2D to 3D conversion.
ironjade
Posts: 10,010 Forum Member
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I know not to expect too much but even so Arcsoft's Media Converter is, to say the least, underwhelming.
Has anyone ever found a 3D converter which actually works? I'd even settle for cardboard cut-out 3D.
Has anyone ever found a 3D converter which actually works? I'd even settle for cardboard cut-out 3D.
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Even converting a movie designed for 3D doesn't give much of a result: the kindest way to describe it would be 2 & a half D.
I know that to do it properly takes lots of time, money and a building full of people/kit but even so,I'd hoped for something a bit better than I'm currently getting.
Did James Cameron really waste $237M making Avatar, when a £20 box from fleaBay would have done the trick ? The Gravity movie took the equivalent of 7,000 years on single pc to render - they could have saved themselves the aggro and just told folk to hit the 3D button on their remote for the same effect. I actually know people who watch Corrie in 3D and think it's great. What do they think they are watching ?
Before anyone says Titanic 2D to 3D - yes that conversion was done, but with an army of graphics experts, a whole heap of accurate masking + blue screens etc, and a warehouse of computers.
Software to reveal hidden pixels ? It's like the old joke where a woman asks a Photoshop dude can he remove the dustbin that was spoiling a photo of her house. He says 'no problemo'. 'Great', comes the reply, 'you'll be able to see the dog - he was behind it'.
Can anyone enlighten me about this 3D TV conversion malarkey ?
[then again, 'content aware fill' in Photoshop can magic up pixels . . . ]
Alas no.:(
Based on my current experience it seems to be largely powered by wishful thinking. Fortunately the software is on a 15 day trial so if today's result isn't very good I'll ditch it.
One that it does manage to do is convert SBS 3D to Anaglyph 3D (cyan/red) so it can be viewed on a standard screen with the coloured glasses. Amusing for a laugh.
I'm tempted but there's no compatible way to connect my laptop to the TV: the laptop's too old and the TV's too new.
you're laptop doesn't have VGA out and your TV VGA in ?
Besides, I would say if your laptop is that old then it almost certainly won't have the horsepower to do on the fly video conversion.
I have a feeling anything 3D related would need HDMI and the laptop doesn't have it.
TBH it's more trouble than it's worth: the last conversion took about 12 hours.
I may have a go with a bit of animation just to see but after that I'm calling time on it.
Well I don't have a 3DTV but I have a home theatre projector which does 2D to 3D conversion and I wasn't expecting much from this feature, but hand on heart, it was absolutely mind blowing! I have my pc hooked up to the projector, getting a 110 inch image approx on my wall. As long as it's in HD quality, when I hit the 2d to 3d option, it does an incredible job, i didn't think it was possible but just viewing youtube videos, i couldnt see much difference between shot in 3d and with the converted to 3d that i was watching. You can even control the level of pop or jump out whatever you want to call it. You can even choose if you want the image to pop outside or inside, outside is like looking through a window, inside being it jumps right in infront of you, so much so that it started making me a little motion sick in videos that moved forwards cos it's literally sucking you in. This is all converted 3D and I am still in shock how good it looks. The depth and 3D effect is stunning. I thought to myself just like you how can converted to 3D look so convincing but believe me, at least with this setup it really did.
I've seen clash of the titans which wasn't shot in 3D and it looked awful so I always thought converted 3D will always look crappy and I had been skeptical since. Not sure what they have done right with this particular projector, but they nailed it somehow.
The projector used is an Acer H6510. The only one i've seen that does 2d to 3d and does it well. Can't really speak of any other examples of 3D conversion though so can't really help the OP so apologies for that. Just my take speaking generally about 2D to 3D.
Nope, vga is fine. However as you noticed its not quick.
It's a massive waste of time. I think I'll wait until 3D Archive and co. get around to restoring the missing 3D classics: it'll be quicker in the long run.:)
They've already done "The Bubble" and "Dragonfly Squadron" so here's hoping for "Gog", "Inferno" and "The Glass Web".
I'm truly embarrassed to say that it does. After buying it ages ago and being told by the salesperson that it didn't convert, I now realise that he didn't know what he was talking about..
Honestly, there are days when I think I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
So, thanks for making me check.:)
I actually did research into doing this in real time for a few years. You've nailed the argument about revealing occluded parts of the scene. That said, mp3 works for music despite discarding information, so fudging the formerly occluded bits isn't necessarily fatal to the approach.
The theory also says you can build a depth map by comparing different views, in the case of 2D by looking at adjacent frames, but that fails for smooth low contrast surfaces.
I think the way forward is to write an authoring tool that lets a human create and tweak the depth map with computer assistance, so that it becomes economic to repurpose 2D for 3D.