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GregK

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Posted on Wednesday, March 16, 2005 - 6:26 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

There was a recent Press Event for the new Deluxe DVD of James Cameron's feature film "Titanic". The surprise came when he talked about his recent passion: 3-D Filmmaking. The following is from the digital bits report on the event-

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Cameron and fellow director George Lucas are spearheading an effort to get movie theaters around the world to upgrade not only to digital projection, but also to add the capability to exhibit films in 3-D format. In fact, Cameron and Lucas are hosting a demonstration of the 3-D process for theater owners at the ShoWest convention in Las Vegas this week (in addition to CG-animated 3-D films, Lucas's people have reportedly developed a way to render 3-D versions of existing 2-D films). Cameron says that this is the main reason he's waited so long to begin production on his next major theatrical film - a live action version of the Japanese anime Battle Angel Alita. Cameron plans to shoot the film digitally in 3-D format. What's more, he says that Lucas and other filmmakers (like Robert Zemeckis and possibly Peter Jackson too) are also planning to shoot 3-D films in the future. They expect that the availability of good 3-D feature film content will drive interest in the 3-D experience theatrically, and that in turn could fuel demand for bringing the 3-D process into the home as well. Cameron noted that both HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc (and current DVD as well) could be adapted to deliver 3-D footage, but that the main obstacle to high-quality 3-D at home is the low refresh rate of current TV monitors. Displays offering much higher rates (96Hz) will be needed in the future to show flicker-free 3-D images in your living rooms.
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You may notice Cameron never mentions anaglyph (he hates it), but talks of refresh rates which of course relates to shutter glasses. Hmmmm.......
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Ray Price

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Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 7:22 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

VERY interesting. That would be cool.

It puzzles me why they don't release 3D IMax versions of the Dreamworks and Pixar movies such as Shrek and Incredibles. Surely it can't be that hard to set the renderer to render a 3D version. I would definitely pay to see that!
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M.H.

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Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 11:10 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

IMAX people had made ekonomical analysis of such reporcesing of old 3D animated movies. From what they told on SD&A conference it looks like there is no chance to get the money back - so there will be no such versions. But for new movies ther are optimistic according simultanesou 2D 3D release ..
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 9:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

the Hollywood Reporter monday 5-14-05 had a front page story on 3d movies and new 2d-3d conversion system being shown at ShoWest in LV. seems both Camron ,Lucas and other big movie industry people are now behind a new push for 3d movies. they mentioned two companys i have never heard of REAL D and ,IN-THREE INC that have new conversion 2d-3d systems for movies that are backed by Lucas ,Camron etc....i can't find anything on these companys on the internet....anybody know anything about them ? the legendary Mann's theater on Hollywood blvd in LA will have a INThree 2d-3d conversion system for movies up and running in May according to the Hollywood Reporter story. Lucas seem behind some of this, new intrest in 3d. Lucas wants to rerelease the Star Wars movies all in 3d....WOW!!!!!
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, March 17, 2005 - 9:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Wow 2D -> 3D conversion !
And what about to convert iron to gold ?
They are both metals, so it should work as well :-)
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Anonymous

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Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 7:10 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

(i have never heard of REAL D)

They bought out stereographics:

REAL D Acquires StereoGraphics Corporation to Deliver the Premium Visual Experience for Entertainment and Other Industries

REAL D will set the Industry Standard for the Delivery of 3D Entertainment

Feb. 22, 2005, LOS ANGELES - REAL D, pioneering the industry standard for the delivery of premium stereoscopic experiences, today announced the acquisition of StereoGraphics Corporation, the world's leading inventor, manufacturer and supplier of stereoscopic hardware and software. REAL D will leverage StereoGraphics' 25 years of experience in developing mission-critical technologies for companies like NASA, Pfizer and Boeing to create the platinum-standard for stereoscopic experiences in the entertainment industry.

Through this acquisition, REAL D will become the first company to provide the entertainment industry with a multitude of solutions for the delivery of premium stereoscopic experiences capable of reaching sizeable audiences. Already, the REAL D solution is being enthusiastically embraced by executives in the entertainment, exhibition and advertising industries who are seeking competitive advantages to combat rising competition from other media, such as in-home theaters, cable and DVDs. The REAL D solution also allows exhibitors to realize additional revenue streams from the presentation of stereoscopic movies, alternative programming and high-impact advertising opportunities.

"StereoGraphics has an impeccable track record of delivering best-in-class stereoscopic technologies to leading companies worldwide," said Michael V. Lewis, Chairman, REAL D. "REAL D will harness StereoGraphics' vast scientific and manufacturing expertise to introduce new solutions for content creators and exhibitors who are seeking a competitive advantage in a rapidly changing entertainment industry."

Unlike traditional 3D projection technology that requires two projectors, the REAL D solution allows a single digital projector to play the highest quality stereoscopic content while remaining fully compatible with existing and future 2D digital formats. This model offers exhibitors the maximum flexibility in the types of content they wish to exhibit.

"For decades, the scientific, medical and manufacturing industries have relied on StereoGraphics' patented technology to advance their research and development," said Joshua Greer, CEO, REAL D. "Now, REAL D is applying these advancements achieved by StereoGraphics to architect the unparalleled visual experiences for audiences everywhere."

StereoGraphics, based in San Rafael, Calif., was founded by Lenny Lipton, the foremost pioneer in stereoscopic technology and prolific inventor holding patents in virtually every area of stereoscopic display technology. In 1996 Lipton received an award from the Smithsonian Institution for his invention of CrystalEyes®, the first practical electronic stereoscopic product for computer graphics and video applications. Lipton will become Chief Technology Officer of REAL D.

"I believe REAL D has the passion, leadership and vision to realize my original dreams for stereoscopic technology," said Lenny Lipton, founder of StereoGraphics and Chief Technology Officer of REAL D. "I'm ecstatic to work with the collective team to apply my expertise to forge new ground in the entertainment industry."

REAL D will announce the company's rollout strategy later this year.

About REAL D
REAL D, based in Los Angeles, provides premium visual experiences through
the pioneering and delivery of advanced visualization technologies for use in entertainment, marketing, science, research and other industries. For more information, visit www.REALD.com

http://www.reald.com/press_stereographics_acq.html
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 2:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###but that the main obstacle to high-quality 3-D at home is the low refresh rate of current TV monitors. Displays offering much higher rates (96Hz) will be needed in the future to show flicker-free 3-D images in your living rooms.###

In Europe digital 100Hz TV's are the standard for years now. It's almost impossible to find a non-100Hz TV above 30 inch. Does it help 3D? Noooo it screws 3D. All digital displays and projectors use digital buffers with different buffer- and de-interlacing-strategies which make them worthless for 3D.

The whole installed base of PC and TV screens is insufficient.

And the whole 2D-to-3D-conversion stuff is crap of course.

What we need are displays, projectors, applications, games and movies which are DESIGNED FOR STEREO-3D.

Christoph
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M.H.

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Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 9:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I am trying to put together pices of a mozaic:

- Holywood people looks for one projector based sttereoscopic projection system compatible with the new digital cinema standard

- The new projectors for 2D cinema will be 3 chip DLP one capable to do active projection

- active projection have troube with glasses, the only one way how to do active->passive conversion is the Z-screen filter method producing passive circluar polarized out

- Stereographics have several Z-screen related pattents

Dooes this theory give sense ?
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Anonymous

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Posted on Saturday, March 19, 2005 - 11:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

from what i understand Lucas, Cameron and Jackson have access to a new 2d-3d conversion system that works. the people that have seen it are very impressed,they say the 3d works,and these big movie honchos will back it. lots more great 3d news comming soon!!!!!!!
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 9:45 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I'm not that optimistic about 2D->3D conversion. Probably they have choosen some scenes which can easily converted to 3D. We have to wait until we see a whole converted movie outselves. There are always a few people claiming the conversion is 'good'. This also happend with the Virtual FX and software conversions although the results are really crappy. A good conversion is possible of course, but it requires lots of manual work.

Once again I want to repeat my analogy: In the past, some people tried to convert black/white movies to color movies by coloring each frame manually. Actually, this works, but cannot be done automatically. Same applies to 2D->3D conversion. If a human does the object segmentation and repaints all the missing areas, it will work. But computers are not able to do it.

Was black/white to color conversion a success? Definitly no. I've never seen that a major movie converted this way. I guess because the results were not as realistic as a real color movie. A great b/w movie doesn't need color, it's still great in b/w.

The same applies to 2D->3D conversion. If Hollywood releases some mediocre conversions, the new 3D boom will be over before it really started. The Star Wars episodes are great, especially the old ones. They don't need 3D, 3D will propably make them worse. Just think about the newer episodes: Less special effects and a more profound story would have made them much better. Hopefully we never see Star Wars 3D.

For a successful future of 3D, new movies shoot with high quality 3D cameras are necessary and, of course, high quality projection systems. If just one of these two issues is not obeyed, the same will happen as in the 50s and it will take a whole generation until people have forgotten how bad 3D was.
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 12:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###- The new projectors for 2D cinema will be 3 chip DLP one capable to do active projection
###- active projection have troube with glasses,

My favorite technology would be a single DLP projector plus high-quality shutterglasses.
http://www.stereo3d.com/dlppleading.htm

However movie theatre owners wouldn't want to invest in shutterglasses. They will ask for passive glasses, but you don't need Z-Screen technology. Moving polar-filters on the single projector may also be possible.

Instead of polarization they could also use the Daimler-Chrysler-Infitec process which allows for passive glasses which produce no ghosting.
http://www.more3d.com/german/filter_d.htm

###There are always a few people claiming the conversion is 'good'.###

Exactly, there were rave reviews about products which didn't work. 10% of people in our society are more or less stereo-blind anyway and another 89% can't tell if they see good stereo. They don't even know when they are in inverse-stereo. They need direct comparisons and explanations to understand.

###have access to a new 2d-3d conversion system that works. ###

What is the definition of "works"?

###If a human does the object segmentation and repaints all the missing areas,###

Missing areas means missing texture. Missing texture which wasn't seen by the single camera is lost and nobody can bring it back. You'd have to fake it.

Christoph
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M.H.

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Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 5:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I had seen Infitec in action. It is beter tha anaglyph, but no to much ... Far from the quality of polarized setup ... And the light lose is almost as hi as for Z-screen based projector filter.
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 5:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

How about ghosting? Thank you.

Christoph
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Anonymous

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Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 8:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

again i haven't seen it but my son is a DP who is very critical of 2d-3d conversion. however he saw the clips of 2d-3d conversion of STARWARS footage that Lucas showed to the ShoWest big shots in LV. he said it was very good 3d, much better then he expected and that this core group of Lucas,Cameron, Jackson and others, are behind it. lots of great 3d movies comming soon!!!!!!
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 9:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Maybe the Star Wars scenes were good because they were not converted from 2D->3D but re-rendered from the digital sets?!

### Missing texture which wasn't seen by the
### single camera is lost and nobody can bring
### it back. You'd have to fake it.

That's what I meant. But a talented painter could fake it pretty well.

### lots of great 3d movies comming soon!!!!!!

Lot's of converted crap will come soon. Even if Lucas does a good conversion job, many others will follow using their own 'great' automatic conversion algorithms.
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M.H.

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Posted on Sunday, March 20, 2005 - 9:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Christoph:
I had seen Infitec during the Photokina exhibition. Ghosting was something between anaglyph and polarized proejection. The key problem was very low brightnes - the light lose in the optic is probably very hi. I had heard as well something about requirement of special projectors - the filters in standard one do not produce wavelenghts comaptible with the Infitec optic filters. The glasses are expensive as well - price is comparable to shuterglasses.
Another problem is the color deformation - much more better than anaglyph, but still far from polarized or active systems.
It is an interesting technological direction, but just now the qaulity is not worth the benefits.
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Neil

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Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 3:41 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I have been a "lurker" on this board for many years. We at In-Three, Inc. have been working "under the radar" for over 5 years on our proprietary 2D-to-3D conversion process. We call what we do "Dimensionalization" and I can assure you it is nothing like anything you have ever seen. It is completely realistic. And there is no eye fatigue watching Dimensionalized content.

George Lucas and many, many others have seen and fully endorse our process. In fact, George was kind enough to introduce examples of our work to the industry at ShoWest 2005 last week. At the end of our portion of the 3D presentations he announced that he plans to Dimensionalize all 6 episodes of Star Wars, starting in 2007 (the 30th anniversary of the first episode - Episode IV) using our process. We actually showed the first reel of "Star Wars - Episode IV" at this show to over 2000 attendees. We showed several other examples of well-known blockbuster movies as well.

Of course ever since ShoWest 2005 it has been a very crazy time for us.

But I have been occasionally monitoring this board for many years, just waiting for the day we could finally talk about what we are doing.

I can't promise to answer all your questions, but I will try to check in from time to time and do the best I can - time permitting.

Neil Feldman
Vice-President
In-Three, Inc.
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Neil

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Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 4:08 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Oooops.

There was a typo in my email address on the previous posting.

It should have been: NFeldman@In-Three.com

Sorry about that.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Sunday, March 27, 2005 - 12:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Thanks for taking the time Neil

All the best

Unclebob
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Anonymous

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Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 5:22 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Good to have you with us Neil.

I assume you cannot tell us (confidential) details about your technique so just 2 general questions from me:

1.) How much manual work is necessary do convert a film from 2d to 3d?

2.) Do you plan to release any of the tools involved as products to the consumermarket so that anyone can convert films to 3d?
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Neil

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Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 7:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hello Unclebob and Anonymous,

1. Lots. What we have done is to make 3D a complete post-production process. The best way to understand what we do is to think about how computer-generated special effects are created. In a similar way we use "Dimensionalists" working at our special workstations running our hardware and software to "Dimensionalize" any 2D material. Dimensionalists have a whole set of special tools and computerized algorithms at their disposal.

2. No.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 7:52 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

thanks Neil, i can't wait to see these great movies in your new 3d system. any comming out sooner then the StarWars in 2007? how about a 2d-3d conversion for HDTV??? are you working on that? also will you have a basic 2d-3d system for consumers like us 3d hobbiests? to convert our home 2d videos to 3d? thanks again
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Neil

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Posted on Monday, March 28, 2005 - 9:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

1. Any movies sooner than Star Wars in 2007? Yes. But no announcements yet. Email me to be put on our PR list for upcoming announcements:

NFeldman@In-Three.com

2. HDTV is no problem for us. Our process is resolution independent. But the higher the resolution the better.

3. No plans for hobbyists. Sorry. We need to recoup our R&D.
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 8:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###What we have done is to make 3D a complete post-production process.###

Adding some color or stereo-effects to an existing movie is one thing, but this statement sounds like: yeah go ahead, shoot in 2D, we can 'fix it in the mix'.

I hope that's not what you're telling producers.

Christoph
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M.H.

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Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 10:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Any way to see some sample stereoscopic images obtained by the conversion proces ?
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Neil

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Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 11:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

We're working on it.

Right now we are swamped with some other priorities.
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Neil

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Posted on Tuesday, March 29, 2005 - 11:34 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Christoph,

I am sorry you are so negative about something you have yet to see.

What we are not only telling - but showing(!) producers is that they do not have to shot 3D using dual-cameras at all. They do not have to do anything special. Yes, we certainly do it all in Post. That is the beauty of it.

I don't expect you to believe me. But you might pay attention to what George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and a host of other accomplished filmmakers have publicly stated.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 12:27 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi Neil, this is very interesting and exciting news.. thanks for sharing. I'm sure you can't reveal too much info about the conversion process but would it be safe to assume that you are using the existing 2D movie as either left or right and then morphing or interpolating it to create the other viewing angle? or perhaps creating two totally different angles from the original? seems like that would be twice the work but I suppose once you "dimensionalize" the 2D film with the proper Z-depth info I guess you could probably "interpolate" whatever you need to from that..? :-/ I'm probably way off.. :-D maybe you manually seperate all the different elements and recombine them one frame at a time the way people convert 2D photos? if so that would be overwhelming! Also, are you guys filming any "behind the scenes" stuff about this process (for bonus DVDs and such) for when these films are eventually released? Being the technogeek that I am, I'm just as interested in seeing a documentary on how this process works as I am in actually seeing a completed movie in 3D :) thanks

Brandon
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 12:45 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Brandon,

Many thanks for your enthusiasm.

You are correct in your assumption. We do nothing to the left eye image. It is the original material completely untouched.

Everything we do is in the right eye. That is why our process is not like "colorization". We do NOT "change" the original material at all (it is unchanged in the left eye). We simply create the right eye "information" as if there had been a second camera capturing it on the set it all along...

We have not been creating any "behind the scenes" material about us for release on a DVD. But I must admit that is a great idea.

We have been "behind the scenes" for so many years now that it just never occurred to us. :)

Eventually what we do will all become known. No doubt about that. And take heart 3D experts, Hollywood (and those outside Hollywood) really do pay attention to what you know and love.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 12:53 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi Neil, thanks for the reply. as far as the "behind the scenes" stuff I think that would really be cool. of course, this is coming for someone who can sit and watch hours of Weta Digital documentaries from LOTR without blinking an eye so.. :D
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 3:29 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hi Neil, i think the general public will flock to the 3d movies both new and classics like the STARWARS sagas. exzibitors will see the light and convert there theaters to digital for the 3d movies. look at what Polar Express did in just a few IMAX theaters. but i think the big future will be your process, or a 3d process for HDTV. people now are investing big bucks on 42 to 60 inch HDTV's.3d would be the killer application for HDTV. i am sure millions would love to see NFL football in HDTV 3d.
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 6:37 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Here's a solution for the hobbyists... shoot with two cameras :-)
No matter how good a 2D to 3D conversion can get, it can only possibly "get as good as" a dual camera process :-)
When done correctly, it's not really that difficult to do, either.
As far as converting 2D movies to 3D goes, to me, that's like colorizing black and white images... I'm not real excited about looking at that. Black and white images were "visualized" in that context. 2D movies were "visualized" in that context.
"Visualizing" a stereoscopic image is a unique experience.
I have a real gut feeling that 99% of the critics are going to agree with me. Heck, critics don't even like bad stereoscopic movies... can we really expect them to like "stereoscopic 2D" movies?

P. K. Kid
Stereoscopic 3D images and movie clips (all G-rated):
http://www.puppetkites.net
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clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 6:48 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

:) .. This better be good! :P

...anyhow, im a diehard skeptic, i wont hide that, but hey if your able to use time +parallax, +Depth mapping still scenes + Software like Mokey for object segmentation and rotoscopy on a scene by scene basis, Well done!

Yes it will take a little farm of xeon processing power and a dozen rotoscoping artists to do this,
But heck so what .. as long as hollywood is impressed.

I realize from all the experiments I've been doing with my software collection, (some algorithms under NDA, that the end results, as long as there are elements flying off the surface of the scree... Laymen are easy to be convinced thats its workable ThreeD).

