The Ultimate 3D projection system: A Practical Discussion Thread - Page 67

Would you like to check this?
http://www.avsforum.com/t/1455202/use-two-hd33-and-its-build-in-3d-demux-function-to-build-a-passive-3d-system

By Advisol, SPAR = StereoPol technology (rotating green orthogonal to red and blue) and only HWR = StereoBright which you must buy directly from Izrael, dealers don't sell it.
I believe the PAR-L-50 filter which offers silverfabric at the end of the pricelist is HWR+linear polarizer, but em not sure (will ask)

Oh ! How come I didn't think of that.

the OP went with Advisol filters that were $1000. The 5010 would use the same LCOS filters. I got some demo SPAR fiters from Advisol for LCD but they assume green is 90 degrees off and don't work with the epson. They do pass a lot more light than straight linear filters, but just badly colored light.
http://www.polarization.com/ has much cheaper stuff you can play with. If all your colors are aligned like LCOS or my Epson 5010, You need to stick two quarter wave plates together to shift your linear direction, then a straight linear filter to clean it up.
1 foot of quarter wave plate is 35 bucks, and more than enough to make all 4 pieces (two for each projector). You have to rotate two pieces till they match the glasses angle. Then throw the straight polarized on top to clean it up more.
quarter wave film $35 for 1 foot
http://www.polarization.com/polarshop/product_info.php?products_id=41
linear film $35 for 1 foot also
http://www.polarization.com/polarshop/product_info.php?products_id=30

so 70 bucks to accomplish what the $1000 Advisol filters do. Of course those would be prettier and last longer and be less work to setup.

If you have an LCD and your colors aren't aligned you need the expensive SPAR filters as far as I know, though you could play with straight polarizers but it will be much dimmer.

mrmy's HD33 system is DLP so needs straight linear filters (or something like motorman's Omega 3D system) Either way it should be much dimmer, but looking at his screenshots in his thread it looks pretty bright. With the much brighter EPSON/waveplate setup you should be able to light up a really big screen.

*note: I don't have any of this, and thus this is my best conjecture based on my research.
Edited by wnielsenbb - 2/1/13 at 9:56pm

We still have no way of taking nVidia 3DVision 1080p120 page flipped 3D from DVI to dual L+R output do we? Geobox has the inputs and outputs, they just aren't doing the processing.

Shanghai Mviewtech has a demux box which claims full 1080p120Hz 3D stereo demultiplexing from either DVI-Dual link (they mention Nvidia 3D Vision compatibility in their manual) or Display Port 1.1a (which I guess would be AMD HD3D but isn't mentioned in the manual)
The price is steep though (3000$ per unit)
http://www.mviewtech.com/listen.asp?ProdId=111025104433
I haven't found anyone who reviewed it.

I'm waiting on the same thing, an affordable solution for Nvidia 3D Vision, if only Nvidia would support running two outputs to separate projectors. I wonder if someone could write a DirectX plugin/mod to support this? Then you wouldn't need a demux or be forced to use AMD / Tridef to pull this off.

The problem with the Mviewtech box is it doesn't seem to support frame packed. It would be good if it was a lot cheaper, but if you also wanted to run a blu-ray 3D player you would need a different solution. You could feed it's outputs into dual 3D-XL's first input where it would be passed straight through 1080p60 and feed the br3D player (after splitting) into the second input where the 3D-XL would split it. Pretty ugly to think about, and you would probably need to go push the buttons on the 3D-XL's to switch between PC and BR3D. Still I would do it if it wasn't crazy priced. I guess I found out why.

I emailed VNS about the GEOBoxes. They said they could handle the 1080P120 input, but nVidia wants $50,000 for the license.

me: "Do any of your devices take nVidia 3DVision 1080p120 page flipped 3D from a PC over DVI and split into left and right 1080p60 HDMI outputs?"
them: "Actually we are possible to support for nVidia 3D technical decode.
But it need provided in license paid (~US$ 50K).

