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3D Videos: Full Screen Viewing

(Yes, this applies to 3D MPEG and compressed AVI videos downloaded from the internet, too! The better the quality of the video, the better this works, but you'll be surprised how good the quality is from compressed 3D video pairs viewed in this manner, especially when viewed as (or converted to) red-blue anaglyphs! LC shutterglasses users, see special note at the bottom of this page!)

This is the only way I know of to do this at this time! On a PC, you can view 3D videos in any format (in a perfect *uncompressed* form... and without saving the new video) in the "full-screen" mode by combining VirtualDub, Windows Media Player and a simple AviSynth script. This means no buttons or software showing on your monitor, and the video is retaining it's perfect *ghost-free* quality. I've also got a solution (see *** below) for videos not playing smoothly. Luckily, the steps aren't too terribly difficult. You need VirtualDub set up as a frameserver and you need the AviSynth files in the same folder as your video. Don't worry... this is really easy stuff (if I can do it, you can do it :-).


 First of all, if you need info about something I've overlooked, you can find most of this type of basic info (minus the 3D stuff, so far :-) at http://www.vcdhelp.com/

 1. Set up VirtualDub as a frameserver by following these super-easy steps:
http://www.vcdhelp.com/virtualdubframeserve.htm

 2. Download the AviSynth files. Go to http://math.berkeley.edu/~benrg/avisynth.html and scroll down the page to the paragraph under the heading, "Avisynth v0.3" and download the file linked to "pre-built DLL (~53K)". Be sure they get into the same folder as your video file (don't forget the "avisynth.dll" file... I've made this mistake a dozen times...), which in this case will be the "yourvideofilename.vdr.avi" file that VirtualDub will export as your frameserver file. Open notepad and copy this text:

AVISource("yourvideofilename.vdr.avi")

Change "yourvideofilename" to your file name that you frameserve from VirtualDub. Save that text file as "servetoWMP.avs" or anything similar. Notice the ".avs" extension. It has to be saved as this file type! It doesn't get much simpler than that, eh?

 3. Load your stereo pair video (or whatever), MPEG or AVI, into VirtualDub. Add your filters to convert to whatever 3D format you want. [*** Here's how you make the video play smoothly in Windows Media Player... the options that you normally use to make it run smoothly in VirtualDub won't apply once you frameserve the video! (Usually, the "Drop Frames When Behind" and also "Enable DirectDraw Acceleration" options will work in VirtualDub.) So, instead of using those settings, you have to "decimate the frame rate" by 2 or maybe 3 ...or as much as you need to get it to run smoothly. Do that by going to "Video" and "Frame Rate" in VirtualDub and under "Frame Rate Decimation" choose an option. "By 2" usually works for my PC.] Start the frameserver, remembering to save it as "yourvideofilename.vdr.avi". Open Windows Media Player and open "servetoWMP.avs". Now, in Windows Media Player, go to "View" and "Full Screen" or hit "Alt" then "Enter" on your keyboard. Now, put on your Elvis shoes, your 3D glasses, and DANCE!

Special note for LC shutterglasses users: I was able to view great quality interlaced video for my LC shutter glasses
at full-screen with Windows Media Player (this was using a 704 X 240 MPEG pair as the source), however, I had to resize the video in VirtualDub with the "resize" filter to 800(W) X 600(H) and change the frame rate (In VirtualDub, under "Video" and "Frame Rate) to "decimate by 3" to get it to play smoothly. I'll assume that someone with a faster computer than mine can use higher frame rates at that resolution! 10fps is pushing the limit on what's acceptable. (Time for an upgrade! Dang!)