Ive come up with a simple formula:
Take a 30 long scene... pulfrich the sucker for the first 15 seconds, then zero in on the main subject, lifting it out of the scene with something like mokey, and dump that into a 3d compositing software like combustion giving it ofcourse some negative z depth... do this for 5 seconds then rotoscope the remainder of the scene for 10 seconds adding greyscale depth maps to the scene...
Voila! 3d in post! :)

looking foward to see some mpeg clips asap.
Cheers
Clyde
Immersive Media (x3d middle-east)
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M.H.

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 9:02 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

#What we are not only telling - but showing(!) producers is that they do not have to shot 3D using dual-cameras at all. They do not have to do anything special. Yes, we certainly do it all in Post. That is the beauty of it. #

I am sure the statement above is only a bad joke. Any expert in 3D knows , that such a statement is highly populistic + it can have catastrophic influence on the stereo movie industry in the near future. There is no way how to reconstruct 3D stereo informations for highly structuralized 3D objects. No mater whatever you will have 100 or 1 000 000 Xeons ... The problem is identical to machine based object recognition or full emulation of human brain functions - AI algorithms are simply not good enough now ...

If we will go in the direction mentioned above, we will see a lot of flat bilboarded object traveling in 3D instead of true highly structuralized 3D space...

I was working on 2D-3D conversion in the past a lot, it works O.K. for some special canera motion situation, but no way to make it working generally.

It will be O.K. to say, yes we can add relatively good 3D efect to old 2D movies, but it is not good not to shoot movies really in 3D.
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 9:23 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Dear M. H.,

Not a bad joke. Just new technology.

Look I am sorry if we have burst your "expert" opinion on this.

Your kind of mentality would have ruled out "flying machines" just as easily. In fact many experts did just that.

But your "opinion" is dead wrong.

Our 3D material actually looks better than anything shot dual camera - if only because there is no eye-fatigue causing vertical anomilies at all. There are many other reasons as well.

When you finally see our work then you can bash it all you want. But right now it is you who are at fault. You do not know what you are talking about.

Meanwhile, here is a link that is a rather unbiased summation of what went on at ShoWest:

http://www.moviecitynews.com/columnists/dretzka/2005/050321.html
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 9:39 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Finally to all of you who "know" that this must be a bad joke,

Just wait to see our work before you condemn it, OK?

All of us at In-Three know what really good 3D is. We, too, are experts. In both the old traditional way of creating 3D and now in Dimensionalizing any 2D content from any source.

We know what we had to achieve in order to be taken seriously by Hollywood and the likes of Lucas and Spielberg. Our stuff had to be better than anything ever seen before. Better than the best 3D ever shot or created.

You can speculate all you want about how we do the conversions. But what we do is both unique and, more importantly, it works.

A very, very well known Producer/Director paid us the highest compliment when he saw some of his work Dimensionalized. He said, "How did you do that? That is just the way it looked on the set."

What we do is not a gimmick. It is not designed to make movies into theme park rides. The best way to understand what we are doing is that we create "Surround-Sound for your eyes."
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Clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 9:43 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Im afraid, that after being heavily involved (Heck my main source of income is everything 3d related), I agree with MH, althogh my post above would indicate otherwise.

The only reason i listed and outlined the "processes" above is so that people involved or learning about stereoscopic procedures are "aware' of what to look for in converted 3d content.

I myself dont recommend 2d to 3d, over actually shooting 3d, but in the words of Dubya :)...
"make no mistake.. I wont be giving up a few dollars if the populance wants a 2d-to 3d converted movies".

Yes I realize, I'd be doing a bad service to the 3d industry, but beter I "do" it, while keeping as near to the truth as possible about what good 3d "would" look like. (I even insisted on using Lee filters in the 3d glasses that we had made for the launch of Shrek 3D party here.

As is already evident, commerce is dictating the course of the 3D Tv industry here, not die-hard -do it the right way" professionals...so sad as it is...
I'd rather be the one doing 2d-->3d conversions, than letting Joe 3D pick up off the shelf software and start converting Lord of the Rings.. hmm speaking of wich it has a lot of panning lateral movement in that movie.. makes for a perfect 2d to 3d "victim" :)


To summarize.. Im against 2d--->3D unless proven otherwise (i'm willing to stand corrected anytime)
but for now, yes Id take up an assignment to use 2d--->3D, only secure in the knowledge that i'd do as faithful a job as possible, versus a typical business motivated offering.

**end of rant?***
Clyde
Immersive Media
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Clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 9:45 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

PS... a 30 second clip would kill all debate wouldnt it?
and plus save a helluva lot of bandwith on this debate ;)

Clyde
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 9:55 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

A full length blockbuster movie will kill the debate.

It will happen.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. If the thought of really good 3D - albeit created from 2D - bothers you so much, so be it.
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 10:00 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Sorry Clyde,

I should not have been so hard on you in my previous response.

After re-reading your post I realize that you - like us - are actually objecting to the myriad "automatic" 2D to 3D conversion programs that are currently on the consumer market.

I can assure you that what we do is not anything like that. We are as much against bad 2D-to-3D (or simply bad 3D for that matter) as you are.

And our technology is not available to the consumer.
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Clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 10:06 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

lol .. no offence taken, Its amazing we 12 hrs apart and communicating! the wonders of technology.
What next .. 3rd dimensional telepathy? versus bothersome spell checking ones posts :)

keep me updated in your Pr newsletters.
thanks
Clyde@3dco.com
(Immersive Media Solutions LLC -X3D middleeast)
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M.H.

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 10:07 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil: Looking forward to make analysis of the result of your work. If it will be realy so good as you describe I wil return my PhD degree and I will stop teaching computer graphics at an Univ :-).
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 10:49 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

All I can say is my friend after seeing my
3d Imax video collection, said pity they
are boring movies when will there be something
interesting to watch. The advantage of
converting proven good 2d movies to 3d is people
already like the stories. So even if the 3d isn't
perfect the public will flock to see it.
3d expects would loathe it they like audiophiles are
very picky. But Jo Blo will probably be blown
away and it will make a huge profit. Making money
is all Hollywood are interested in not taking
a risk on a non proven script shot in real 3d.
Only a handful of real 3d movies have a good
story since the 1950's.

The novelty of 3d will make billions
for proven 2d movies make no mistake
even though it pisses off stereo3dphiles.
Stereo3dphiles will sit at home with their
virtual fx's not spending a dime watching
2d to 3d converted movies for free just as good
knowing they haven't been a sucker like Jo Blo.
Mind you if Star Wars 3d is released in 2007
that's 2 years of manual labour to do a
pretty good 2d to 3d conversion while
the virual fx does instant conversion.
I hope the theatrical movies don't look like
cardboard cutouts I saw Creeps3D the 3d was
great with actors looking very realistic

I hope it's as good as that.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 11:46 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Interesting debate guys.

I seriously doubt that any of Hollywoods aristocracy would put their names to something shoddy. Given the independent press reports which enthuse about the effects then this must be some confirmation that the techniques work well.

So what does that really mean?

Well, for once this little niche of ours (hobbiests, ethusiasts and commercial endeavours) is going to get one hell of a publicity boost.

That will mean more general interest, more commercial investment and ultimately better toys for us all. (and more business for you commercial guys!)

Neil I hope it works out for you guys as I am pretty sure that if you are only partially successful there will be more investment in what I enjoy dabbling in.

Lets face it this 3d stuff desperately needs that push from niche to mainstream else it will be left for us on these boards to continually chase our tails, hope for better content and pester Nvidia for better drivers!

Unclebob
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 12:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Thanks for all your comments.

All of us here love good 3D. And guess what - so do the top creatives in Hollywood. That is what ShoWest was all about proving.

The key to 3D has always been content. Our idea is that proven "blockbuster" movies - seen in a new "light" - will finally shake the stigma of 3D. The public will want to see more and more of it.

This will be a very good deal for all of us who care about this wonderful medium.
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 1:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil,

your statement indicating that your process may even be better than actual 3D-footage makes me wonder what you use as a reference for good stereo.

I didn't say at any point that I believe what you're doing may look bad. Even if it looks great it's not real.
When you shoot in 2D you loose information. You loose texture. Not all of this can be brought back. So your 'Dimensionalists' do a new interpretation of the material.

Let's do a little experiment. Place a can of Coca-Cola in front of of. Now turn the can clockwise until you can barely read 'Coca-Cola'. Now close the left eye. Now it reads 'oca-Cola' or 'ca-Cola'. The 'Co' is out of range for the right eye. The texture is gone. In reality you have infinitely complex, tiny differences in texture, over the whole surface of each and every object. Some can be restored from 2D-footage and some can't.

What would people think if some company would suggest to audio-record all classical concerts in mono and enhance them later digitally to stereo or multi-channel. This is done on old recordings, but the consumers wouldn't accept this for contemporary work - no matter how cool the enhanced stuff may sound.

Your suggestion to shoot movies in 2D is even worse, because the information loss is greater. The visual-stereo-resolution of the human brain is much higher than the audio-stereo-resolution.
The reason why people, even directors/producers, accept what you are saying is simple: they know too little and they haven't developed a stereo-quality consciousness - yet.

Christoph
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 1:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###people now are investing big bucks on 42 to 60 inch HDTV's.3d would be the killer application for HDTV.###

Most of the HDTV-sets which are currently sold aren't stereo-compatible.

Christoph
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GianCarlo

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 6:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Here's what I hope happens:

1. Neil's company does well and lots of studios convert lots of great old movies (like Top Gun or Star Wars) to 3D, plus a few new movies in post-production.

2. As a result, 3D catches on and Neil continues to make $$$ converting past great movies. Meanwhile, production companies realize that they can save tons of $$$ and time on new 3D movies in post production by filming in 3D.

3. End result: Consumers get to see past great movies converted to 3D and get see many more new great movies in non-converted or "true" 3D.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 7:37 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

4. The investment in developing true stereoscopic devices will be stoped. No realy good stereoscopic movies will be recorded. Quality will fall down.

5. Users anoyed by pure 3D effect will switch back to 2D content.
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 8:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Christoph,

Please, enough already.

Just wait until you see what we do before you start telling us what is not possible.

Producers and Directors do NOT accept what I am saying because I (or anyone else) say it. They SEE for themselves and they JUDGE for themselves.

We have done side-by-side tests with some well-known 3D material that was initially shot dual-system ("real" by your terminology). Then we created a Dimensionalized version of the same scenes from the left eye camera only. The Dimensionalists never saw the "real" (i.e. dual-camera) material until after the test was complete.

I'll leave to your expert imagination as to what the results were. You won't believe what I say anyway.

The power of what we do is that our process is NOT WYSIWYG ONLY. We can render a given scene many different ways to see what works best - especially across cuts and dissolves... And that is exactly what we do.

The fact is that there is no one "right" or "true" or "real" version captured dual-system. At least not when you start to put scenes together or do any sort of post-production.

Maybe it is time to re-think some dogmas that you have not questioned.
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 8:32 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

If Neil's company does well, others will follow with less sophisticated algorithms and people will reject 3D cinema again. Exactly the same happened in the 50ies when 3D movies were shown with anaglyph glasses, low-grade projection equipment or misaligned projectors.

These days, poor conversions will keep people away from 3D cinemas. Even is 'dimensionalizing' is superior to any previous 2D->3D process, you have to expect that others want to benefit from its success and do quick&dirty conversions.

Also keep in mind that 3D projection is far away form being perfect. Even in IMAX theaters ghosting is still noticeable. I doubt people will accept 3D as a replacement for 2D cinemas. It will stay a niche market, because after seeing a few 3D movies, it's not a novelty anymore but only has lots of drawbacks. Poor conversion will do the rest to move people back to 2D.

My prediction for the future is that only the established IMAX system will survive (if they don't show movies with lots of stereoscopic flaws like Cameron's Ghosts of the Abyss again).

Peter
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M.H.

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 8:49 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil:

I am primary a scientist. So I would like to suggest an exact experiment to you. You mentioned you had done a conversion of left part from a realy truly 3D recorded movie (I expect a rely good recorded one).

Can you eventualy put this samples somewhere for download in hi quality (not mentioning witch version is withc)? I mean at leas full NTSC per eye progressive, or better ...

Let than people to wote witch version loks better ... I can even organize an exact blind test
between volunters knowing nothing about stereo, usning standard statistic methods, if you are interested.

A bit more exact will be to supply you only a 2D part of an hi-res 3D movie and than do the tests with the result.

Do you thing you can win in such test ?
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ihate56k

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 10:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

People sure are quick to judge eh?

It occurs to me that a 2D->3D conversion effect might actually be better than true 3D. *bear with me guys*

why? becuase if you shoot a film in 2D and convert it to 3D you can manipulate the 3D for easy viewing, effect, comfort etc.. the camara man doesn't have the problem at capture time, the film can be cut in 2D, all the 3d work can be done, tested and redone if necassery later on.

Also, I suspect the cost of hiring a team of artists and 3D professionals to 'dimesionalise' the film is less than the cost of having specialist cameras, twice the film (or Digital HDDS) and having all the calibration problems, and other problems which will only occur in 3D shooting.

Personally, I'm guessing this dimentionalisation process is something to the effect of building an animated 3D representation of the film (through a combination of hand work, and motion detection algorithems), applying the 2D images to it and having artists painting in the blanks... this is only my guess, but why couldn't it work?

people seem to be assuming that the process is the same kind of job that you or I could knock up in 3ds or photoshop in 2 hrs, but that's a pretty silly assumption, you're talking about a professional company with some of the best directors supporting thme... and remember, you and I haven't seen the results.


Come on guys! let's keep an open mind until we've seen the actual product in action! saying 'It can't work' or 'It's impossible' is just plain narrow minded.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 11:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

i can't believe how narrow minded some of this boards "experts" seem to be. i support any new ideas ,products for 3d. i would bet that Neil's system is way ahead of what you guys think. i am looking foward to seeing it for myself . i can't wait!!!!!!!!!!!!
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John Billingham

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Posted on Wednesday, March 30, 2005 - 11:51 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hello, Neil,

Could you possibly attach, or post with a link,
a "screen shot" or two sample of your process?

I judge nothing until I have seen it.
But, I need to see it.

Thanks,
Best Wishes,
John Billingham
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 1:14 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Fellow posters,

Look, I know all of you are quite curious to see what we have done.

But you are just going to have to wait a bit longer.

We have waited for years before "going public" - just so that we could prove ourselves to the Hollywood film community on their own terms.

My partner, the inventor of Dimensionalization, and I have been involved in the video/film post business for well over 25 years. We know what we are doing.

In fact I still also own a post facility down in Dallas called Video Post & Transfer. You can check us out if you like.

I promise that you all will get the opportunity to see what we have done at the appropriate time and place. But we will not be posting any "samples" before then. Especially on the Internet. Regardless, the key is not in picking apart a single frame or two - but in what transpires at 24 or 30 frames per second. A word to the wise.

To those of you who are still keeping an open mind, thank you. I promise you will not be disappointed when you see our work.

To M.H., we have already been conducting these kinds of tests privately. We feel quite confident that we will "pass" yours as well.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 7:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

need to add my 3 cents to this thread

neil,

the 3d community experiences this wait and see mentality all the time from people making the same type of bold claims that you are doing

and then it turns out to be either crap or just hype to raise money

think about it, what harm can come from releasing a clip or a few pics of your conversion?

I really believe some technical scrutiny has merits.
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 8:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

#Christoph,

#Please, enough already.

Neil,

Please enough already.
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 8:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###Exactly the same happened in the 50ies when 3D movies were shown with anaglyph glasses, low-grade projection equipment or misaligned projectors.###

That's partially true, but just for the records: virtually all 3D-movies were virtually always shown in polarized in the 50's. The anaglyph copies of some 50's movies were produced in the 70's.

Christoph


Christoph
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 8:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###Also keep in mind that 3D projection is far away form being perfect. Even in IMAX theaters ghosting is still noticeable.###

Exactly, to get a wide acceptance ghosting should be eliminated, which means we need shutterglasses in the theatres. I doubt this will happen on a large scale.

After solving the ghosting problem the next issue will be the 'accomodation-convergence-conflict'. So far this has only been solved in certain HMD's for millitary simulations, which cost millions of $$$ and require real time computer graphics based on eye-tracking - not suitable for movie-footage yet!

Christoph
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 8:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

"I really believe some technical scrutiny has merits."

So do we.

I am familiar with all the previous claims made by others. There is nothing I can do about that.

I promise you all will get a chance to thoroughly scrutinize our work in the future. We are not going away. Au Contraire.

When we arrange for our next public demonstration I promise to let you all know.

Meanwhile I simply came on this board to answer some of your questions.

We have no axe to grind with the "experts." If what we do is simply hype and/or smoke you certainly have nothing to fear from us.
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 9:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

> When we arrange for our next public demonstration I promise to let you all know.

Would really love to see it. But I doubt you will do any demo in good old Europe.

Some samples on the net would be much more convenient to get a first impression. I suggest a password protected download just for a few people of this group. I would even be willing to sign a NDA because I'm really curious.
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 9:34 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

The more you learn about stereoscopy, the more there is to learn :-)
The day I stop learning, I hope someone removes my feeding tube :-)

P. K. Kid
Stereoscopic 3D images and movie clips (all G-rated):
http://www.puppetkites.net
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, March 31, 2005 - 10:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

"I doubt you will do any demo in good old Europe"

Not true. Our next demo likely will be in the UK or thereabouts.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 01, 2005 - 12:03 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Please note , everyone, we now all hold PKK's
"Living Will" in "e-form".
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 01, 2005 - 8:04 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Count me in please Neil as I am Uk based, would love to check out your new technology...and post an unbiased report on this board and others.

Guys there seems to me a number of important differences between Neils company and the others that promised so much...

Namely that he does have a number of hollywood big wigs on his team.

That the presentations and examples have so far been so well recieved.

That the content promised is probably the most watched and will be open to the most harsh criticism by Star Wars fans.

Talk about "c*ck on the block". Either this works and Star Wars will be a complete triumph or it will be crucified by the Star Wars fan communuity and kill this mans company and his work for good.

So given he does not give the impression that he is trying to impress or force this on us (pretty much the die hards of this little niche) I'd say at this point we should be a little more supportive.

Its unlikely if there is a programme in place for the press, film industry or business community that this will be broken just for us.

As for NDAs - great for the tech industry as we seem to be a little more honourable...not so good for those in the film industry...Remember that Lords of the Rings movie leaked by the industry and traced to the Oscar's reviewers.

Neil perhaps you could give us some information about how it is done? I imagine you are 'patented' up so just an overview would be cool.

Thanks for continuing to engage with us.

Unclebob
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Neil

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Posted on Friday, April 01, 2005 - 2:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Uncle Bob,

Many thanks for your rational and supportive post.