Can you share us, how about your target sales volume of this kind of product?
If you can handle license payment & NRE fee then we are possible to design ODM product per your requirement.
Currently we have two product line can support with official 3D image decode (frame packing, SBS and T/B) but still cannot support for nVidia solution."

So, there you have it. I do have the money to start this up, but is there any way to gauge demand? It is a tough sell when you get dual output for free with third party drivers, though again you would have to feed that into dual 3D-XLs. If they made the hardware work without the licensing, most of us gamers would have no issue spoofing EDID's to make it work. I had to do that with my 720p acer.

nvidia must be out of her fff mind.
what so special is there on their 120p output to be paid for? it's like the left mouse button would be patented...
Edited by zorg43x - 2/2/13 at 2:26pm

thought i would update people on my progress-- and see if people have suggestions

my current plan ( still in my head)

1)source will be blu ray player and HTPC --feeding hdmi to a reciever-- sound to speakers and hdmi video out)

( i am wondering if there is a graphic card with multiple inputs for cable, OTA, hdmi and a dual hdmi output and a user friendly software to allow left and right image separation and also calibration ---eliminating need for 2 X3dxl

2) video output -- hdmi splitter--> 2 X 3dxl --> 2 epson 5020ub---> vutec 133 inch silverstar 3d-p


EPSON-- i called them to find out if 5020 also projects all 3 colours in same linear polarization just like 5010 model. i have to call them back monday to try to talk to engineering department.
wnielsenbb-- you and i share a lot of common vision-- you seem to have thought a lot more about this--maybe we should find a direct communication line if you dont mind! per your comments on stack of 2 halfwave retardar plates, i educated myself a lot in last 48 hours about that. is my understanding correct that --in that configuration, the first layer would change angle from 0 to 90 for both projectors, and the2nd layer would change the angle by +45 and -45 in each projector ( result + 45 and +135). linear polarisers as 3rd layer would do cleanup. do you have any suggestions on a decent looking mounting system for 3 layers of the vinyl based material you linked to-- would like it to be removable and readjusted quickly to allow 2d viewing.

i called vutec, and got numbers to local dealers---just maybe (MAYBE)-- i may be able to go see a silverstar3d-p in action next week? i am hoping it will be 3d-p and not the active one. does anybody know of any photographs of screen material or 2d performance or youtube videos of the same??

ok, it dawned a bit more--to correct my recent post.

it would be a stack of 3 films

first layer --quarter plate retardar--- axis at 45 degree --changes linear to circular ( 0/180 or 90/270 degree to 0/180 + 90/270)
2nd layer -- quarter plate retardar--- axis at ???? degree but 90 degree to each other for the 2 projectors--- changes circular to linear polarized light at 45 and 135.
3rd layer --linear polarizer for cleanup.

can all 3 layers be used together like a stack of playing cards or do they have to have any distance between them

Without getting too complicated are any of the Epson projectors ready for passive 3D? Basically are all the colors polarized the same so I simply have to put a filter in front of each projector?

my 5010 has all colors polarized at the same angle, so the retarder filter system will work on it. I ordered the films to make the filters even though I don't have the second projector or any of the other stuff yet.

Wnielsenbb,

Seems like u have your eye on vutec for a while. !! Is it just a budget issue or do u have any other concerns of 2 d --3 d performance..

Silverlite 2.5 from dalite can be had for 1000 as opposed to 2600 for vutec 3d -p for 133 inch-- i wonder what difference in perfotmance for that much difference

I think the curved screen will really help control hotspotting. I do worry about 2D performance too. Mostly though I have been waiting for a good solution for gaming before going passive. I have a good budget so don't want to be too cheap, but 3200 for the only box you can get now is crazy, and it is only a partial solution.

My projector usage (rough estimate):
30% working from home (yes, telecommuting on a 120" screen is silly, but quite comfy)
65% PC Gaming.
3% 3D movies.
2% 2D movies.
Going passive for 3% isn't worth it, but if I can get that 65% gaming into passive, that is a whole different matter.

I have no experience with curved screens so I wonder : what about lining up the images and sharpness.

