with (like a 3D stream from Netflix or Amazon or somebody).

The next mystery is the server/client used. It seems likely that PLEX as a server is fine as most references I'm finding say the server doesn't care about the video content and doesn't do anything except deliver it to the client (putting aside in-line transcoding / upscaling / downscaling if you are doing that). In my case I'm using the MKV and don't believe PLEX is trying to re-encode anything on the fly in my case, but I'm open to knowing if I can prove that out somehow. I did find mixed results about the PLEX client on shield that makes me think maybe the client cannot handle 3D content, but that is an open mystery at this point. I also tried a KODI client on the shield using DLNA/SMB to pull the file from my NAS without a KODI server with no success (that client wouldn't even index the files). I also tried several other video players from the play store and one of them at least let me manually choose a 3D view mode, but it only duplicated the interface elements, not the video it was playing. And no matter what was done up to this point, the projector never switched to 3D mode.

Which brings me to the last step of the projector. Like I said above, I've played 3D movies through it before using a 3D blu-ray player and it automatically switches to 3D mode as soon as the movie starts and I can see the 3D mode in the projector menu. Every test I've done with streaming the MKV files results in the projector displaying 2D content and the 3D section of the projector menu being disabled (so I can't force it into SBS mode).

I have found some references to having to convert an MKV to an SBS MP4, or "frame packing", or a couple other versions of that, but none of those references provided examples of what that actually meant, what tools they used to do it, or how to go about doing it.

Any suggestions would be welcome! The two movies I'm working on are Top Gun (original), and Avatar. Both of which are just amazing to see in 3D so if there is any way I can get that done, it would be amazing.

(And in case anyone wonders why I don't just stick with a 3D blu-ray player for these movies... I have purchased 5 3D blu-ray players in the last 10 years ranging from $80 to $300 and every single one of them bites the dust in less than 2 years. They sat on a shelf with the rest of the media equipment with power running through a UPS and surge protector and got used 2-3 times per year while they were working. They just die and I'm sick of re-buying physical media players.)

[archahc0]

I did find BD3D2MK3D a few days ago on another forum, but the links were all full of viruses so I wrote it off. I looked again for that today and found the original site and maybe this is a big step forward, but we're still not quite there.

I converted my raw ripped MKV file to a 3D MKV in SBS mode and now when I play that video in any player on the Shield I see SBS video, but the projector is not sensing this as 3D and it's not turning on the 3D mode. The file that BD3D2MK3D outputs has a different "video stereo mode" flag of "1" versus "13". I don't yet know if that is significant.

I'm going to try some other options in BD3D2MK3D next.

For reference, the workflow at this point is:

Rip disc with MakeMKV (selecting the secondary MVC video track)
https://www.makemkv.com/

Send it through BD3D2MK3D (settings still up in the air)
https://download.videohelp.com/r0lZ/BD3D2AVS/index.html

Play with Plex client on the Shield (no success yet)

[segfaulted]

I've had decent luck with playing 3D bluray on my PC using video glasses or reencoding the movies for playback on a VR headset. That's a fairly niche way of doing things, and I don't know much about home theater setups or streaming clients regarding 3D. I'll try to answer with what I know.

Playing the MKV in VLC player just plays the movie in normal 2D and searching for playing 3D in VLC player mostly point to enabling the anaglyph filter, which is not what we're trying to do here. I found references from 2018 to VLC supporting MVC playback in version 4.0, but they're still today on 3.0, so maybe that's vaporware.

None of the open-source cross-platform media players have native support for MVC, whether it's VLC, mpv, or Kodi. They all rely on ffmpeg for codec support, so if ffmpeg doesn't support MVC, neither will those apps. You'll only be able to view the h264 stream which corresponds to one of the two eyes in the 3D movie.

The most typical (Windows only) method is to use LAV Filters with the extra plugin they provide for MVC decoding, paired with a compatible player like mpc-hc, and madVR for rendering the stereo image.

There is also a modded version of Kodi that should offer MVC playback on certain PC setups.

If all else fails, you'd have to reencode the 3D movie using BD3D2MK3D so it can be played generically without special codecs.

This is where the first real mystery comes in. Others online have made mention of a "video stereo mode" setting in the header of the file that is normally set by MakeMKV to a value of 13 and having to remove that header element for 3D to work. In my trials, I have tried leaving that header element intact and removing it with no change to the final playback (using MKVToolNix). I also cannot find any documentation for what the value of 13 means (MKVToolNix says the value could be 0-14).

The mkv format's stereo mode flag is just metadata. Not all players will necessarily honor or recognize it, but LAV Filters + madVR should be able to.
The list of stereo modes can be listed by clicking on the "Stereoscopy" option in mkvtoolnix-gui, or by running "mkvmerge --list-stereo-modes" to get the following list:

Code: Select all

Number | Symbolic name                  | Description
-------+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------
     0 | mono                           | mono
     1 | side_by_side_left_first        | side by side (left first)
     2 | top_bottom_right_first         | top bottom (right first)
     3 | top_bottom_left_first          | top bottom (left first)
     4 | checkerboard_right_first       | checkerboard (right first)
     5 | checkerboard_left_first        | checkerboard (left first)
     6 | row_interleaved_right_first    | row interleaved (right first)
     7 | row_interleaved_left_first     | row interleaved (left first)
     8 | column_interleaved_right_first | column interleaved (right first)
     9 | column_interleaved_left_first  | column interleaved (left first)
    10 | anaglyph_cyan_red              | anaglyph (cyan/red)
    11 | side_by_side_right_first       | side by side (right first)
    12 | anaglyph_green_magenta         | anaglyph (green/magenta)
    13 | both_eyes_laced_left_first     | both eyes laced in one block (left first)
    14 | both_eyes_laced_right_first    | both eyes laced in one block (right first)

Mode 13 and 14 are relevant for blu-ray MVC rips and remuxes.
Mode 1 is typical for an SBS encode.