So far In-Three, Inc. has 3 assigned and issued patents. There are more coming.

We will be giving detailed overviews of our technology in the future. I am an SPIE member have been attending their January 3D Conference "in cognito" for many years now.

I am also quite active in SMPTE. In fact I was a Governor for 5 years running and then the VP of Finance for many years after that.

We will present our technology to these and other technical and industry experts at the appropriate time.
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clyde

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Posted on Friday, April 01, 2005 - 4:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Im sure as hell not going to get a demo way over here in Dubai am I!!!!!&^%**^ :)
pass over that NDA then **sigh!**

Cheers
Clyde
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Friday, April 01, 2005 - 5:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

No, Clyde, you are just going to have to be stuck with using a stereoscopic rig to create stereoscopic images.
Luckily, *perfect 3D* can still be created this way, too ;-)
BTW, I can prove this with demonstrations, downloads and documentation.
I can even explain it with relatively simple theories :-)
To me, this forum is for learning and sharing. If you are not willing to learn and share, you should not be here, IMO. You should be selling "advertisements" in a magazine or creating a commercial website and minding your own business.
Notice the header of this section of the forum says "announce and discuss new products". Spammers usually "announce", but they do not usually "discuss".
I tell everyone everything I have ever learned about stereoscopy in this and other forums, and I ask questions about anything I do not know. Because of this, I expect the same thing from others. When this does not happen, I don't respect them in this format. IMO, they are usually just "another spammer" in the wrong place...
I've been on the internet for years and years... and it's quite common for spammers to "drop in to open forums" that are primarily designed for learning and sharing. They usually "pretend to be sharing information", so they won't be labeled as "a spammer", but they are "just another spammer", IMHO." It almost always results in the same sort of outcome. Also, because spamming is getting less and less popular, they are getting sneakier with their disguises or apparent motivations :-(
Most people call this "hidden agenda", i.e, their goal is to sell you something, not learn or share information.
It used to totally piss me off.
These days, I just try to ignore them, knowing they usually soon "go away" :-)
Sorry for being so honest. I'm an old "internet discussion geek" that started on Usenet with all the flamers, spammers, porn and bullshit mixed in with the good discussions, and have had everything from death threats to tits and ass thrown in my face without asking for it, hence the reason I usually don't use my real name in public forums... not that people can't find out who I am... all they usually have to do is email me and ask me, it's just my "personal statement" that I don't play politics... I exchange information freely. Who I am is irrelevant. The discussion and exchange of information should be the reason people are here.

I call it just like I see it. I usually don't pussyfoot around... and, hey, I'm usually a nice guy, too :-)

Also, this is just my humble opinion. Maybe I should have said that first ;-)

--
P. K. Kid
Stereoscopic 3D images and movie clips (all G-rated):
http://www.puppetkites.net
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ihate56k

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Posted on Friday, April 01, 2005 - 9:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

" To me, this forum is for learning and sharing. If you are not willing to learn and share, you should not be here, IMO."

This has turned into one of the most unpolite threads I've seen in a long while... I mean, are you guys trolling for the sake of it, or am I misreading things.

When someone from a company that's just been in the mainstream press comes onto a specialist website, usually I'd expect them to be welcomed... sure, treat their claims with skeptacism if you want... but really.

I think people should quit talking about samples and stuff... it's clear the guy is not going to hand over samples of years of research just to keep people on here happy, especially when people are being so presumptuous as they seem to be,if he handed over perfect 3D, it'll be called 'unrepresenitive' or 'fixed in some way', if it has any flaw whatsoever it'll be used as a reason why their tech is a failure...

as for spaming the forums for publicity... seeing as in-three have just had a bunch of directors announce support for them, I don't see why they'd be rushing for the 'small net-community' vote just yet.

dunno if I'm offending anyone saying that, but if I was neil, I certainly wouldn't bother posting here again, nor would I have anything nice to say about the stereo3d forums...
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Neil

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Posted on Saturday, April 02, 2005 - 1:46 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Thank you for saying what has been on my mind, ihate56K.

I started posting here only after I saw the references to our official "Debut" at ShoWest last week on this board.

I don't blame anyone for being skeptical. But being close-minded is just silly.

I had no other motivation coming here but to let you all know that we at In-Three have been involved with 3D for some time and we support any and all attempts to do "perfect 3D". No matter what method you may think best.

I am not a spammer. I am not selling anything to this group, not even BS as some of you seem to imply. Nor do I seek anything from any of you - except, perhaps, an open mind when you finally get to see our work.

You are all free to look up our 3 patents; they are listed under our company name. But that is all the technical explanation we will be offering for now. There is much, much more involved in the Dimensionalization process but we are not going to tip our hand to any other competitors.

I do plan to monitor your posts as I have been doing in the past.

Thank you all.
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clyde

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Posted on Saturday, April 02, 2005 - 5:57 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Im on the fence on this one.. logic tells me to "beware", but instinct tells me give 'em the benefit of the doubt.

I was pondering thoughts put across by both Christoph and Neil...

Christoph made definately un-arguable points using the cola can argument above. yes texture will be lost if you put in-three's process under technical scrunity, but...

Neil mentioned what it is, that the average end user wants to see in a block buster 3d movie..
1) A killer storyline,
2) 3d that has depth and ocassionally flies out at you,
3) Surround visuals and Sound

So if the end goal of In-Three is to deliver this to an audience, i dont think the audience would really complain or scrutinize for tech stuff.

Take as an example the matrix movies, Google for "movie mistakes" on those films and you'll see numerous frame by frame accounts of whats "missing" for example shadows were composited wrong in the famous fight on top of the trailers etc...

you get the point.. the average person never notices this until pointed out by the experts..
But this in no way diminishes the "experience" does it?

Dont get me wrong.. Im for perfect 3D as i keep repeating myself, but the point in question here is - or rather should be -... Is the end result of this *dimensionalization* process worth it to provide a new experience to an already great film like star wars?

My vote would be YES.
If they can re-release that film successfully so many times, i'm assuming the audiences arent tired and want more.

I would love to see a TIE fighter come from the left of the screen careen at center stage and then Fly-by behind me WITH full re-mastered DTS surround sound.
Yes the sound would have to be "dimensionalized" for me, if I am to forgive the possible cardboard cutout (if at all there is a cardboard effect to it.. im sure they are using greyscale alpha maps at the very least to "round" the objects).

Now put this into perspective (no pun). Wouldnt the audiences who lap up Starwars crave this new experience?

So really imo, The RIGHT film, the right attitude to conversion and insistance on meticulous attention to detail would get my vote.

I'm in no way selling out here, just giving someone teh benefit of the doubt that they will deliver what they are saying..
again they are saying "Star wars in 3d for an audience"... not "exposing the right eye view in a non-stereoscopic movie via magic algorithms"

However a request I would like to ask Neil not to give blanket suggestions to filmakers to shoot 2d and convert 3d in post.
If In-Three does a great job on existing blockbusters, leverage that to encourage filmamakers to shoot in 3d.
Rigs by cameron etc are easily made by sony/panasonic now that the first one has been built.
"dimensionalization" can be used as a post tool in such cases to 'enhance" the effect or diminish ghosting etc in a bad shoot.

At the very least --- Shoot a 3D sample of the set to use as a reference point before dropping in the talent, this will make it easier on "texture fill-in" routines to reassemble a scene in 3d.

--- my 50 cents, or 1.50 dirhams as the case may be :)

Clyde
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Clyde

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Posted on Saturday, April 02, 2005 - 6:02 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Ps I forgot to mention..
If neil creates something spectacular, other companies WILL follow with bad algorithms, quick and dirty workarounds and ..give 3d a bad name..

but as with any commercially proftable venture... Thats the time the Experts should come in, and criticize the bad films.

The end result will be the same, an end user will go for a Brand name rather than a rip-off.

Cheers
Clyde

-The author of the above statements is in no way on the pay roll of In-Three :)
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M.H.

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Posted on Saturday, April 02, 2005 - 7:35 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil: Can you give direct links to the patents you mention ?
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Neil

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Posted on Saturday, April 02, 2005 - 4:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Clyde,

"However a request I would like to ask Neil not to give blanket suggestions to filmakers to shoot 2d and convert 3d in post."

No can do. But have no fear, to each his own. You can even do both, as James Cameron did on "Aliens of the Deep"...

M.H. - Patent links:

Go here:
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

Then type in the Patent number you want:

6,208,348
6,515,659
6,686,926
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Richard Scullion

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Posted on Sunday, April 03, 2005 - 4:26 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Thought I'd throw my three cents into the ring. I'd say I'm less sceptical about 2D->3D than most people on this board. As many of you know I've tried quite a few methods in 3DCombine and while I'd be the first to admit that it doesn't compare to real 3D, that's not to say that it can't be done.
I saw a demo at Oxford University a couple of years ago where 2D video footage from a helicopter flying round a building was used to create a 3D model of that building without any manual intervention. If you grabbed the textures from the building as well, you'd have everything needed to create any other viewpoint you wanted.
I also take Neil's point about how it could be better to do a 2D->3D conversion. If you've taken a 3D photo or some video you'll know that sometimes you wish a certain part came out of the screen more, or there was less disparity in another part. When you're working with real 3D footage there's limited scope to fix this, whereas if you're generating the right eye view you can fine tune it to perfection.
Missing textures could be fixed with CGI in post-production, though this would be very time consuming.
As for whether In Three have managed the feat we'll have to wait and see.
I'm happy to volunteer to report back from the UK demo :)!
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Sunday, April 03, 2005 - 7:28 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###When you're working with real 3D footage there's limited scope to fix this, whereas if you're generating the right eye view you can fine tune it to perfection. ###

You can use the same techniques to modify 3D footage if you're not happy with it. Why should it be easier to start from a 2D-shot?

Also from a theoretical, scientific point of view you can't reach 'perfection' in 2D-to-3D-conversion. By shooting with one lens instead of two you loose information which can't be brought back. But beware I said 'from a scientific point of view', not from a commercial and entertainment point of view where genuine information and realism doesn't matter.

Nevertheless, the idea to deliberately shoot new material in 2D although there is a plan to later release it in 3D, by just relying on 'conversion' techniques, is very strange to say the least.
For me this is like "Our prothetic legs are so good we recommend you to cut your real, healthy legs off."

Actually the word 'conversion' doesn't do justice to such ventures. This isn't conversion, it involves restoration, manipulation and interpretation. And it's not the Hollywood-style. These guys usually plan in advance in order to get good quality and save money.

### 2D video footage from a helicopter flying round a building ###

Of course, if you have horizontal movement you get stereo-pairs, but there's a time gap between the two frames of a pair and you have no control over the parallax. So 3D(!) video footage from a helicopter flying round a building would look much better and would contain even more information for creating a 3D-model. Actually you can calculate 3D-models and depth-maps from static 3D-shots.

Christoph
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Vasily Ezhov

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Posted on Monday, April 04, 2005 - 9:57 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Dear 3DStereo Colleagues,

The picture of a good painter can give more realistic impression about a fire (for example) in compare with a most detailed photography of this fire (although photography is a documentary shot of world). So realistic does't always adequate to documentary.
Neil (In-Three) suggests tools for "3DStereo painting" on base of 2d video material, and such method can be very useful in movie industry because the majority of the most modern popular movies are not documentary but realistic in describing magical mystery dreams of people...

Documentary 3DStereo photography can't be replace by pictures of painter in the sphere of rich information content images - in biology, medicine, various archives images.
There also intermediate spheres where both (painting and documentary) methods will be used - films about nature, for example.

I see that patents of In-Three are serious multipaged documents with interesting information content so there is no base to doubt that they did good job to make 3DStereo painting tools from the technical point of view. Naturally the final decision can be made on base of viewing convincing "dimensionalized" movies.

Sincerely,
Vasily Ezhov.
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Richard Scullion

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Posted on Monday, April 04, 2005 - 2:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Christoph,

I have to conceed to your point that it would probably be better to generate a new right eye image from an existing right eye one, rather than the left. You'd certainly have more information.
As for the helicopter thing, perhaps the second clip would have been a better illustration. Here someone was walking down a street with a video camera and the computer used the footage to both determine a 3D model of the scene and simultaneously determine the motion of the camera. This allowed a CGI bin to be placed in the scene at the start and the computer automatically updated its position in the rest of the scene.
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Monday, April 04, 2005 - 5:03 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Ah, yes... the "catch-22" of patents... they are public records :-)
As harsh as it may have sounded, my last message simply meant that it is impossible to discuss something until you first *see* it, so up to the point where we didn't have have links to the patents, we were unable to intelligently discuss the idea.
Probably the best news about this type of process is the common stereoscopic artist *can* actually do this, but it takes good commercial compositing software like Adobe After Effects. IOW, it does not take elaborate, proprietary software of some sort, with "magical" abilities. The idea is actually quite simple, but very time-consuming to implement.
First of all, a *good* 2D to 3D conversion is an art form, just like a good anaglyph is. It is not "a reproduction of a stereoscopic image", it results in "unique imagery".
Also, just like a good anaglyph, a *good* 2D to 3D conversion cannot use "global algorithms", like you would use in a process or a formula, i.e., it is a segment-by-segment or frame-by-frame manipulation process.
Obviously, any sort of motion parallax is usually a bad idea, because it potentially creates temporal artifacts, so that is not a good way to do 2D to 3D conversions. IOW, do not use the Pulfrich idea, because any movement of the subjects in the scene will create temporal *differences* and thus, motion artifacts.
The "good" way to do 2D to 3D conversion is by using a similar idea as is demonstrated in the mentioned patents. I won't go through that process, here and now, but all the steps are possible with After Effects. (horizontal repositioning, layering, etc.)
BTW, the reason the "missing information" in the new right eye perspective can be "created" is because it is "unknown information". Since it does not actually exist, you can indeed "create it". "Creating it", thus "defines it". And this can be done as easily as by stretching or repeating pixel information. You could even slap in a tattoo of Jesus, if you wanted to ;-) IOW, the right eye does not see everything that the left eye sees (and visa-versa), even in nature, so you can indeed create "anything" for the right eye perspective that you want, using this idea. Repeating pixel information is the simplest way to do it (copy, paste ;-).
Also, objects that do not appear "close" to the camera, (depending on things like focal length, too) are much easier to reposition without cardboarding effects, because we are not used to seeing far away abjects with depth, anyway. "Closer" objects take much more care to be certain to introduce apparent "internal depth", simply because we are used to seeing depth in closer objects. This can be demonstrated in my 2D to 3D cloud conversions, where it only takes two 2D images of clouds layered together to create a very convincing "3D cloud image". The result is not something we are used to seeing in nature, but any added 3D depth adds stereoscopic interest.
Interpolating this information is not real difficult, either, as long as you have a segment with repetitive information. You "set the conditions" at one keyframe, "set the next conditions" at the next keyframe, and the software interpolates everything in between. If the interpolation is not a predictably smooth one, you can actually animate the interpolation (or the elements of).
Again, this is lots of work, but it can be done... but the only other debate left is the other one I mentioned, and that is whether or not the original 2D movie was created "in context" to stereoscopic viewing, i.e., most of the time it is better to "think stereoscopically" when you are creating the idea, the script, and the composition of the movie, _before_ and _while_ you are creating it in the first place. The validity of the stereoscopy might be more related to content than anything else, otherwise you might just be "doing stereoscopy for the sake of stereoscopy"... I'm not making that judgment call, I'm just saying that debate remains, and I'm sure critics will _always_ debate that aspect :-)

P. K. Kid
Stereoscopic 3D images and movie clips (all G-rated):
http://www.puppetkites.net
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Monday, April 04, 2005 - 5:20 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I wrote:

>>"IOW, the right eye does not see everything that the left eye sees (and visa-versa), even in nature, so you can indeed create "anything" for the right eye perspective that you want, using this idea. Repeating pixel information is the simplest way to do it (copy, paste ;-)."<<

What I meant was the missing information *between* perspectives, i.e., anything that is not visible in _both_ eyes' views.

PKK
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Anonymous

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Posted on Monday, April 04, 2005 - 9:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Good luck using this on close transparent objects with crazy varying specularity. At that point it's not art so much as physics/ray tracing and accurate model recreation.

Joy.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 7:31 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Wow. I'm usually a silent observer of boards such as these, however the conviction of the arguments along with my own deep burning desire to one day see true holographic technology become mainstream precipitated me into posting here.

First of all, I must admit that I know very little about 3d technology and engineering, so I will not attempt to get into a technical argument with Neil. However I do have a unique prespective on this situation.

I have spent over 8 years in the computer industry, lived through the dot-com crash, and have worked on a lot of projects that were doomed from the beginning.

Some were complete rip-offs: I worked for MediWorks which was later raided by the FBI for selling a medical software that was junk. (Go ahead, search it on Google--it's SCARY!) Some were so-so ideas that were hyped beyond their merits: See www.thebrain.com. (I did all of the flash grahpics for them--please don't be too critical.)

Anyhow, I think the holographic/3d industry is shaping up to be a little like the dot-coms of the 1990's. I think there will be amazon.com's of this industry along with TheBrain.com's. The question at this point is legitimacy.

This is why I am skeptical about Neil. Though his company seems to have a good product that has gained support, they are clearly a venture capital organization. And the number one job of a venture capitalist is to make the product look as good as possible. It's the only way to generate seed money and the 2nd or 3rd round financing.

The product doesn't have to work well, as long as the boys in the lab can make it spit out an impressive demo. If some schmuck producer is blown away by a hand-picked 30 sec. clip, he will probably sign on the dotted line.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to impune Neil's credibility. I honestly hope he has a good product. It's just... Well gosh, I just have this really vivid memory of saying the things he's saying right now, on boards just like this. Seems like yesterday...

Anyhow, I hope my comments weren't too long. Please feel free to write me with comments/concerns/death threats.

Andy R.
arakitai@hotmail.com
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 1:25 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

They seem to have an in with Lucas and his ILM(Industrial Light & Magic). It's not like Lucas the perfectionist to lend his name to anything short of stellar. So I'm impressed just by the friends they've generated who can easily benchmark and put their technology through a real life workoutd. Can't wait to see what it's all about...we need more.
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clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 2:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I hate to start this all over again, but in all fairness dosnt the above patents intefere in a way with DDD's? www.ddd.com and their patent number: 6,477,267

interestingly both patents were filed within a month of each other.
Regards
Clyde
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 3:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Andy R.

Sorry, we are not "a venture capital organization."

We are a private company and have no plans to go public. Nor are we seeking any funding from any venture capitalists at all.

As far as previous smoke and/or vaporware - we are well aware of the tainted history of 2D to 3D conversion attempts, including those by DDD.