Consumer projector optics are designed for flat screens, the picture is a perfect rectangle and is sharp only if the screen is flat. If using a curved screen, the picture will be smaller near the edges and bigger in the middle. The picture will also have blurry areas since the lens is designed to provide a sharp image only on a flat screen. Are there corrective optics to make them work better on curved screens ? What about their effect on polarisation ?

On my setup, I also noticed I had difficulties lining up my pictures because my DIY screen geometry isn't perfectly flat, one of the corner of the screen is slightly off plane which results in the pictures not lining up perfectly. This is a very small deviation but the effect is clearly visible if I remove my glasses. What about curved screens ? How do you reliably line up the two projectors on a curved surface.
The only assumption I can make is to always position the projector at the axis of symmetry of the screen, the projectors would have to be dead-centred, no horizontal shift possible.

There is no BluRay 3D playback software that supports dual projectors directly other than through an hdmi1.4 demultiplexer. So if you want to direct drive the projectors, you'll have to rip your BluRays and convert them to a more manageable format (like side by side full-res). DVD fab sells a nice ripping software just for that which I use.

Desktop applications don't look good on my projectors. The high gain screen make the corners very dark relative to the rest of the picture, then the screen texture of my HarknessSpectral 240 doesn't work well for 2D. Finally, both projectors aren't perfectly lined up, so in clone mode the picture is quite blurry (which I must use to do anything in 2D, because working with side by side images overlapping is a nightmare, I can't use a desktop background because it overlays on the wrong eye, I keep loosing my cursor windows and popup windows going on the wrong screen). And you can't just switch off one projector for a few minutes because light bulbs don't like it.
Overall desktop barely works on the projectors, but as soon as I want to do anything desktop related for more than 2 minutes, I always switch back to my desktop monitor, it's just a lot better.

I play PC games at FULL HD per eye using Tridef drivers. They have a mode which works with any graphics card by sending directly the pictures to display#1 and display#2, just set your projectors as extended displays, like you would do with multiple monitors and you're good to go. However in this mode the projectors won't be kept in sync, there can be delays between updates between the eyes which is extremely annoying. The feature to prevent that is called frame-lock, but this feature is reserved for professtional cards (Nvidia Quadro and AMD Firepro)

The only way to bypass this is to make your computer believe you are using a single display that is 3840x1080 and display content as side by side at full ratio (and full resolution if possible) using Tridef.
There are two solutions for that :
-the one I use : AMD Eyefinity
-the one I know in theory but don't know anyone who tested : Matrox dual-head2go, should work with any GPU, matrox provides models for DVI-dual link or DisplayPort.

If you want to use AMD Eyfinity there is one very very important feature you have to take into account : you must use two exact identical hardware outputs from the card all the way uup to the projectors or you won't get proper sync : don't mix DVI and hdmi, don't mix active and passive converters, if you use two DVI you can't use a DVI-I and DVI-D, they must be either both DVI-I or both DVI-D, because the card doen't manage them the same way and you won't get sync.
The current most powerful AMD card, the HD7970 (which I have) only has two identical mini-DP. I have to use two mini-DP -> hdmi active converters, I can't get sync with any other combination.
I do not have an AV receiver for 5.1 sound, I suspect the receiver might either introduce delays or make the card believe your projectors are some way different and break the sync. You'd be better make sure your have sound card or a motherboard with an optical out just to be safe.
Edited by BlackShark - 2/3/13 at 4:17pm

Good point about focus on a curved screen. It isn't a big curve, maybe it isn't a problem, especially if using the longest throw on the projectors. The geobox can handle the curved screen sizing through software, which wouldn't be optimal (much like keystone correction) so I probably wouldn't bother with that. I emailed vutec to ask if there was one anywhere around Phoenix I could look at one, but they haven't responded.