The next mystery is the file name. Some references I found say the file name matters and some say it does not. The only definitive example I found of what a 3D movie file name should be is "movie.h-sbs.mkv". I have tried my movies with normal file names and with that style of name with no change to the final playback.

That might be specific to some hardware media players to automatically engage 3D output on reencoded SBS videos. There's no general catch-all rule on requiring a certain filename for 3D videos.

The next mystery is if the NVIDIA Shield Pro is capable of 3D playback. Results I'm finding are mixed, with most people pointing to the server and client software being issues and not the hardware itself, but I have no way to validate that as I can't find any available 3D content sources on the Shield to compare with (like a 3D stream from Netflix or Amazon or somebody).

I'm guessing here, but I don't think Nvidia Shield has proper support for 3D video. At the very least, no support for a 3D signal over HDMI. Of course, playing SBS reencodes will be fine since those are regular video files. You'd just need to manually set your TV/projector/display to process an SBS image for 3D display.

The next mystery is the server/client used. It seems likely that PLEX as a server is fine as most references I'm finding say the server doesn't care about the video content and doesn't do anything except deliver it to the client (putting aside in-line transcoding / upscaling / downscaling if you are doing that). In my case I'm using the MKV and don't believe PLEX is trying to re-encode anything on the fly in my case, but I'm open to knowing if I can prove that out somehow. I did find mixed results about the PLEX client on shield that makes me think maybe the client cannot handle 3D content, but that is an open mystery at this point. I also tried a KODI client on the shield using DLNA/SMB to pull the file from my NAS without a KODI server with no success (that client wouldn't even index the files). I also tried several other video players from the play store and one of them at least let me manually choose a 3D view mode, but it only duplicated the interface elements, not the video it was playing. And no matter what was done up to this point, the projector never switched to 3D mode.

Plex doesn't support decoding MVC video. You'll have to serve it an SBS encode and rely on your TV/projector to take in an SBS image.

Which brings me to the last step of the projector. Like I said above, I've played 3D movies through it before using a 3D blu-ray player and it automatically switches to 3D mode as soon as the movie starts and I can see the 3D mode in the projector menu. Every test I've done with streaming the MKV files results in the projector displaying 2D content and the 3D section of the projector menu being disabled (so I can't force it into SBS mode).

If you can't enable SBS mode on your projector, that's a really big issue. That's all I can say.

I have found some references to having to convert an MKV to an SBS MP4, or "frame packing", or a couple other versions of that, but none of those references provided examples of what that actually meant, what tools they used to do it, or how to go about doing it.

Basically, use BD3D2MK3D to reencode the movie. Doing that will avoid the requirement for a working MVC decoder since the reencoded video uses a normal codec, as opposed to 3D blu-ray's h264+MVC combo. Frame packing refers to how the two 3D eye views are combined and presented in the resulting video file: either SBS (side-by-side) or TAB/OU (top-and-bottom/over-under). Your TV/projector needs to be able to take the SBS/TAB image to be presented as a 3D image.

I converted my raw ripped MKV file to a 3D MKV in SBS mode and now when I play that video in any player on the Shield I see SBS video, but the projector is not sensing this as 3D and it's not turning on the 3D mode. The file that BD3D2MK3D outputs has a different "video stereo mode" flag of "1" versus "13". I don't yet know if that is significant.

I'm assuming your projector's 3D SBS mode needs to be activated manually. Setting the mkv's stereoscopy flag isn't guaranteed to have any effect, it'll depend on the video player.

[archahc0]

Thank you for all of that. That sheds some more light on things.

I am able to play MKV files through my shield with the Plex client though, but that doesn't get me much further if it doesn't have proper 3D support. If the Shield doesn't support 3D, then I'll be stuck there no matter what I do.

When I first got a 3D Blu-ray player and some 3D discs I couldn't get those to work even though my projector had 3D support. It was then that I learned that A/V receivers actually produce their own HDMI video signal and do not just pass it through like a video switch might. My receiver at the time did not have 3D support so I replaced it. Still didn't work, and that last piece of the puzzle turned out to be the HDMI cables I was using were too cheaply made. After upgrading the receiver and replacing my HDMI cables, I was off to the races.

I may have to see if I can just use my PC to play to my projector. My PC is within a few feet of the A/V receiver so wiring isn't an issue, but I already have 3 displays running from a 3080ti. I have the one HDMI output left unused, but we'll have to see if I can get things sorted to run 3D over a mirrored display output or if I'd have to blindly drag video over to the 4th display maybe.

[mike8675309]

Here is a link to my thread where I walked through my success with 3 Blue Ray 3D Movies
viewtopic.php?f=22&t=29778

I use Plex with SkyBox on my Meta Quest 2 to view the 3d movies. If selected on a non3d device like my TV, then it will play the left eyeball.

I'm guessing that setup will give you a good base to play on any device.

I also assume you saw this, where you can get higher resolution with SBS by just encoding larger.
https://www.reddit.com/r/PleX/comments/ ... _playback/


On my desktop I can use PotPlayer which will play both eyes at the same time to verify the setup.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PotPlayer