In a nutshell, our approach is the first one that works. "Works" means that is has gotten the approval of top industry creatives starting with George Lucas, Peter Jackson, and many, many others.
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clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 3:12 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

its a bit disturbing... i finally had free time from work so was browsing thru the in-three patents..
a lot of the processes are already known.. things like the "spherical bulge", cone, shear are things which can be seen on the Virtual FX boxes,
and are from techniques used by Dr. Rolf-Naske in his software. most of these patents have been acquired by Opticality.. http://www.opticalitycorporation.com/company/about_history-ip.html

Im not trying to stir up a controversy here, but what use are all these patents when they obviously are granted time and again to different people with similiar inventions/processes??

**sigh**
Clyde
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clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 3:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

umm .. Neil I'm with you up to the point of agreeing that 2D post-processing to 3d is a good idea..(see my posts elsewhere today recommending this infact) but to deride DDD makes no sense, I personally have seen their work on my stereographics systems its good.. actually very good.
-regards
Clyde
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clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 3:23 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Heres an old post of mine from Dec '04 on the subject of 2d--3d conversions...

http://www.stereo3d.com/discus/messages/24/2075.html?#POST13268

_------------------------------------------------
"The easiest way to get Somewhat "satisfactory" 3D from 2d content is in the case of whats called the Pulfrich effect.. Download software like StereoMoviemaker, then take a handycam and stick it out of the passenger side of a car window. Start taping as the car is driving.

Load two copies of the grabbed avi from your cam into the software and delay the Start frame of one of the copies of the vidoe clip. You will get "respected" and good 3d effect.

This same technique applies to ANY kind of footage you get where there is camera panning. You can extract the 1st frams then the 3rd frame for instance in such a clip and you will have a reasonable stereo-pair.
(Google the pulfrich 3d effect for an easy to understand explaination of this).

Now what happens if you dont have panning footage?
Well *YOU* will have to look at a scene and then determine what should be in front and what should be in the back.
You do this by creating a "depth map" of all objects in a scene. (the user guide from 3Dcombine software will tell you how)

Ofcourse there is an option for the software to start with a single depthmap created by you and then "track" the objects in successive frames of the video.. but as u would image this wont work for long, any camer cuts to a new scene will cause havok, even managing a steady camera scene is a challenge. Companies like DDD use a hybrid software-human approach to create reasonable 3d.

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE WILL SAY AS WILL I, THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR REAL STEREOSCOPY FILMING< AND CONVERSIONS IN FACT MAY CAUSE IR-REPAIRABLE DAMAGE TO STEREOSCOPY ITSELF.

But commercially speaking, if you do put in dedicated effort, you can create some good masterpieces on a case to case basis.

I myself create regular 2d - 3d stuff using a slew of software tools and hardware.

What i WONT DO is simply offset an image "inside" a monitor or "out of the monitor plane" to pass it off as 3D.

Hope this helps a bit
Cheers
Clyde

PS. @ anonymous: the algorithms at work in the VFX box shouldnt be taken lightly, unless you personally know whats actually going on inside it.
Its got multiple intelligent algorithms and processes at work all burned on a chip and doing its thing in real time. -- its not true 3d but its the best you'll get IMO for automated conversion.

I would Ideally pass footage thru it, get the converted stuff out and then MANUALLY , frame by frame edit cheesy looking segments.

PPS .. no im not gonna be dragged into yet another debate of 2d-3d conversions .. been there done that.. tired of typing!! :D "

------------------------------------------------
LOl! i keep swearin i wont enter a debate and then jump right into one :(

Clyde
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 3:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

There seem to be countless stereo-related patents around the world. Michael Starks lists hundreds of them in his book 'Stereoscopic Imaging Technology'. I wouldn't be surprised if many (or even most) of them are redundant. It's a nightmare.

So far there's not much money to be earned with stereoscopy. The companies involved are rather small and have other problems than sueing each other.

When the day comes where 3D becomes mainstream again and a lot of money starts to flow the legal battles will begin.

Christoph
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 4:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hey, maybe I can then search my discussion group archives and documents and become a millionaire ;-)
And we all know that money can make you happy ;-)
I can then buy a half-million dollar stereo camera with toe-in and all sorts of gadgets to "do all the post processing stuff for me", and then I can give an entire generation a headache, while I'm laughing all the way to the bank!
I will be on the golf course when all the folks are getting headaches, so that won't affect me any ;-) Hey, I can even have enough money to buy medicine for my clinical depression and bipolar disorder, plus still have plenty of money left over for my balls... (golf balls) ;-) ;-) ;-)

PKK
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Neil

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 5:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Clyde,

I apologize if my post came across as deriding DDD. It was not my point. But they have been claiming that they have been working with Hollywood Studios for many years now, yet to date there has not been any feature movie that has come out of it. Also, read what George Lucas has said about his evaluation of all the other 2D-to-3D conversions he has seen.

I will not be addressing any patent issues here. Except to point out that those are the ones that have been issued so far.
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clyde

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Posted on Wednesday, April 06, 2005 - 7:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Peace out all !
I did finally read thru most of the patent text of In-Three.
It shows that a lot of manual work will be done on each scene in a movie and even on a frame by frame basis, so that can only be a good thing.

We'll all wait an see when the movie does come out. I know I for one will have twice the enjoyment watching it than lesser mortals sitting next to me in the cinema, cause i'll be on the
watchout for "window violations" heheh!
(almost sounds like a reason for an "R" rating!)

Cheers!
Clyde
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Andras Rakitai

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Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2005 - 6:12 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil,

I'm sorry I assumed you're a venture capital company. I guess I just don't know enough about your organization to make blanket statements. My bad! Also, I hope you don't take offense to my comments. I'm just trying to sort matters out, as it is.

I guess perhaps a lot of skepticism is being stirred up because we know so little about your operations. Could you perhaps share with us some information that is not deemed confidential?

Do you have anywhere we could go to see some copies of your company's PR and marketing literature. Some white papers perhaps?

I've been to your web site--www.in-three.com--but from a marketing prespective it looks less than inspiring. You have only a 25 sec flash clip and a solitary press release that launches automatically. It's not really a web site proper.

Anyhow, I hope I'm not coming off as a complete jerk. I'm just trying to sort things out...

Andy R.
arakitai@hotmail.com
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2005 - 2:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Andy,

I fully understand your skepticism.

As for the website we are well aware of its shortcomings. It is rather embarassing. But to be honest up until now we have not felt it was a high priority. We have not been seeking potential films or clients via the web. Regardless, our website will be updated soon.

We have placed all of our emphasis on what is displayed on the theatrical cinema screen. That remains our top priority.

More information will be forthcoming in time.

I do not think you are a complete jerk. I am sorry that our "story" sounds like the usual smoke and mirrors we all have heard before. There just doesn't seem to be a way to avoid that.

Just judge us by what you see Dimensionalized on the screen, not by our PR or anyone else's spin or hype.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2005 - 9:43 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Do you have any job openings? I would be very interested to get into this field. What would be the basic skills needed to "dimensionalize" a given scene?
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, April 07, 2005 - 10:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Do you live in the Los Angeles area?

You just need basic computer skills. Artistic skills will help but are not a pre-requisite.

If you are serious and you live in or around LA, email me directly.

NFeldman@In-Three.com
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Ramon Lamarca

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Posted on Monday, April 11, 2005 - 5:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I would like to say that I agree with what Cristoph Bungert says about shooting in 2-D and loosing information. Actually, I should not even say I agree since this is a proven fact. I have seen may stereoscopic films screened in pristine conditions, from three-strip Technicolor (a documentary about the river Thames produced for the Festival of Britain in the fifties) which was gorgeous; the BFI release of Kiss Me Kate, which shows how amazing 3-D can be when used properly; House of Wax; Dial M for Murder; even I the Jury, a bad film with very good stereoscopic cinematography. Perhaps one of the best examples of stereoscopic cinematography I have ever seen is the Imax production Across the Sea of Time.

There are many things to be taken into account if anyone wants to get 3-D into cinemas, but one of them is stereoscopic cinematography, a field which has been hardly practised for mainstream cinema but which is essential. And, of course, you can not get that from a 2-D originated film. A director of photography shouldn’t do the same when shooting a flat film or a stereoscopic film. Although this is common sense, the powers to be do not have common sense. They did not have common sense when they decided to create different ratios from the 35mm frame and thus producing awful hybrids for TV and cinemas from the same film. They did not have common sense when they blown up 35mm academy ratio films to be shown in 70mm ratio or even less sense when they coloured black and white pictures.

I do not trust film producers, we could have had amazing 65mm negative/70mm print quality in cinemas and they just decided to blow-up 35mm in many cases, since it was cheaper. We could have had polarised projection in single strip or dual projection but they did not bother with it either, too expensive they said. Now there are barely any good theatres left and we are left with awful multiplexes, which in many cases have got worse sound systems that many home cinema equipments.

I would like to see a dual 70mm polarised 3-D system with the brilliancy of dye transfer Technicolor prints for mainstream film releases. Imagine mixing the visual prowess of systems like Todd-AO, the contrast and colour quality of dye transfer Technicolor and the realism of polarised dual 3-D. That would certainly be a treat! And I would pay for it. Undeniably, film has got a different texture to digital and I certainly prefer film. And the best thing is that it would be a unique product for cinemas. Whatever cinemas decide to go for they need something unique, digital is also a domestic format whereas film isn’t. I have seen a digital presentation of Robin Hood and it looked dreadful, it was not a product of its time neither a product of the future. Cinema exhibitors should think on what they are selling and if there is a market for it. If they are selling something that can be experienced at home after 2 months of its theatrical release for much less money in similar conditions, it is obvious that they do not have any product to sell.

I wished we could have good stereoscopic cinematographers developing the art of stereoscopic photography for mainstream film productions, and this obviously requires recording two images (left and right eye) when filming and making no compromises as to the end product. This idea of flat and 3-D versions of a flat film is nonsense and hopefully will get nowhere (and please note I am talking about the idea not about any specific company developing this idea)

Ramon Lamarca
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EJocys

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 2:16 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

First, I agree that it is possible to calculate 3D frames from 2D moving frames except if 2D frames are shot with non-moving camera (and we all know that a lot of movies cont ain scenes like this) and objects in scene is not simple figures (like Picasso painting or man sculpture). If camera is moving then to create 3D frames from 2D you need to generate missing information (example with coca-cola was good way to show "Why?") or if you can't then crop some frames from scene start and end.

But for me Neil looks as same as all these scam artists who flush other people with all this crap about their wonderful devices which performs miracles (all they want just some money). So, Neil, please give to us 3 screenshots (2D image, converted 3D image, 3D image) not some bullshit PR e-mail.

[Quote] Neil: ...But being close-minded is just silly.

Yes, because not-silly in scammers dictionary means "credulous and open-minded as babe in the woods". :)

[Quote] Neil: We are a private company and have no plans to go public.

Now you need to tell us that your company works on some very secret military projects for government (so we all here will be spell bounded). :)

Man you just following all "Scam Bible" rules. :)

And you have a right to be offended, because these comments were supposed to be offensive! Because for me you look like a scammer and I think you deserve to be offended. :)

P.S.: My English is not native but I hope you will understand.
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EJocys

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 2:28 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

And don’t give us some "3D left or right" image as original "2D" image, please :)
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 3:04 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Ejocys,

I don't own any Scam Bible.

Sorry if I offended you, but why should I care what you think?

I care what George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenburg, Kathleen Kennedy, Peter Jackson, Joel Silver, Tom Cruise, Randal Kleiser, top executives at Sony, Disney, Paramount, Universal, MGM, Fox and many, many others, think. I care about what over 2000 attendees who saw our demo at ShoWest 2005, think.

At this point they all know exactly what I know: Dimensionalization works. And I can not ever be offended by you or anyone else because I am not running any sort of scam. I stand by the facts.

Don't you get it yet? We would not have allowed to publicly show ANY material at ShoWest from either Fox, Paramount, or Disney (especially Disney!) if they did not approve of our work.
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M.H.

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 6:11 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil:
I was super-sceptical about your process ...
Until I had studied all your patents ...
After this I had started to be a bit more optimistic.
The patents are realy a nice sumarization of all the semi/automatic + manual work neccesary to do the conversion ...

Why do you not want to do the most simple thing suggested already by me and others:
Make availabe sample result of your proces for analysis. You can use some non-copyrighted material ... The principles of the method are public in the patents - no need to hide anything.
Can you tell us why do you not want to public samples ? I thing a nice public 3D thriler can help to get more publicity for your company ...
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Allan Silliphant

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 7:50 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I think the first thing that has to be addressed with 3d movies is a practical projection format.
Digital theaters that are truly good are 6 years
away. Think how crappy the pre-show digital
ad projection is where they have it. Pi-- Poor
color, contrast, sharpness. It will take perhaps
3K images to make it fly.
I have, on the other hand a practical idea, and I'm getting on a plane to China on Sunday to make it happen. We are pushing the idea of 6 perf 35mm
projection for all big "A" movies, including polarized 3D. The format is based on Cinerama's
old pulldown scheme...6 perfs. This give you up to 1.7 times the area of a split 4 perf frame.
My old company, with Chris Condon, developed the
Stereovision system for 4 perf. but it sucks!
With 6 perf you get brightness, clarity, and
less burning of the polarizers. The format even works for anaglyph, because of the huge increase in light levels. You can even show Imax flat movies in the familiar Square format, for say,
180 people at a time...a mini-imax venue.We
know that Warners is experimenting with 35mm for
3D release of Polar Express, and with digital as
well. I'm going to mainland China twice in the next few weeks to try to get a company to make
a few conversion kits for popular projectors,
like Century's and Super-Simplexes. If Polar did 46 million in just 72 IMAX theaters, 200 to 300
of these cheapy kits could coin money for Warners.
R. Rodrigez would do well to try our approach
with "Shark Boy & Lava Girl". If all else fails I'll go back into making movies in 3D! We are going to place about 100,000 plastic glasses of a new formula in theaters this summer, along with nice clip-ons for people who wear glasses. They'll
be just 3 bucks at a few hundred of the theaters!
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 1:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

M.H.

Look, we are in production on the world's first Dimensionalized full feature film.

I promise you will all have a chance to see our work when that is released, if not sooner.

But we are under strict contractural constraints as to both what we show and when and where we show it.

That is the way it is right now. Sorry.
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 1:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Sillyphant,

"Digital theaters that are truly good are 6 years
away."

Read yesterday's Hollywood Reporter, among other trade coverage.

The Digital Cinema roll-out will begin in earnest by the end of the year, perhaps even sooner.

That was what ShoWest was all about.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 4:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil, as i have said,i am very excited about your system and its adoption by such giants of the motion picture industry as George Lucas, James Camron,Steven Speilburg ,Peter Jackson and others. because of the red hot booming home theater,home DVD market, the movie theater industry needs to get people back into the movie houses and soon as they are quickly loseing there audience to home theaters and the DVD. i agree with you, 3d versions of the great box office hits like StarWars, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Blade Runner etc. will boom 3d, the movie theater industry, and get the couch potatoes up out of there houses, and into there local theaters to see these movies again in 3d.i hope the theater owners get it and go digital, right quick. i sure can't wait, to see these movies again and in 3d!!!!!!!!!!!WOW!!!!!!!keep up the good work Neil
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 11:06 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###I care what George Lucas, Rick McCallum, Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenburg, Kathleen Kennedy, Peter Jackson, Joel Silver, Tom Cruise, Randal Kleiser, top executives at Sony, Disney, Paramount, Universal, MGM, Fox and many, many others, think. I care about what over 2000 attendees who saw our demo at ShoWest 2005, think.
At this point they all know exactly what I know: Dimensionalization works.###

I do assume that your material is quite impressing, but this 'celebrities-argument' is a bit strange.

How much experience do these people have with stereoscopy? How would these people react to a fake-parallax pseudo-3D-image? How would they react to reversed stereo? How would they react to real-time converters? Statistically there's even a good chance that some of them are legaly stereo-blind.


Michael Starks wrote in "Stereoscopic Imaging Technology": "Except for a few persons who practice frequently with a wide variety of stereo displays and images, it is not possible to evaluate a stereo display system or image by casual examination."

Apart from that, what is the definition of "works"? Where's the benchmark?

Christoph
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, April 14, 2005 - 11:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Christoph,

Some of those fully accomplished film-makers cited by me (with the exception, perhaps, of Mr. Kleiser who did "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience" for Disney) may not be 3D "experts" at your particular level. So what?

Whether you care to admit it or not, we at In-Three are such experts.

Regardless, I am truly flabbergasted to see that you would seriously believe that these visionaries would ever allow their "sacred" material to be used by us (or anyone else) if they weren't completely satisfied with the final product that went to the screen.

So, by all means, go ahead and tell them that they are all wrong. Tell them that they couldn't possibly know what they are talking about. Tell them that they don't know anything about "good" 3D - or good movie making for that matter.

Tell them that you object to their obvious "casual examination" of their own work even if they actually did scrutinize each scene 100 or 500 times. You know better.

But why waste your rants on me? I don't count. After all, I am just a sleazy scammer.

While they are such poor deluded fools. It's quite obvious, isn't it? Only experts like you can be trusted to decide what "works" or not.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 2:04 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil,
It's understandable that you don't want to make available any work in process until officially released. So here is my suggestion:
Shoot a 2D Photo of any non-confidential, non-proprietary object or scene with a digital or 35 mm camera, dimensionalize it and post just this one frame (in 2D and 3D) for download.
If your process delivers what you claim it will definitely be much more credible than all the explainations and statements made so far.
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Neil

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 2:30 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Anonymous,

Thanks for your seemingly helpful suggestion, but it is quite clear that for us to do so would not really satisfy anyone on this board.

The point of what we are doing is to show that we can Dimensionalize complete scenes of MOVING IMAGES from well known 2D material that is known to have never been shot in 3D. For us to Dimensionalize a single frame or two of something not recognizable as such is pointless.

Regardless, we are not going to submit any of our work for scrutiny to this or any other board at this time.

If that means we are judged to be not credible, so be it.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 2:47 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil,
I really don't understand your last comment. I'd rather see a single frame than nothing or, if you prefer, a 10 sec digital video sequence. I believe others in the forum would appreciate such a mini demo as well. Also, a little further up you stated:

"I care about what over 2000 attendees who saw our demo at ShoWest 2005, think"

In other words, there are at least 2000 people who have seen it. So your work is at minimum semi-public, and your patents are fully public.

Unless you would say that you are technically not quite there and need more time to eliminate certain bugs or quality problems, I can't understand why you make people curious and then just walk away (certainly not a good marketing approach).
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clyde

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 11:45 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

lol.. actually anonymous.. its a very "good marketing approach" .
You see... without so much as a single frame of conversion being displayed (copyrighted material or otherwise), they've managed to get the whole "expert" 3d community curious and Dying for more info.

What more could an entity want? In-three has become a household name at least in the tiny stereoscopic community WITHOUT any proof of concept.

No-offense neil, I did go thru the patents, yes they are processes well know, and WILL work. but really to shut everyone else up why not post a non copyrighted 10 seconder.
..unless, the animation team is still not upto speed etc..
Reminds me of when 2d-3d was first demonstrated a few yrs ago ..
The BEST WAY to get attention was in the movie demos one chose.

Heres an experiment ... take the VFX box and pass the first 2 or 3 minutes of the movie "cliff hanger" thru it.. Viola! even the most die-hard "non-expert" will say its a miracle.

Folow that up with clips from the Matrix, lordof the rings and Vertical limits.

For the rest of the people... the Vfx box does almost ALL of the processes outlined in the patents of In-Three.
..mapping scene geometery on Spheres, cones, Bulges, Pulfrich and direction guesstimation and semi-automatic object segmentation.

So start of with a clean scene in a movie, rotoscope out any "main" subjects and pass the remainer of the scene thru the vfx box.
Then Composite back the rotoscoped main subject after stretching its dimensions a bit and offsetting it, add negative parallax to taste :)

now garnish it frame by frame to perfection in a painting software, all the little touch ups and trifles is what will add the wow factor..
Remember trifles make perfection ;)

Oh yeah the vfx only takes composite or svhs footage, so you cant really make a 2K res output with it, maybe someday when im out of NDA i'll lend the software plugins ;)

On the hollywood experts... They BOMBED thoroughly on porting movies to DVD in anaglyph.
Even as recently as SpyKids and Shrek 3d . there's horrid retinal rivalry in colors. if they did have "experts" on their advisory panel, they would have know of the new ways to do anaglyph processing.


**sigh***
Clyde
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Neil

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 1:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Clyde,

If the VFX box does everything that we do then why hasn't anyone in Hollywood embraced it?

Because it doesn't work and they all know it.

If you are an "expert" then you would know how ridiculous it is for you to state: "take the VFX box and pass the first 2 or 3 minutes of the movie "cliff hanger" thru it.. Viola! even the most die-hard "non-expert" will say its a miracle."

If the VFX Box or any of the other products like it are to be the benchmark of "good" 2D-to-3D conversion than it is totally hopeless.

"In-three has become a household name at least in the tiny stereoscopic community ...WITHOUT any proof of concept."

More nonsense. We have been quietly "proving our concept" to the top Hollywood Studios and Producers for almost 2 years now.

My apologies if we didn't try to first prove it to "experts" like you.

It is getting tiresome to keep repeating myself here. I am not here to get your or anyone's approval on this board or anyone's blind assesment of our work without having seen it.

I can assure you that you get plenty of opportunity to judge our process at the appropriate point in time.
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Neil

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 1:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Anonymous,

"Unless you would say that you are technically not quite there and need more time to eliminate certain bugs or quality problems,"

Our process is perfected. There are no bugs or quality issues preventing us from going forward. If there were no one in the Studio system would be endorsing our work.

"I can't understand why you make people curious and then just walk away (certainly not a good marketing approach)."

I am not walking away.

Our only "marketing approach" is to put impressive Dimensionalized 3D images on the screen that will enhance the movie-going experience and don't cause eye-fatigue or headaches.

After we do that audiences will demand more and more of the same. Most who have seen it always do.
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VRJUNKIE

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 3:53 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil,

I have been up to now quietly following this thread...

For the life of me I couldn't understand the extreme negativity expressed to you from some on this board (especially from Christoph). I thought some here may have just a tad overestimated their influence/expertise... I for one, will withold my judgement.

That said, I do have to wonder what you are trying to accomplish...

It should be rather obvious now that you have found yourself in a VERY skeptical environment - What an understatement!

I now wonder what motivates you to still respond to these people? If you have the industry insiders "on the hook" why torture yourself responding to this niche market of rude skeptics?

It should now be obvious that only a sample is going to change any minds here.

I join the other calls here for a sample. For the following reasons:
- The patents are public
- The material has been shown somewhat publically
- You calim it's perfected
- You claim seeing is believing

Since most here are already nay sayers, what have you got to loose?


In an earlier post, you calimed you had other priorities/too busy etc... Well, you obviously have the time to respond to all these postings... Wouln't it be more "productive" to win over some "converts"???

I can't believe you don't already have some frames of something you could just put on-line.

You have nothing to loose (we are already skeptics) and everything to gain!

Excuse my own rudness, but - it's time to "put up" or "shut up".

-VRJUNKIE





I hope you are for real.
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Neil

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 4:31 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

VRJunkie,

You know, you are quite right.

Its really is time for me to "shut up."

At least for now.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 7:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

i to am amazed at the attacks on Neil, by the self proclaimed "3d experts" on this board. i am sure when Niel's 3d product is show in the form of a blockbuster movie we all will run,like movie fans everywhere, to see it in 3d. that will be all the proof we need to see. the marketplace will make or break this new 3d conversion of big hit movies. not our opinions on this self absorbed board,the box office,and ticket sales,will show weather the public buys it. my belief, is that Neil will have a big winner. it will be great for movies ,and great for 3d.......keep up the good work Neil!!!!!!
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Clyde

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Posted on Friday, April 15, 2005 - 8:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

JEEEZUS H CHRIST!
I was really with neil on this, But im getting the feeling he dosnt take time to read thru a post for its merit..
Neil, simply quoting me sentence by sentence out of context wont do.
I never said Im an Expert.. I just use the same tools that are at your disposal.
Frankly, what amazes me is that you have managed patents that are based on prior art and also have been awarded to others.
I'll spell it out..
I HAVE software versions of the VFX box that work in compositing software like Aftereffects, premier , combustion, Mokey and more and address a scene frame by frame for detail.

The processes you outline are already what the software is based on.
The difference is, Im not using this actively to convert films, I use them as just "one" stage in a process for creating Autostereoscopic content.
So again while you are creating one eye content I create conetnt taht needs & additional inbetween views.
and again, Im NO expert.
But believe me there are other experts on these boards.

No, Im not going to ask for a sample again, that would be useless as I said before, I KNOW YOUR METHOD will work and give good results, cause its using the same processes that DO make 2d-3d "workable".

I will digress here, unless something worthwile catches my eye :)
Cheers
Clyde
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2005 - 10:10 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil,

your interpretation of what I wrote recently is pretty rude.

I didn't say that everybody in your test-audience is wrong. I never called anybody a fool. I never called you a scammer. I didn't say that I know better. Actually I also never said that your process doesn't work in general. I didn't even say it's neccessarily bad - did I?

I just have a problem with your over-the-top better-than-real-3D-shots statements (see below), which at least would require some more explanation from your side.
I start to understand that you take a consumer point of view in a sense of 'it looks better' or 'it feels better' rather than it 'IS' better in a physical, theoretical sense. For example a real 3D-shot can easily contain elements which cause eyestrain, while in an artificial stereo pair you have control over all parameters and can avoid this.
However I think a proper, real 3D-shot should be the benchmark, not something artificial, which contains less genuine information.

You offered the reaction of your audience as a good proof of concept and quality. All I tried to express was that I think the reaction of a general, unprepared audience to some demos is usually not a reliable benchmark for stereo-quality. This doesn't imply that the audience is neccessarily wrong or your process is neccessarily bad.

In the last 10 years I saw too many weird things, like rave reviews by 'experts' for 3D-products which didn't quite work. Stereo photographers with years of experience fooled by simple fake-parallax stereo on a computer screen. People with some experience in stereo, playing a computer-game in reverse-stereo. People describing a flat 2D-HDTV demonstration as 'somehow 3-dimensional'. And even the other way around crops of people walking away from a real 3D-movie totally unimpressed. Evaluating stereo-content is difficult for anyone, including myself.

BTW I have no problem with you not publishing any material. Showing stuff to an audience which isn't able to record and spread it is one thing, but letting it loose on the net is another.

Some believe I'm too negative here. I don't agree since I'm just raising some legitimate arguments and questions. What I missed in this discussion are not samples of your work, but some rational arguments and answers.

Even if I'm really overly negative, this is a reaction to you being overly positive.
If I may I'd like to repeat some of your statements here, which define the standards you are judged on:

"What we have done is to make 3D a complete post-production process."

"What we are not only telling - but showing(!) producers is that they do not have to shot 3D using dual-cameras at all. They do not have to do anything special. Yes, we certainly do it all in Post. That is the beauty of it."

"We simply create the right eye "information" as if there had been a second camera capturing it on the set it all along..."

"Our 3D material actually looks better than anything shot dual camera - if only because there is no eye-fatigue causing vertical anomilies at all. There are many other reasons as well."

"Our stuff had to be better than anything ever seen before. Better than the best 3D ever shot or created."

And from the In-Three press release:

"...filmmakers now have a powerful new tool at their disposal and no longer have to concern themselves with the inherent complexities and difficulties of having to shoot in 3D with traditional dual camera systems."

“Our process is a high quality depth-restoration process that results in 100% authentic 3D."


Christoph
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Ramon Lamarca

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Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2005 - 11:47 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

It seems that not many people in this forum are keen on talking about a very important aspect, which is stereoscopic cinematography. As I said earlier, in my previous post, academy ratio films were cropped and inflated to 70mm to give a widescreen ratio, but the films had not been filmed to be shown this way. It is very important to get the opinion of cinematographers and develop stereoscopic photography, and obviously for this it is necessary to record two images (left and right eye). By leaving the stereoscopic element to the post production guys, the artistic merits of the film are compromised and I wonder any serious film directors or directors of photography would be interested.

We should make a difference between those who are more interested in the theme parks thrills and those who want to produce a serious and consistent product for the film industry (both interests are legitimate but different!). As always, there shouldn't be a unique solution, not all the films have to be stereoscopic, not all the films have to have the same ratio, not all the films have to be in colour, ... And I am sure Neil's technology could be used along with stereoscopic photography in post-production to produce a better result. Although from any company's (like Neil's) point of view it is better to get the whole cake, from the audience point of view it may be better if they only get a piece of the cake, and they will still make money.

I am very interested in what Allan Silliphant says about his project. Anything that helps to use more negative area is good, but I would like to ask him how are they going to create a widescreen image if necessary, by using anamorphic lenses? and how about using systems that use 65mm gauge like Super Dimension 70 to give the widescreen ratio, eliminate the use of anamorphic lenses (and hence loss of light) and gain on sharpness on a single strip polarised system?

I think that a comeback of 3-D should be spotless with consistency, good production values and good stereoscopic photography, whilst there are still some theatres open! and please use film, digital so far is cold and lacks resolution. I would not bother with digital until they get the 70mm resolution. I have lived in two important cities, London and Barcelona, and I have seen the continuos closure of many, many cinemas. Let's hope that a good solution is found to bring audiences back.

Ramon Lamarca
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2005 - 12:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

There's always room for improvement :-)
Whether or not a convincing, "well done" conversion from 2D to 3D is accomplished or not is actually irrelevant to what usually is to blame for "poor stereoscopic movies".
Until people learn how to perfect "all the other things", we will just see more and more "poor" stereoscopic movies, no matter how they are initially created.
I have posted these things that have to be dealt with to make a great stereoscopic movie under the header "What Hollywood Needs To Learn About Stereoscopic Moviemaking" in the "3D Movies & Video" section. The only thing that shouldn't apply to 2D to 3D conversions is #2, because there should not be any reason to "toe-in a camera" during a 2D to 3D conversion... although, hey, you never know how many ways people can mess up stereoscopic movies ;-)

1) Control the Stereoscopic Depth.
2) Do Not Toe-in the Cameras.
3) Adjust the Parallax in Digital Post Production.
4) Eliminate or Reduce Ghosting for "Ghosted Environments".
5) Do Not Abandon the Red/Cyan Color Anaglyph.

Over in that thread, someone posted an additional one,
>6) Avoid collisions with stereowindow border (Please)!<
but the reason I did not include that is it is totally dependent on how #4 is handled. If you can totally eliminate ghosting in the viewing environment, such as in an IMAX theater with active glasses, you can strictly control the stereo window and avoid window violations ("collisions with stereowindow border"), but if you animate the horizontal parallax to reduce or eliminate ghosting, like I do, you can introduce window violations in the process. The good news is a window violation is strictly defined by the edges of the image. I have experimented with using a thin, fuzzy border that virtually "makes the edges of the image 'undefinable'", and it really does work well to reduce or even eliminate the effects of window violations. Also, it is no coincidence that strictly controlling the stereoscopic depth has a huge influence on ghosting. I am trying to _never_ exceed 1/30th of the image width of deviation (stereoscopic depth), and that is nothing short of a "miraculous cure" for stereoscopy, for a number of reasons, including ghosting.
I won't preach about how to make a great anaglyph, here... you can look at my previous posts about that, but it is _not_ a walk in the park, and it takes an anaglyph artist that knows what they are doing that can remove all the retinal rivalry, de-ghost and come up with something with great looking colors, etc (I've never seen one good commercial release, yet :-).
Probably the other really important thing people need to know is that animating the horizontal parallax is something that cannot be done during production... all you can do during production is set the stereo base or animate it... horizontal parallax adjustment and animation _has to be done_ during post production. Also, one thing leads to another, here, "all things are related" and for example, my de-ghosting method can introduce eye divergence on "larger" screens, but if you successfully manage the stereoscopic depth to begin with, realigning the horizontal parallax is as simple as shifting the entire movie with one "global" setting and re-masking the window... actually the original project files should be "mounted to infinity" to begin with, as long as there was no toe-in, so that render could be used for larger screens, anyway, and the other projects files with the animated parallax for ghosting removal or reduction should be used for all other smaller formats (e.g., home theater DVD's or "small screen projection", depending on distance to near seats, etc...).
Stereoscopic movie making is a very complex thing... if you want to do them well. How many great 3D movies have you seen? I've only seen one, so far, and that was Polar Express, but I am quite sure I can find some flaws in that one, too, and I did watch it in a "ghost-free" environment :-)

--
P. K. Kid
Stereoscopic 3D images and movie clips (all G-rated):
http://www.puppetkites.net
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Ramon Lamarca

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Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2005 - 2:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I have seen several examples of good stereoscopic photography, Distant Thames (1951 dual 35mm three strip technicolor cameras) being one of them. I have enjoyed very much Kiss Me Kate and the use of stereoscopic photography George Sidney and Charles Rosher made. House of Wax in dual 35mm screening is also great. Across the Sea of time (albeit with ghosting) is great too. And I, The Jury, albeit an awful film, has got very nice shots by John Alton. I think Allan Silliphant has got a good idea in that keeping their projection systems would be great for cinema exhibitors. Although 70mm projectors are far better and would give better results, there aren't that many left. Maybe some 70mm release prints could be done for main cities.

Digital is a huge investment for many ailing companies. If cinema exhibitors only need to change their screens and modify a little their projection systems to get a far superior product this would be great. Using more negative area should help to solve many problems and give more quality image to audiences. As I said, I am interested to know how they would produce the widescreen ratio. I suppose that achieving a ratio of 2.20:1 would be the best bet since many cinemas are designed nowadays for the 1.81:1 ratio.

This project could also get the interest of the photographic stock companies which could see a way of not getting out of business by digital. I wonder also if Technicolor would bring back their dye transfer system, which was developed for Cinerama 35mm (six perf. system) as well, and hence would suit this system, bringing back their glorious tones, which have not been yet surpassed.

3-D television looks like a more difficult thing. People may get used to polarised glasses for 2 hours of film but not for everyday television, I think! Hence the added effect of depth could help also to distinguish between cinema releases and television, something which undoubtely would help exhibitors.

In any case, I hope projects like the one mentioned by Allan Silliphant go ahead. There are probably many exhibitors in the world (i.e. India, which is one of the countries where cinema is still a great business) which could not afford converting to digital. Moreover, in India they like their huge, big screens, and to get a digital projector to fill them may prove difficult. And so I would encourage people who want to try stereoscopic systems film-based to consider this markets as well. There may be also cinematographers, film directors, producers and exhibitors who would may be happy to have this option.

I also hope that all the knowledge in stereoscopic photography from people who know what stereoscopic photography implies is considered. Most importantly, good technologies and special effects are the ones which do not distract from the main narrative of the film. To find this perfect blend of the artistic elements in a film is difficult, but stereoscopic photography could certainly enhance the film experience.

I do not think that very exclusive and expensive products are going to help at all the ailing film exhibition industry. What is necessary is a good system that delivers better things with little investment. Then if cinemas recoup business more investments can be implemented. Most certainly, film stock companies and film projector companies as well as existing labs would be more than happy to help a project like the one proposed by Mr Silliphant.

Ramon Lamarca
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Saturday, April 16, 2005 - 5:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

"3D TV" is not much of a problem at all. All we need is content. People do not have to watch it all day, every day. Give me one or two "channels" of it and I will be happy :-)
"3D interlaced TV" is very possible right now with interlaced 3D for shutterglasses and "good" interlaced anaglyphs, as long as the scan rate is doubled and the flicker removed on the user end.
"3D Digital TV" is very possible right now with autostereoscopic monitors or "good" progressive anaglyphs.
"Mainstream" cable TV may never broadcast stereo 3D, but broadband internet sure can, from anyone, anywhere (you can even go to my site and do it right now ;-) ;-) ;-)
I am reading this, right now, as we speak, on my LCD TV, "straight off the internet" :-)
People need to be educated about how to connect the tools, cables, etc, and told "what to do when" or what the options are for viewing tools, but that's not too difficult to explain.

--
P. K. Kid
Stereoscopic 3D images and movie clips (all G-rated):
http://www.puppetkites.net
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Vasily Ezhov

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Posted on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 12:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Dear friends,

Almost all of modern movies are combination (synthesis) of natural (documentary, physically presented) and artificial (computer-generated) scenes. Process of combination of true 3DStereo natural scenes with true 3DStereo artifical scenes can be essentially more cumbersome task (for operators-programmers of PC or working stations) in compare with 3DStereo conversion of integral 2D movie. In both cases there is a lot of manual art work, but the 2D-3DStereo conversion it seems to be performed simpler because it is enough here to make only the second artificial 2D view, handling with already matched (in 2D space) natural and artificial 2D objects, so here it can be only ONE STEP work for skilled operator. But editing and joining together true 3DStereo natural and artificial scenes leads ALWAYS to MULTI STEP work: one step is creating (by computer) primary 3DStereo virtual scene, another step is first probe of matching all 3DStereo objects of natural scene in 3D (!) space with corresponding objects of artificial scene, third step is the second generation of improved 3DStereo scene with better matching and so on...

Another reason - The 2D-3DStereo convertion don't require from programmer the skill of art cinema producer, it is more formal work (can be used by any skilled programmer-painter who has good perception of 3DStereo and so can succesfully ditribute all objects in depth without help from anyone).

The matching of artifical 3DStereo scene with 3DStereo natural scene (in case of employing true 3D shooting) is not work only for programmer - it is work for cinema art producer (Lucas, Cameron...) , so in this case producers will be forced in a hurry to learn art edition of 3DStereo pictures frame-by-frame. Nobody of famous producers wants to do it - they already created a majority of their best movies in 2D and want to give them new life in 3DStereo.
May be, in future (in case of success of today's 3DStereo boom in cinema) joung cinema producers will learn in university the skill of shooting true 3DStereo movies and 3DStereo editing them in combination of artificial scenes so they will be able to make true 3DStereo movies at the level of art of Lucas's, Cameron's 2D movies.

Vasily Ezhov.
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Ramon Lamarca

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Posted on Monday, April 18, 2005 - 4:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

This is very interesting, although it is sad that new technologies are making dual stereoscopic photography more difficult instead of easier!!! And please, note I am talking about photography and not postproduction treatment of images.

Many films nowadays use digital extras (i.e. the soldiers in battle scenes), digital backgrounds, digital objects, … and so the photography of reality is very little compared to the digital drawing which will end up in the film. In the majority of the cases this is for economic reasons, it is cheaper to draw thousands of soldiers than to pay the extras, or to create a background instead of filming in location, which is also mainly to save money. I have read many articles from film critics and also from audiences saying that they are fed up with the abuse of digitalised cartoons in films nowadays.

I appreciate than when 70% of the film is created by animators using computers, there is no point in bothering about registering the right and left eye for the few shots there are of real people or objects. But I also value that there are many of us who are tired of this abuse of digital and would rather have films with real people, real backgrounds, real objects and real stereoscopic photography. Let me put an example of a crowd pleaser film like Out of Africa, films like this one would certainly benefit from stereoscopic photography.

It would be good to create a label for “organic” cinema as opposed to “synthetic” cinema for those of us who would like to avoid an overdose of digital manipulation. Sorry, I know I may be reaching the borders of being demagogic here but I hope you get the gist!

Ramon Lamarca
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SBC

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Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 12:59 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Neil, some here have NO IDEA.

I would withhold the sample here, and just finish getting the team together. If the great "Flanneled One" is behind it, then I know it's cutting edge.

It's too bad only a few peeps here could offer support to your company that is DOING something to speed up the advances in 21st Century entertainment.

I'll buy the first ticket!

-Cheers
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Ramon Lamarca

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Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 10:40 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

There is a very interesting question that journalists should put through George Lucas and/or Steven Spielberg, who both admire Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 - A Space Odyssey.

The question is:

- If you had the rights for 2001 - A Space Odyssey, would you re-release it dimensionalizated?

I am almost certain that both Lucas and Spielberg would answer “NO”.

You can guess the reasons for this hypothetical answer, but it is obvious that no one who calls himself an artist would dare to touch the work of another artist, especially if it is an acknowledged masterpiece as 2001 – A Space Odyssey.

And I fear that producers without any artistic talent will start the dimensionalization of films meant to be shown flat, and this is ignorant to say the least. Finished works of art should not be altered without their creator’s consent.

Ramon Lamarca
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Anonymous

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Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 3:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hypothetical questions always have hypothetical answers...

Lucas and Spielberg could just as easily say YES.

Every work of art is altered in some way, whether its restoration work on the Mona Lisa, or the Last Supper, or the rebuilding of historic monuments...or fixing a tear or rebuilding a classic car...

As for film...well I have never seen 2001 as it was intented as I've seen it on TV and DVD but not in theatre...and even then if you see it in a theatre it depends on the screen, projection equipment etc as to whether you see it as the director intended.

Can't we all stop grandstanding here.

We'll see this mans work eventually.
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Ramon Lamarca

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Posted on Tuesday, April 19, 2005 - 4:55 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I did not pretend to grandstand. 2001 was intended to be shown in 70mm and I have seen it in that way twice and it’s great. You are missing a lot if you see it on TV and even more if instead of a letterboxed version you see one of these awful pan and scan versions, which producers liked so much in the past when releasing versions for TV and video.

Kubrick was very strict with the way his films were presented, to the point as to even ask for the walls of a cinema to be painted using the colour he wanted! He was very strict also with the video releases of his films (pay attention at the two ratios of Dr Strangelove in the DVD edition) the same two ratios he employed for the film release.

Restorations should preserve the work as close as possible as intended, this is a basic principle.

It is a pity that films cannot be enjoyed as they were intended but we should not make things worse if possible.

As I said, I do not pretend to grandstand. I just want to share opinions about this fascinating subject.

I haven’t seen any original stereoscopic film in its “flat” version (I do not want to). I am lucky enough and in London we get many polarised screenings. For the same reason I wouldn’t see a flat film with added depth as I would not see an anamorphic film in pan and scan, as I wouldn’t see a silent film with added voiceover, as I wouldn’t see a black and white film with added colours. But believe me, there are many people who think differently from me and producers know this.

Many people in the film industry fight for the preservation of the original creations as they were meant to be seen, and I think this point should be reflected in this debate.

In any case the main concern remains on new productions and the opinion of film directors and directors of photography.

Ramon Lamarca
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 3:56 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hey

sorry Ramon.

Just pointing out that artistic purity is as fluid as anything else.

Kubrick has never been to my house and he never insisted that I paint my walls when I watched the BBCs mangled for TV version...

The negativeness and aggression of fellow posters here is outstanding.

What gives anyone here the right to demand to see someones work before they are ready to show it?

Absolutley bizzare.

Ho hum time will tell....bit like waiting for an updated Nvidia stereo driver...
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Ramon Lamarca

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Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2005 - 5:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Dear anonymous,

I have no objection to any artist using the devices he or she wants. I can, however, decide if I would see a product based on what it does, i.e. I will not see a black and white film with added colours. Hence I would not see a film designed to be shown flat with added depth.

I just like to see things as they were produced, as far as I can of course. Kubrick demands were extreme and there were plenty of them, he even had inspectors going to the screenings of Barry Lindon to make sure his desired ratio for the film was applied. By the way, I have read that Kubrick battled a lot with the BBC for the first television screening of 2001 since they did not want to show it letterboxed, in the end they reached an “agreement” to show the “space scenes” in letterbox with added painted stars on the black frames!!!!

Another question is if I would see a film shot flat but with the intention to be shown with added depth. I do not have the answer to it yet since I would have to see examples of it.

I like the work of directors of photography in academy ratio, in VistaVision, in anamorphic, in 70mm, in 3-D, in three-strip Cinerama, … In that sense I would like to see the art of stereoscopic photography evolve.

And the opinion of directors of photography is essentially important in the use of any new technology. Regardless of the producers’ intention, if good directors of photography do not like to work with dimension added to their work, the product will lose a lot of credibility.

R L

PS If ever you have the chance, see 2001 in 70mm!
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 1:13 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

sorry Ramon, the directors Lucas,Speilburg,Cameron,Jackson etc......WANT TO, USE THIS NEW 2D-3D Technology, on there great movies!!!!!!! unlike, the truly awful , 1970s "colorizing" technology, done with low tech computers,by poorly trained inturns, that Ted (mouth of the south)Turner used so he could show these old movies on his cable stations. by the way, Turner did this without the approval of the directors. he claimed he owned the movies, and could do what he wanted with them.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 1:46 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I've been following this story for a little while now, and it seems like it has long reached a stalemate, but both sides are still yelling over the fence. I had one question though. When this demo was held at ... let me scroll all the way up here..... 'showest', what equipment was used to show the movies? Was it still shutterglass technology, or autostereo? I do have one stereoscopic player on my PC that does work somewhat in converting 2d to 3d. It will be interesting to see if your technique is better. Anyway, I did a google search on in-three to see what your company was about, and...it's nowhere to be found. I found some sites about you though,
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Nhv1Q3NbtEQJ:www.worldenteractive.com/auffret.htm+%22neil+feldman%22+in-three&hl=en
and
http://www.videopost.com/pages/neil.html
Is that the same guy?
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Scott Warren

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Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 2:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Yes
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Neil

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Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 6:46 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Dear Anonymous,

Yes, that is me. I am the President & Owner of Video Post & Transfer, a leading edge post facility located in Dallas, Texas. Video Post was founded in 1980. I am also the Vice-President of In-Three. Michael Kaye is the President and CEO of In-Three. He is also the inventor of our Dimensionalization process.

ShoWest is the main conference/convention for the theater owners around the world. It used to be put on by NATO - the National Association of Theater Owners, but it is now put on by VNU (which also owns the Hollywood Reporter, among other properties).

The demo at ShoWest consisted of a standard (off the shelf) Christie 2K CP-2000 DLP D-Cinema projector; a standard (off the shelf) QuVis Accuity dual-stream server; and shutter glasses (a combination of new prototype wireless active LCD shutter-glasses and some of NuVision's standard LCD shutter-glasses.

The screen was just the standard white matte screen found in the Theatre Des Artes in the Paris Hotel.

Image projected by the single projector was 48-feet wide.
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SBC

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Posted on Thursday, April 21, 2005 - 7:08 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I can hear the jaws' dropping through out the Boards.

Hope Vegas was fun Neil. ;)
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 22, 2005 - 8:20 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

rofl! sbc .. your too much.
did you get the job at in-three yet?
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Friday, April 22, 2005 - 10:38 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

###WANT TO, USE THIS NEW 2D-3D Technology, on there great movies!!!!!!! unlike, the truly awful , 1970s "colorizing" technology, done with low tech computers,by poorly trained inturns,###

You are confusing the recording and the playback side of stereo-movies.
The movies of the 70's are anaglyph copies of true 3D-footage from the 50's. They are not 'done' - they are for real. No computers involved. No colorizing involved, just color filters in producing the anaglyph copy.

Christoph
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Friday, April 22, 2005 - 11:27 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Oh, you're talking about colorizing b/w movies!?
But I think this started in the late 80's, not 70's.

Christoph
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sbc

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Posted on Friday, April 22, 2005 - 6:24 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Anon, (you guys really should put SOMETHING in the username field),

I don't live near the L.A. area, or else I might consider a vocational change. As you can probably tell by my tag, I'm in the telecom-data field...and am very happy. :)

I honestly thought the next level of visual entertainment would've been the projected hologram. Kinda like a table top TV. If anyone remembers a video game back in the 80's, there was a holographic proof of concept back then, but it was never followed up, no backing. Neil's company does have backing and is still going to give us that effect of objects suspended in the movie space (hopefully coming over the audience as well) with a better method. So, I'm eager for it to be released.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 22, 2005 - 11:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

yes Christoph, i am talking about the colorization of BW movies. it was done in the 70s by Ted Turner to show old movies on his cable stations like TNT,TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES,etc.......it was done with 70s computer technology, and looked like airbrushing, very weak. today with high end computers,and modern software,every movie is " colorized" its called color correction.
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Saturday, April 23, 2005 - 2:50 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Can you name any movie which was colorized in the 70's? Although the first experiments with colorization seem to go back to the year 1970 (http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/colorization/colorization.htm) I doubt they colorized complete movies back then. I also doubt that computers were used from the beginning. Certain things can be done with analogue video technology, like tinting the whole image or translate a certain grey-level into a certain color.
The 'Ted-Turner-thing' seems to have started in 1986. At least I can't find any reference to the 70's.

Christoph
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Saturday, April 23, 2005 - 3:10 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

### been the projected hologram. Kinda like a table top TV. If anyone remembers a video game back in the 80's, there was a holographic proof of concept back then, ... Neil's company does have backing and is still going to give us that effect of objects ... with a better method. ###

sbc we should distinguish between the source-side and the playback-side.
On the source-side the things you saw in the 80's should have been native-stereo, while In-Three's service is mainly about non-native-stereo.
On the playback side they have no new method.

###hopefully coming over the audience as well###

I think In-Three promised low or even no eyestrain. This should limit the use of out-of-screen effects.

Christoph
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Henry Jarrod

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Posted on Tuesday, April 26, 2005 - 6:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

There are some questions regarding digital projection:

How many exhibitors will be able to afford the new digital projectors?

How much is it going to cost the exhibitors to maintain digital projectors?

When will cinema exhibitors need to upgrade the current digital projectors and how much will it cost them?

What if home digital projectors evolve (surely they will!) and cinema exhibitors cannot update their digital projectors and hence home screenings have better quality than cinema screenings?

Film projectors last for many years, can the same be said about digital projectors?

Film projectors are cheaper. The image quality achieved by 5/70mm projection has not yet been matched by digital projection.

These are issues that need solving.

Professor Henry Jarrod
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M.H.

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Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 10:50 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi Henry

I had absloved an very detailed dicusion rleated to your questions :

- All cinemas will be forced to buy digital equipment. The distribution of film-material is so non-economicla that the presure will be high.

- Film projectors are cheap, but the film material distribution + making copy + material degradation after playback is so expensive, that finaly the total price will go down.

- I am sure home projector will soon (if not now) have the quality of the cineam projectors. Thery is only one way how to avoid what you describe - high level of protection of the hi-resolution digital materilas. I am sure this will not work - what is digital will be always craked.

But this thoughs are related to 2D movies release ...

I see one big problem with using the same projector for 2D and 3D ... Light effciency.
From what I know an projector targeted to 2D can not have enought ANSI to produce good 3D projection (on full screen identical to 2D ) ...
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Henry Jarrod

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Posted on Wednesday, April 27, 2005 - 6:00 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi MH,

Distribution of film-material is obviously more expensive than digital files, but this expense is for the distributors not the exhibitors, and hence the exhibitors may as well say that they do not pay for it. There will be film prints for many years since there are many place in the world where digital won’t be an option for a long time.

I do not think anyone can force cinemas to show digital. Imagine an average multiplex with 10 projectors to replace. This is very, very expensive. And again, how much will it cost to repair these projectors? And who will pay for the added maintenance? Exhibitors shouldn’t pay. Why should they pay more, they are already having hard times getting people to see films. What’s more, in some cinemas they have shown digital files together with a 35mm print being run at the same time in case the “computer” crashes.

Have you seen a home cinema shop where they have several digital projectors showing the same film, together with big plasma televisions? The colours, contrast, sharpness, brightness, … look different in each brand, don’t they? Are digital projectors in different cinemas going to have the same problem and offer different images?

New 35mm prints do not degrade very much, especially now that new films last an average of 1 month in cinemas.

Certainly the consumer market is a much profitable market than the cinema exhibition market and no wonder producers of digital products will aim at this market, trying to offer the best product, even if it surpasses what cinema exhibitors can afford. For many years, slowly, many of the cinema characteristics have been incorporated to home cinema products, like Dolby digital, DTS, THX, … but they could not incorporate things like 35mm or 70mm and so digital projection is the best solution to equal both the TV and the cinema. Cinemas will show the DLP logo (for instance) which is already present in home cinema products. And you do not need to be very clever to guess how they will advertise their products: “Get the same image and sound experience you would get at the pictures at home” So, from the point of view of the exhibitors to use digital is really suicidal.

The light efficiency problem you mentioned can be solved (using film) by a larger negative area and a larger positive print, like 70mm, if I am not mistaken.

As I said, film exhibitors do not pay for the production of prints, so they shouldn’t have to invest more money for others to make the gain. Also what is expensive about keeping cinemas open nowadays is not the cost of the prints, the hire of the building plus the cost of staff and the fact that hardly anyone goes to the pictures during the weekdays is what makes it very, very expensive. If a fast food chain or a parking are going to give more money than exhibiting pictures this is what is going to determine the use of the building. This is the reason why so many cinemas have and are closing, because there are many businesses that are more lucrative than showing films.

I think it has already been said in this forum that cinemas need something special to show. Digital 2-D adds nothing to audiences (from what I have seen so far it detracts), and digital 3-D has to be seen. But, who is going to spend this huge amount of money in buying all the digital projectors and the added maintenance when the product is not yet available and there is no guarantee of continuity?

Cinema exhibition is in a very frail situation. Multiplexes saved cinema exhibitors in the 80s and 90s but nowadays no one wants to go to small cinemas with small screens. Big screens is what we need, but who is going to pay for them?

This is a very interesting subject and it involves much more than the re-release of Star-Wars with added digital depth!

Professor Henry Jarrod
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 1:16 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hi, there

i'd heard that good news about In-Three business. i'm very interested in In-Three's 2d to 3d conveting project. and i wish to success in there plan.

also, we have effective 2d to 3d converting software tool and some experiences of converting.
if you are interested in our movie(especially 2d to 3d converting movie), i can send some samples(movies:"mask", "matix", "starwars", "tarzan", "mission impossible", "juassic park", and "shurek" etc) each sample's unning time is less than 1 minute.
and i sure our 2d to 3d converting solution and experience are more effective an alternative technology for your projects.

if you watch our some smaples at the first time, i sure you are impressed.
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Nick Na

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Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 1:24 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hi, there

i'd heard that good news about In-Three business. i'm very interested in In-Three's 2d to 3d conveting project. and i wish to success in there plan.

also, we have effective 2d to 3d converting software tool and some experiences of converting.
if you are interested in our movie(especially 2d to 3d converting movie), i can send some samples(movies:"mask", "matix", "starwars", "tarzan", "mission impossible", "juassic park", and "shurek" etc) each sample's running time is less than 1 minute.
and i sure our 2d to 3d converting solution and experience are more effective an alternative technology for your projects.

if you watch our some smaples at the first time, i sure you are impressed.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 1:41 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Henry ,i am sure that theater owners and exhibitors will raise ticket prices to cover the costs of new digital projectors,and the showing of blockbusters in 3d , like StarWars, Raiders of the Lost Ark,Blade Runner, Alians,Lord of THE Rings etc, in this new 3d prosess, will,if it only draws a fraction of the millions upon millions of the fans of these movies......well, the money that this will generate world wide will be huge......
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sbc

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Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 4:31 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Nick, I am interested to see your samples.

My email is quantuminternet@hotmail.com or do you have a link where I can view these samples.

Kamsahamnida.
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clyde

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Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 6:21 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Nick .. send some my way too. clydd2004@yahoo.com
Thanks
(Pls send to the yahoo address as theres more storage space)

regards
Clyde
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Allan Silliphant

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Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 6:53 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I just finished doing a multi-media 3d slide show
for a very famous drug company. All the images
were stock flat stills. They were converted to
stereo, using some well know techniques. I'll share one of the basic tricks. You scale down the
original image by say 4%. You place the reduced images side by side. You then take middle ground,
or main subject elements, cut them out, with an outline tool, and plant a copy of each non-shrunk
subject in front of the miniaturized images, on both frames. You look at the images in cross view
and manually position the cutouts in a slightly
offset position. This simple approach would give you two planes. Clean Background and cutout of
the main subject set closer to the window. That
is one of perhaps 10 stages needed to create a
3D movie frame conversion. A curvature tool
could be manually applied to round out faces and bodies, or geometric elements. And so on...
The point is you eliminate camera lens distortion,
bad choices in spacing of the set elements, and
a world of artifacts that occur in stereo cinema
due to limitation of focal lengths and the tendency to have dual cameras be way too far
apart. Master shots could be shot in 3D, where
the camera is not close to a subject, and of course the green screen elements or CGI can all be rendered digitally. I think a mixed approach,
like shooting "plates" for special effects, will
be the way film are actually done in the future in 3D, not all 3D or all flat.
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Ramon Lamarca

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Posted on Thursday, April 28, 2005 - 9:52 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Dear Mr Silliphant,

Could you please tell us a bit more about your new 3-D system, the one which uses the 6 perforations pull down 35mm film?

Many thanks

Ramon Lamarca
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nick na

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 8:28 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hi' again.
i'm nick na.

let me show you our samples. and you can be downloaded our samples at the webpage that is serviced in english as well as korean.
if you want to get service in english, english button is lies to the top of right on the webpage.

url : www.webhard.co.kr
ID : ANOTHERWORLD1
P/W : 12345

there is the folder that is named by "2d to 3d"

enjoy our samples and give me some advice or some words of praise to us by e-mail.
e-mail address is nasmile@anotherworld.to

finally, thank you for your attention clyde and sbc.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 3:40 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

http://www.box3d.com/Sten.html
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 3:41 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

http://www.box3d.com/Galleryen.html
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Anonymous

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 3:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

http://www.box3d.com/Articlen/exampl.jpg
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sbc

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 5:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I am at work, so I cannot give an opinion yet, but I do want to thank you for the access to the files Nick. I am eager to leave work and check them all out!

Anyone else try them?? Leave us some impressions?

Neil, I'd be very interested in your opinion as well? Any similarity in quality?

Thanks again Nick...this board is getting VERY interesting!
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 8:27 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hello Nick,

Wow, your conversions are great. Actually, the best conversions I've ever seen. In my opinion, the most impressive one is Tarzan.

You you give us more details how you did it, which tools you used and how much time you spend on each frame/second?

A technical suggestion: When using over/under or side-by-side format instead of interlaced, you could reduce gosting introduced by the DivX codec and file size.

Peter
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clyde

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Posted on Friday, April 29, 2005 - 10:07 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi Nick,
Your welcome! if you've got praise from Peter, your conversions must be good.

I havent been able to download yr samples yet, as im on a slow speed connection.
any chance of putting smaller clips on the site?

Also if theres software that you use, and can be adapted for Autostereoscopic displays, im interetsed.
Cheers
Clyde
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sbc

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 5:17 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Well Gentlemen....we have arrived.

After watching all 9 clips, I am currently blown away. I believe Nick has a 3D conversion that RIVALS
an IMAX pure 3D movie. I watch IMAX 3D movies at least 3 times a year for the past 5 years and I
now know that those 3D results can now be seen at home. Most everyone here seems to be alot more versed in the science of 3D, but from a purely consumer perspective...I'm sold.

Nick, You must explain how we can watch full length movies with this process. Is this a software program that renders on the fly? Or this this a process that you or your company must do to each individual film, then re-sell?

I am really hoping this is stand alone software (like 3Dplus), because if it is, I am investing in a new projection theater setup immediately.

My girlfriend and I sampled all of the clips multiple times and were literally "wow'd".
The mission impossible sample tripped me out because it was REALLY as if tom cruise's face was in my monitor looking back at me. I know it sounds stupid, but I had flash backs of riding in a helicopter (from my military days) with the last scene above the trees and the firetrucks. They've done it. I don't know what else to say. 2D to 3D conversion has arrived.

The tarzan clip was indeed very good 3D, but Shrek and Mission Impossible, along with Jurassic Park, impressed me the most. Not that the others weren't spectacular, but those really showed it off.

Nick, you must tell us how we can convert movies with your software. Your process is going to change the way people watch DVD's at home from now on!
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sbc

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 5:34 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I must add one more thing. Nick I took the liberty of downloading th 200+mb .AVI version of Jurassic park clip.

Gents, the DIVX samples do not do their converting justice! The AVI's have absolutly NO GHOSTING! It looks fantastic. Spot on colors and clarity that I cannot describe. I noticed no flicker and the scenes produced no eyestrain or FOCUS irregularities whatsoever. Every frame seems to be rendered perfectly and not over done with the parallax. Again, no double images or ghosts and no Screen door effect. The resolution of picture was nice and tight. You guys MUST see this.
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 10:24 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Doing such conversion automatically is impossible. I'm sure there's no program that converts from 2D to 3D without manual help at this level of quality. Probably Nick has developed a set of tools that allows to manually convert keyframes and the software tracks the objects in the following frames, converting these with less manual interaction.

Clyde is right, I'm very skeptical about 2D->3D conversions, but in this case I have to admit that it works. The clips are rather low-res, so it was not really possible to judge how well small details look in 3D. I'm very curios to see the 200 MB Jurassic Park file. I'm just downloading it...
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clyde

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 10:39 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Multiple Blob tracking software is where its at..
3dCombine from Richard has such a feature, but ofcourse its not perfect.

you need a spline based blob tracker and some AI built in for pixel greyscale recognition i would assume. (meaning it distinguishes a small group of pixels and knows what belongs to one blob from another when two blobs collide :)

Theres a whole different way of doing this blob tracking or "object recognition" and funnily enough its based on Mpeg codecs doing the work for you..
Mpeg already has lots of data embedded in a video file that allows it to predict what is changing from frame to frame.. This data could be used to "identify" objects in a scene.

Software like re-timer use this effectively for generating in-between frames for smooth slow motion.

Im currently hoping to fins a way to use this feature of re-timer to be able to supply it with a stereoscopic left/right view of a scene and have it generate the in-between views for autostereo displays.
(of course im totally zilch at programming.. so so much for that :(

Cheers
Clyde
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clyde

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 10:50 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

to get you all started...http://www.ctr.columbia.edu/~dzhong/rtrack/demo.htm#Software%20Description

Anybody care to take this up as a project to create a PC version? :)

All you need to do is assign Greyscale "depth" values to the different blobs identified :)

Of course after the identification process is done, manual smoothing of blob areas should be done where needed for the final finish.
Cheers
Clyde
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 11:58 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

The 200+MB file doesn't improve resolution significantly, but has almost no ghosting. I've watched it several times and found not a single issue which disturbes the 3D experience -- it's perfect! I showed all files to my family and they also were very impressed.
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 12:04 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi Clyde,

MPEG uses motion prediction, but motion vectors are calculated for 8x8 pixel blocks only. In addition, the motion vector points to a block which is most similar to the current one. This doesn't mean that it is actually the direction of motion. Using MPEG motion vectors for 2D to 3D conversion will never give high quality results.

Peter
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clyde

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 12:48 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

dang!
back to the drawing board :)
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 2:16 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

For all of you using Stereoscopic Player (http://mitglied.lycos.de/stereo3d) I've created a playlist for Nick's file. Extract the zip archive to the directory where the video files are located and open one of the playlist file (*.spp) in Stereoscopic Player. The first one is for the small files; use the second HQ version if you've also downloaded the two 200+MB avi files from the trashcan directory.

The svi files tell the player about the stereo layout and aspect ratio of the videos, so you don't have to choose the proper settings yourself.

http://stereo3d.gmxhome.de/AnotherWorld2D3DConversions.zip
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sbc

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 4:39 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Peter,Cylde, and nick,

I'm watching these clips on plain old Windows Media player 9, and am using the e-dim, generic 3d driver for ATI cards. I just enable "3d on" and start media player. Yes the image is not full screen, and when I try full screen or even 200% size the 3d disappears, but it works perfect. So, I'm typing this because it is working so well for me with a non-Nvidia, non native 3D system. I think that gives Another World's 3D conversion an even bigger accolade.

I'm a little distressed about the info that this being more of a process and not a consumer product for dvd's. I hope Nick replys with specifics because I'm ready to buy.

Also Peter, kudos on mirroring those files as this is really something that needs exposure and get excited about.
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 5:01 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I have to make clear that I did not mirror the files. I've just created metadata files for more convenient playback in Stereoscopic Player. My zip file does NOT contain the movies!

PS: I would never mirror files without making sure that no copyrights are violated...
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jjsemp

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 7:13 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Just discovered this thread today. It's been interesting reading. My thoughts:

Neil, I believed you from your first message. I've personally worked with Lucas, and if he's sold, then you're good to go.

You'd have thought that this would have been the appropriate place to make your announcement - it being the "3D news - announce and discuss new products and services here" forum. Little did you know what you were getting yourself into. I'm a little surprised at the vitriol that's been hurled at you and the hostility you've encountered. But the bottom line is this. A lot of guys here that have invested and entrenched themselves in being "3D Gurus" and "3D experts" are about to have the rug pulled out from under them. It's a new dawn and they are no longer the kings of the hill. In fact, they are lying flat on their asses. Technology claims new victims yet again.

I vividly remember Lucas discussing once in a meeting I had with him how stop-motion animators at his studio were flabbergasted when watching the 3D computer-generated tests coming in from ILM for the first "Jurassic Park." As he put it, "They were watching the death of their art form," and he was right. The original intention had been to do "Jurassic Park" using stop-motion, but when the computer-generated stuff was shown, that plan went right out the window. How many stop-motion animated films are being made right now?

I've seen 2D to 3D still image conversions that were indistinguishable from real 3D. Check out Tony Alderson's "Star Wars" 3D collector's cards. They're brilliant. It's not inconceivable to imagine that if that could be done on a single image basis, then it could be done on a movie basis as well.

And now Nick na's clips are available for viewing and here we have it. As SBC stated above, "Well Gentlemen....we have arrived!"

Sorry, entrenched "3D Gurus." Simply put, this kind of technology works. This is good enough for public consumption. This is the future. You've embarrassed yourselves by going on record on this board as being rigid, inflexible and not very forward-thinking. Perhaps that best vindicates Neil, who has been treated rudely, and best demonstrates how untrustworthy your own "expert" opinions ultimately are.

Instant Karma.

-jjsemp
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M.H.

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 7:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I have trouble to downlad the movie files ...
When I try to log to the WWW with corean leters, I am send to somwhere totaly non understanig any corean character ....
Any way how to put the movies on some mirror with standard acces ?
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sbc

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 7:33 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

M.H.
Its actually quite simple. as soon as u go to the site, go to the english verion. DON'T copy and paste the ID and PW. Actually type it in in LOWER CASE....both the ID and PW. I also uncheck the secure logon. then just double click the 2D folder and CHECK MARK the file and hit the download button at top. I was doing one at a time but after the first 2 I went for 3 at a time.

Goodluck.
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sbc

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 8:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

JJ,
The collector card analogy is a very good one. I can freeze at ANY moment on the videos and the entire screen is in 3D. Those who try it will see it, but for those just reading, I froze that poster moment in Jurassic Park where the T-rex is in the museum roaring at the end, and there is just so much depth.
Static objects like boxes, are in there own 3d space, the walls are even further back, the railings in their own depth, The T-rex is IN the space with it's parts in 3D depth...everything in the room, not just moving objects are where they're supposed to be. Even the trees out the window are the "farthest" thing from the viewer, selling the scene as a "real" space.

Anyway, I've ranted enough.
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Joseph L. Kleiman

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Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 8:45 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I've been reading through this thread and it's been quite interesting. As a journalist covering large format and digital cinema, I want to add a few points to those made by Neil Feldman.

First, the prototype LCD glasses created by In-Three's partner, NuVision, are just slightly larger than typical polarized glasses worn for IMAX 3D, and are extremely comfortable. I would have no problem wearing these for a 180 minute feature.

Second, the same 3D projection system (Christie CP2000 projector, QuVis Accuity server, and NuVision glasses) was just used this past Thursday to demonstrate digital 3D projection of 70mm filmed material from Simex/Iwerks at the Large Format Cinema Association's annual conference in Los Angeles. In a room surrounded by large format filmmakers and postproduction professionals, I cannot begin to tell you how many comments I heard regarding both the clarity of the image and the complete lack of ghosting.

Third, the two issues I had with the ShoWest presentation - ghosting and compression of the image - were addressed by In-Three's CEO, Michael Kaye, and posted on our site. These issues did not present themselves at all during Thursday's event.

Finally, the one thing that struck me, especially after having been in the large format cinema industry for almost a decade, was how comfortable the In-Three conversions fealt. I had a few problems focusing on some of Cameron's stuff which followed, but the In-Three presentation certainly fealt natural and was easy on the eyes. Most astonishing was the clip from "Top Gun." Converted into 3D, my editor and I both fealt emotionally immersed into the film in a way impossible with 2D.

Joseph L. Kleiman
World Enteractive
http://www.worldenteractive.com/clarity.htm
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Molecool

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 12:37 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I wished I would have discovered this thread a month ago when Neil introduced himself and described In-Three's dimensionalization process - I could have saved him at least some of the grief you guys exposed him to. The negativity and close-mindedness of this group is indeed very revealing, and probably related to either a lack of imagination of a feeling of being threatened (or a combination of the two). Looks like you guys realize that you aren't the top dogs anymore and that some of your services and innovations were just rendered completely obsolete.

Now, just before that presentation in Vegas I was so lucky as to being invited to a private screening at In-Three's premises. One of the directors that Neil mentioned is an acquaintance of mine and he was so gracious to extend his invitation to me as well. What I saw was nothing but stunning and after I walked out of their projection room I knew that the age of stereoscopic mainstream movies had arrived. I have been exposed to stereoscopic filming and photography for over a decade and if someone would have told me that these scenes were filmed in 3D I would have believed it. Since the scenes I saw were all clips of commercial blockbusters I of course knew that they were not. The scenes were extremely difficult to 'dimensionalize' from what I could gather - some had motion yes - but in many cases they had complex arrangements that would pose a real challenge for anyone attempting to do this.

Believe me guys - this stuff is for real and although I just finished working on a new hand-held stereoscopic lens system for HD cameras I now wonder why anyone would bother to shoot a feature with stereoscopic equipment now. Everything would have to be produced stereoscopically and even the CGI would have to be stereoscopic and be matched with the real footage. Doing a green-screen would be a lot more complex and the scenes would have to be carefully arranged so that the CGI looks properly integrated (Robert Rodriguez can probably attest to that). It is much easier to simply shoot your movie in film or digital, and then hand it to In-Three AFTER post production - the result is 95% of what a real stereoscopic movie would look like and it can be done for a fraction of the cost.

What however really gets me is the attitude on this list. If someone would have asked me before last month what the 'holy grail' of steroscopic filming would be I would have answered 'not having to film with stereoscopic equipment - turning 2D into 'realistic' 3D'. Well, it has been handed to us and here you are, bickering and insulting Neil. I guess it is a normal reaction of 'wanna-be-gurus' who thought they were on the forefront of their profession (or hobby) - they emit the characteristics of people being exposed to bad news: awareness, denial, agression, bargaining, acceptance. I for one went right through to acceptance phase and am making plans to leverage Neil's offering.

I have actually been working on a stealth project for the last 2 years myself and was just about to announce some very exciting news on this board. This thread has however changed my mind. No sir - I am not as polite as Neil and would not want to expose myself to such egotistical and short-minded scrutiny.
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 6:54 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Anyway, now the opposite happens, some of you insulting the "3d experts" -- not fair, too. By the way, shooting with a digital dual rig will be much cheaper than conversions for quite a long time. Conversions are affordable for Hollywood bockbusters only, because they require lots of manual work and must be very carefully done.

Probably Neil's conversions are at least as good as Nick's. If he had posted a single clip, he would saved himself some of the grief. I've seen lot's of conversions before, all were crap, amoung them some done by well-known companies. That's the reason why people are sceptical when somebody announces he has "invented" a new process without providing samples.

We all know for a long time that perfect conversions are possible. There are lot's of great photos on the web. But nobody ever proved that economic conversion of video is possible. Converting each frame with the methods used for photos would take to long.

PS: This a discussion board for professionals, not a platform where people applaud to each statement of a marketing department. I consider it important that people question new inventions, especially when it is a sensitive topic like 2D-3D conversions. It's not difficult to predict that there will be a lot of discussion on this topic going on in the future, not only on technical issues but also moral ones.
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clyde

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 7:26 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

..case in point.. Nick announced and PROVIDED samples, and saved himself flak.

Clyde
(Non 3d guru, & supporter of 2d-3d)

Also I wish Christoph made it necessary to post with a valid email address, it would give the board a lot more authenticity.
For all we know, people are posting under different guises and confusing valid discussions.
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ihate-56k

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 8:38 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

"Conversions are affordable for Hollywood bockbusters only, because they require lots of manual work and must be very carefully done. "

I think you guys are missing the point on this one...

it costs more to do 3D filming, costs more to do your SFX twice, costs more to find companies that can work with stereo film.... just plain costs more right?

if you're a small time film maker, what would your prefered option be? shoot your film in 3D spending more of your limited budget on the filming process, or shoot your film in 2D, and if it's a surprise runaway hit, (blair witch, el-mariachi for example) you can reinvest the money you got from ticket & dvd sales into re-releasing as a 3D film


seems pretty much win-win to me.
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 10:32 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

The facts are:

1) I shoot myself in 3D using a dual camera setup
2) I could not afford 2D-3D conversion

2D-3D conversion makes sense for high budget productions only. Independent filmmakers will build a 3D setup theirselves or lend it, which is much cheaper than spending millions of Dollars on conversion.
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ihate56k

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 12:21 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

"2D-3D conversion makes sense for high budget productions only. Independent filmmakers will build a 3D setup theirselves or lend it, which is much cheaper than spending millions of Dollars on conversion."

Fair comment I guess, if you're goal is to make a 3D film on a budget, then it's probably the only way to go... I was more thinking of people making a budget film, where 3D wasn't a priority from the start.

It seems the same as the way audio is done to me... an indy filmmaker may use the mike on his camcorder, a medium budget one will mix in stereo, a large hollywood production does all the lines in a studio, mixes them in with fake sound effects, and puts it all out in 5.1...

It's like arguing they should actually use five microphones mounted around the set to get the 3D sound.
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Molecool

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 4:17 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Reading these comments regarding the utilization of emerging conversion systems I cannot help but think of the arguments people had when color film became available. To Peter: your argument is completely specious and based on a present frame of reference. It's a bit like Bill Gates in the 80s saying: 640kb of RAM ought to be enough for anyone. Remember that prediction? Surely enough, now that someone proved that this is possible, others will follow in Neil's footsteps, and it is possible that this type of conversion will be affordable to the average Indie filmmaker less than a decade from now. There are so many variables involved in bringing 3D to a mass audience however - once that the 'delivery infrastructure' is in place (thanks to Neil's efforts to coax studios into re-releaseing in 3D), others will recognize a business opportunity and act upon it. That's how capitalism works, gentlemen... However, any predictions on my part or anyone else's are moot - the only thing I know is that things have a way of changing. If you had asked me two months ago if commercial dimensionalization was possible I would have probably said no. But here we are, aren't we? ;-)
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 5:30 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I think the 2D to 3D conversions that were posted look great, but let's not overlook how simple it is to make equally "as great" stereoscopic movies with a digital dual camera rig, potentially with a fraction of the effort. 3D conversions of existing 2D material is probably a valid option, and probably always will be, but visualizing and shooting a stereoscopic idea is potentially much easier and effective with "two eyes" (cameras). Also, just because many of the 3D movies that were made in the past with a dual rig were not done well or "correctly" does not mean it can't be done... and actually quite simply with digital tools, and especially in comparison to a great 2D to 3D conversion. Basically, if the cameras were set up properly, parallel to infinity, the stereoscopic post production is simply a matter of adjusting the horizontal parallax and making few minor corrections, if needed. This applies to CGI stuff, too. Also, layering and compositing stereoscopic graphics is not rocket science these days, as long as you have the proper tools, which are available to all of us if you are willing to spend a little money to begin with.
Any two cameras can be used, as long as there is a way to achieve a good degree of sync... actual genlock isn't as crucial as you might think. All you have to be able to do is monitor the degree of sync (but, yes, obviously genlock is easier). Contrary to what many people have believed, including myself for a number of years, two cameras do not have to be placed 2.5 inches apart to produce a natural-looking, "ortho" view... that is actually determined by the relationship between the near and far points and the focal length, along with the stereo base. IOW, you could shoot with a 4 inch stereo base and produce perfectly "ortho" footage with any combination of near point, far point, FL and stereo base that gives you an "ortho" view. In fact, you can use virtually _any_ stereo base and come up with the proper combination. This can be as easy to do as using a stereo base calculator, or by coming up with a quick method of setting the stereo depth through a stereoscopic viewfinder or a stereoscopic monitor. Also, if you actually want a hyper view, that can be done, too... but my point is that "special" stereoscopic digital rigs are not needed for "great" stereoscopy... virtually any two cameras can be used, as long as there is a way to monitor the sync (e.g., composite AV outputs and a Sync Shepherd type tool being the minimum requirement).

P. K. Kid
Stereoscopic 3D images and movie clips (all G-rated):
http://www.puppetkites.net
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ray3d

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 5:35 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Nick Na,

Very impressive 2D-3D! The best I've seen yet.

I can see the difference between camera acquired genuine stereo images and these converted clips, but it may simply be the choices made by the operator during conversion.

For anyone who would like to compare these conversions to genuine stereo, I invite you to visit my newly expanded galleries of 3D video clips, at: www.ray3d.com/vid_samps.html

Sincerely,


Ray H.
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 5:59 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Very well said, Ray :-)
I almost stated in my post that the clips appear, somehow, "synthetic", but I really can't explain it, so I decided to not try to explain it :-) It was almost something "I felt" rather than something I could easily identify.
And you might be correct... it could just be something that is the result of a compositional choice... but maybe not... it may not be quite as easy to "fool the eyes" as we might think :-)
I guess the future will tell us... is the real thing better? I know I prefer real food or real sex over synthetic reproductions. There is just something about real butter that cannot be matched ;-)

PKK
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Molecool

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 10:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Oh, come on guys! Your comments reflect a very limited mindset - maybe it is indeed true that 'old dogs do not learn any new tricks.' Now, that you have invested years of efforts in perfecting your sklls you of course have a hard time seeing it all go the way of the horse buggy (not that I personally believe that stereoscopic cameras are a relic of the past ;-) So, you have seen a few example clips and are already stereotyping it as 'synthetic' - isn't that really what you want to be true or do you honestly believe that most people out there would feel the same way?

Did you really set out to create 3dtv in your own image and in your mind nothing but the 'pure PKK approved' way will be acceptable? I constantly see you post your '10 commandments' of creating stereoscopic content - yes, all these tips are very valuable, but presenting yourself as the quintessential incarnation of true stereoscopy is sometimes more than I can bear. Why don't you give this new approach a real chance before you 'demonize' it right from the get-go? How about you wait until you see Neil post some examples, whenever he sees fit to do so? Otherwise you might find yourself in the company of Charles H. Duell, who was the commissioner of the U.S. Office of Patents in 1899, his famous quote is: 'Everything that can be invented has been invented.'

You have a great intellect - don't let it go to waste by relying too much on what you are sure 'you know' - you might just wind up limiting yourself into a corner.

Molecool
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Molecool

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 11:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in those would profit by the new order; this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have laws on their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it. -- Niccollò Machievelli
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sbc

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Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 11:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

"Synthetic"

Of course it's synthetic, but you wont care if it moves at 24fps and your vision wonders off to some obscure part of the screen and realize that even the light switch is in 3D.

Anyway, it is undeniable that a few sour grapes ruined what could've been a very good spring for 3D news. I MEAN, WE HAD THE VICE PRESIDENT OF IN-THREE ON THESE BOARDS!
I very much doubt that Neil or anyone else of his caliber would allow a sneak peak here.

We should be counting our blessing that Nick has allowed peak.

Every board, "professional" or NOT, has trollers and flamers. I too just "stumbled" on to this forum. But it can sometimes resemble a teenage filled Sci-Fi board, arguing every nuance to no end.

Now that we know it CAN be done...I am very eager to hear of news of applying it to media that I can CONSUME!
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Puppet Kite Kid

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Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 1:09 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hold on to your horses, Pilgrims. I said the 2D to 3D conversions were good :-) But they are still 2D to 3D conversions :-)
And there is definitely some sort of "synthetic" look to the stereoscopy itself... I'm talking about the stereoscopy, not the content. It just doesn't look quite "exactly real". Take a good, hard look and you can probably see it, too, especially if you are comparing the real thing to the synthesized thing, side by side (which we are not, in this case). I'm sure this "synthetic look" is probably what Ray "sees", too, and I'm sure Ray has looked at his share of real and "synthetic" 3D in his day, too ;-)
I can explain it frame-by-frame, if you need me to, but it will probably sound like a long, boring sermon :-) I sure as Hell am no "3D Jesus", but I have had way too much time on my hands for the past four or more years, and for insanely passionate reasons, stereoscopy is basically all I have done, day after day, hour after hour. I do know "synthetic" when I "feel" it... just as if all you had done was shoot baskets with a basketball for hours and hours and days and days for a few years straight... you'd get to the point where you can almost feel a "swish" coming long before it happens, i.e., "nothing but net" :-)

Sure, I can appreciate a good 2D to 3D conversion, but I'm also experienced enough to appreciate the real thing, too, and to be able to see the difference :-) Luckily, the 2D to 3D professionals won't have to worry about making _me_ happy :-) Joe Public is probably much more easily convinced and "fooled" than I am... and much more willing to spend $10 for a ticket... we hope ;-)

Lastly, I sure don't need any pats on the back to be happy, but personally, when someone puts a few years of hard work into perfecting a craft, I try to respect that. The things I have "explored" in stereoscopy have come the hard way, most times, and I sure am not going to "back down" and say it was all in vain. I learned it... and I'm not going to just forget it :-)
I also highly respect anyone who has perfected the craft of 2D to 3D conversion, and if they are smart enough to pull that off, they are also smart enough to know there is a difference between that and the "real thing" :-)
A "good 2D to 3D conversion" is nothing to be ashamed of... but the one thing it is _not_ and can never be is "real 3D".
You might be able to "go from the horse and buggy to the motorized vehicle", but you still can't fill the gas tank with hay ;-) A horse is still a horse, of course ;-)

PKK
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nick na

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Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 2:17 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hi, everyone...

thank you for the interested in our converted samples.
our smaples(this 3d converted film) was made for the purpose of realizing he well-known film image to stereoscopic image experimentally not for commercial use, just demonstration use only about 3 or 4 years ago.
orginal film's copyrights wholly reserved to each original film making company.

peter wimmer, you are right. such conversion automatically is impossible as you know. we had developed a set of tool that allows to manually convert keyframe.

most people are thought that 3d conversion is needed big burget. in our case, it should be different. i think it need smaller burget than 3d shutting with dual camera.

now, we can converting more good quality, film quality and the converting cost is cheaper than 3d shutting with stereoscopic camera.

for example, there is a 2d film(video-image), we can make 2d to 3d conversion, it takes time about 5 or 6 months.

yes, i want to believe 3d conversion movie is coming in the near future. but it is a present
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clyde

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Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 6:03 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I think I have to post a remider here that what was being questioned was

1) Statements that you can shoot in 2d and get AS GOOD a result as in 3d
My Opinion -- FALSE!

2) As a "commercial" entriprise 2d - 3d suffices
My Opinion - True and I CURRENTLY USE IT.

3) Announce and Discuss! - Thats the topic of this board. It should have been followed and rest assured it would not take 5 whole minutes to download this thread as its taking now.

4) PKK... give them anal-ogies :) as the rest of them are doing..
a.k.a They all said CD and digital sound would take over Vinyl and real pianos...
How come people are going back to tube amplifiers for that "warm" sound now :)

As we speak, im converting 2minutes of film for the tourism office here for auto stereo displays.
That means 8 YES EIGHT! synthetic views of a scene.

So forgive me for dreaming that I wish I had an 8cam rig to shorten the process and give the whole video an original "warm" feel.

As I have said before, 2d-3d is good and workable, But its complex when tracking a whole scene with multiple objects, and will lead to Shoddy work once "deadlines" have to be met. (Nick kindly provided the short samples and himself stated that it averages 5-6months!)
Why not shoot in stereo, and if your on a budget do SFX using a conversion method.

my 50cents
Clyde
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nick na

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Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 6:24 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hi again...

i said 5 or 6 months -> not samples but whole film(running time is about 1hr 30min ~ 2hr)
also, we can convert 2d to 3d in film quility.
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Gil Walker

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Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 12:05 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

The main reason for producers to support digital is because it is cheaper. They get away with the expenses of buying film stock for filming and for releasing prints and all the money spent with film labs. Of course there are also companies who will benefit with this switch and are pushing for it (digital projectors being an example).

One of the problems of shooting 3-D with film was the extra expense needed for dual filming, but since digital storage costs nothing I do not see why would they not record the right eye image if that does not mean extra cost. Even if they only use 50% of this image, this surely will mean a saving of a lot of money since they will only need to pay for the conversion of half of the film instead of the whole film.

Also, one of the reasons to switch to digital is being able to send the files everywhere in the world so the work can be carried out in countries where the labour market is cheaper. And so I would image that if the process in Korea is good, they will get the work done there. As it has been pointed here, many of these guys are merchants and what they want is to get their benefits. In any case, if Korea is cheaper, smaller budgets will be able to get their work there. But I still believe that makes more sense developing a good digital dual camera system to save as much money as possible.

There is nothing bad with new technology, but not all new technology is good and also it can be misused. Remember that nothing surpasses the quality of a Stradivarius.

Gil Walker
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Anonymous

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Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 3:02 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Even if newer films were shot in 3d
there is great wealth in converting previous blockbusters and re-releasing them. 3d is
necessary in theaters soon to give the edge over
more affordable home theaters
reducing movie goers. It's all about profit.
I hope all Neils and Nicks 3d converted movies
eventually get released in field sequential or
Sensio for our enjoyment at home.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 11:47 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

www.cameraguild.com/index.html?interviews/chat_alsobrook/index.htm~top.main_hp
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Anonymous

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Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 11:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Please ignore the previous posting. The right link is http://www.cameraguild.com/technology/future_shock.htm

It contains interesting reflections about digital, it does not cover 3-D but it covers other aspects discussed here, especially the digital hype.
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jjsemp

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 3:23 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi Nick na,

What is the name of your company and do you have any contact info that you could post on this board?

-jjsemp
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nick na

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 5:54 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Hi, jjsemp

Our company name is AnotherWorld, INC..

If you don't mind, Would you give me a message by e-mail?

my e-mail address is nasmile@antherworld.to

thank you

-nick, na
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nick na

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 6:01 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hi, jjsemp
i gave you wrong e-mail address
here is
my e-mail address is nasmile@anotherworld.to
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M.H.

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 1:38 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

>I must add one more thing. Nick I took the >liberty of downloading th 200+mb .AVI version of >Jurassic park clip.

I can not find the 200+mb version of Jurasic park on the link ... Some hint ?
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sbc

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 5:15 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

MH,
For some reason it is in the "trash" folder as an .avi

I tried the other .avi's in there but they didn't work.

Nick, do you have the samples but in .avi format?
Are the tools to do this kind of conversion, for sale by your company?
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M.H.

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 7:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

sbc: the trahs folder was removed :-(.
Any way how to get acces to the hi-res conversion files ?
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Curious

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 7:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

We may be getting a little ahead of ourselves here. If the end game for In Three is the conversion of 35mm films to 3D, where are we going to watch them? In the US there are over 30,000 film screens but only 300 or so digital theatrical projectors worldwide. At some point, the production company or studio has that has to pay for the conversion needs to calculate their ROI and absent a consumer distribution channel I can't see how the numbers stack up as yet. It doesn't matter how good the process is, if the distribution isn't there, who cares?

Sure you can suggest using Nu-Vision shutter glasses on a normal projector/white screen, but the one 3D experience I have had that left me with a headache right between my eyes was at Lincoln Plaza in New York at the 3D IMAX theater where they use shutter glasses, and I think I'm representative of the average consumer.

I was also interested to see that IMAX and In-Three are now engaged in a legal dispute over In-Three's potential infringement of US Patent 4,925,294 that was invented by David Geshwind and Anthony Handel back in the late 80's. The suit was filed in California on March 11th, Case number CV05 1795 and In Three just responded requesting a jury trial! Go look it up on Pacer if you want. It is little wonder that Neil doesn't want to offer up any examples of their work.

As for consumer 3D, I saw Sharp's demo on their 3D notebook at CES in Las Vegas in January. They had a normal DVD movie in the laptop that was being played in 3D on their screen using real time conversion. It was very comfortable to watch and plausible, even though there were few 'off screen' moments due to the production values that had been used in the original 2D movie that was being played. The Sharp staff told me their movie player also played back interlaced DVDs allowing them to show conventionally produced stereo content. I also saw a 60" rear projection 3D TV prototype from LG Electronics at CES using twin polarized projectors and while it was playing custom made CG 3D content, it was also comfortable to watch. Sanyo also had 3D screens at CES including a very nice 2" mobile telephone screen that switched between normal 2D and 3D like the Sharp laptop does.

It appears that companies like Sharp, LG and Sanyo are already either selling or planning mass market 3D products like laptops, rear projection TVs and cell phones. Based on what I saw, if Sharp would license their real time conversion technology to other companies, the 3D experience is already 'good enough' and there might be a lot more consumer products in the market while In Three and Hollywood or whoever are still trying to figure out how to roll out their distribution channel.

I haven't seen In Three's demo and it may well be very good otherwise Cameron and others wouldn't back it, but if a theatrical market for 3D movies never emerges, do you really think that Cameron, Zemeckis and Lucas (who already make millions of dollars from normal 2D movies) will even care?
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Anonymous

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 9:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I had seen the Sharp 2D-3D conversion as well ...
The on the fly conversion is realy very very bad (e.g. in comparison to the work done by Anoterworld) ... This is not a step in agood direction ....
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sbc

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 10:09 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

MH, post your email address and I'll see about sending u the file. :)

Also, as far as movies go, a movie theater will always be a favorite social activity. 3D makes it that much more entertaining. It's the 21st century for crying out loud. 3D IS going to happen. I just wish they'd made home kits of this technology so we could experience it NOW, instead of having to wait for lawyers for the ball to even get rolling.

If IMAX comes out with egg on their face (in court), I might have to consider how frequent I patronize their theater.
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Curious

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 10:11 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Anonymous

I have to disagree on the quality of the real time 3D I saw at CES. What I saw at CES was on the fly, what I can't tell is whether the material made available by Nick of Anotherworld was from a real time or post production process, there's just no way of telling without seeing it in action first hand for all the reasons that have been outlined earlier in this thread. There was no smoke and mirrors at CES from Sharp, that's for sure.
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M.H.

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Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 10:19 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

sbc:
My E-mail is husakm@gali-3d.com.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 6:29 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

MH the hires versions are 720x480 Sony DV codec
interlaced 29.97 fps I have the Mask and
Jurassic Park versions not a huge difference
from the divx versions in quality though.
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Anonymous

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Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 6:36 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Christoph....please.. cut this thread in half or make it like part 1 , part 2 its so lonnnng!!!!! or give it, its own heading. it takes 30minutes just to scrol to the end.....its a great thread but ITS WAY TO LONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!so please do something thanks
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Peter Wimmer

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Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2005 - 7:57 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Nick's DV avi files are both MUCH better than the DivX files (no ghosting)!

The realtime conversion on the Sharp notebook is usually done by DDD's player. I've seen this conversion - it's crap. You'll hate it if you have ever seen good real 3D.

Peter
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M.H.

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Posted on Thursday, May 05, 2005 - 11:55 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

I must agree with Peter ... The DV version is much more better. The 4:2:0 quantization in DiviX must produce ghosting in principle ...
I had already got the Jusrasic park in DV format ... Any source of the Mask DV version availabe ?

According Sharp notebook and DDD 2D->3D conversion. I must unfortunately confirm Peter opinion again (I had seein this during SD&A conference). The results are not very impressive ...
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M.H.

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Posted on Friday, May 06, 2005 - 8:54 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Nick na:
Hi Nick. Is there any chance, you will repalce the interlaced clips by an over/under version ?
The clips are very nice, unfortuantely the improper handling of interlaced data in DivX
prduce very high compression ghosting (if you do not see it, try to extrac L or R only image from the Tarzan sample).
Making the samples avaliable in full NTSC/eye resolution will be even better.
I am sure this clips can make your comany very popular.
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M.H.

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Posted on Friday, May 06, 2005 - 8:59 am:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

Eventually givving access to the DV only compressed files (as you had made for the Jurasic park) will be nice as well ...
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nick na

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Posted on Saturday, May 07, 2005 - 2:54 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

hi! m.h.

i'm really sorry i didn't any reply message for you in these days because i had a business travel in korea.

i agree with peter and m.h. opinion. dv version is much better than dvix version.

we already had tested our samples by various methods. we wanted to upload our samples as soon as possible. So we just upload in dvix version.
as you know dvix makes high comprssion data.

fortuntely, here are many experts on this board.
and they might notice our intention to introduce the process asap.
it dosn't matter dvix version or dv version.
i'm going to upload on our webhard site in dv version.

once again, i show everyone the download site.
url : www.webhard.co.kr
id : ANOTHERWORLD1
PW : 12345
homepage : www.anotherworld.to

unforunately, the homepage isn't serviced by english version.
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Christoph Bungert (Admin)

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Posted on Saturday, May 07, 2005 - 6:18 pm:   Edit PostDelete PostView Post/Check IPPrint Post

This thread is continued here:

http://www.stereo3d.com/discus/messages/24/3293.html?1115489801

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