I will never use softare bluray playback again, hence wanting something like the geobox but with pageflipping support. That way it could use the hdmi input from the bluray player for 3D blurays and nVidia 1080p120 over dvi for pc duty. That way there is no syncing issue, since you are using a single output, and you could use nVidia 3D Vision which it seems to me has the best support.
I would get a seperate projector for 2D duty, maybe a dropdown screen for that too. Smoothscreen is really nice for telecommuting. SDE is pretty bad from my seating distance without it.

I will be moving in a few months and will be building a really nice theater room. Hopefully some solution for nVidia comes up before then (that isn't 3200 bucks) If something popped up before then I might jump the gun. Moving a silverstar isn't a fun prospect though. My old one weighs a ton, I am sure the new one is even heavier.

so if the focus is going to be a problem-- am i back to da-lite silver-lite material??

Somewhere buried in here are the op's results and iirc the Da-lite was the worst at polarization retention. They have a few different materials though. The Stewart was the best. I don't think he posted results for Harkness or Vutec. He kept his Black Diamond 2.7 or whatever it was. That may be a good compromise between 2D and 3D performance.

Interesting read here on curved screens.
http://www.da-lite.com/education/angles_of_reflections.php?action=details&issueid=21

so I just took a piece of paper and held a foot from the right side of my screen and the focus was plenty good still. The image won't be square, but I think it may be a worthy compromise.
Still the Stewart 5D screen looks pretty tempting. Vutec's lack of specifications on the SS 3D-P worry me a bit.

I don't remember rdjam's comparison, but I remember an other older comparison at mtbs3d, it wasn't a full screen review though, just a polarisation crosstalk experiment http://www.mtbs3d.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=2719
I don't know any box able to do that. It's either hdmi 1.4a minimum spec (1080p24 max) like the 3DXL combo, and the geobox ; or 1080p120 through DVI-DL or DisplayPort with the Mviewtech box.
The only way to have both would be... to have both systems in parallel, have projectors with two hdmi inputs and switch between inputs depending on whether you play a Bluray or use the PC.

The only single-box solution will have to come from a 300Mhz hdmi demultiplexer, however if you use an nvidia card, you'll still face the nvidia software restriction. 3DVision does not work through hdmi 1.4, and their hdmi solution 3DTV play does not support higher than 1080p24 (it's a software restriction, the GTX 600 series do have 300MHz hdmi chips). Nvidia wants manufacturers to pay that 50K licence and no EDID spoof would help there since there are no approved monitors that use 1080p60 through hdmi.
All things considered , I don't think Nvidia has the best support anymore, the rate of updates has gone down significantly, most recent games only run well thanks to user mods (helix mods). You'll even find people at nvidia forums proudly claiming to do the switch between Nvidia and Tridef drivers more often than they'd want to.
Edited by BlackShark - 2/4/13 at 2:31am

The 3D-XL's have two inputs so the Bluray player could be split into input 1 and the mviewtec nVidia splitter could go to the second input of each where it would just get passed through. Then you wouldn't need to run 4 cables to your projectors at least. The Geobox has both hdmi and DVI input so it could do it all in one box if they supported it. Spoofing the driver would work then since it would be just for the PC DVI input. Switch the geobox to hdmi input and it would do bluray 3D. The VNS guy is very responsive. He said they assisted in the design of 1080p 3D monitors for some customer in Taiwan. He would like target demand. No idea what to tell him there. I know I want one

Does someone have any information about Geobox-201? MSRP / availability? I need probably 2pcs of this simple demuxer.

VNS was going to produce this unit as the G-301 about a year ago, but there were some production & number changes, and it became the G-201. It is identical in operation to the G-501 except for offering screen geometry adjustments to match two projectors for perfect registration, and its input and output connectors (DVI instead of HDMI). It uses the same processing chip as the G-501 and provides Right & Left channel demultiplexing without any further equipment.

VNS is currently in the process of finding a distributor for the G-301 (it has one for it's other processor - the G-501) so it's not available through a distributor in the US yet.

I'm going to be evaluating the G-201 shortly to test its performance with a BD player, and will post my findings here when that happens. Prices are not available yet, though it will market for less than the G-501, which is their top-end processor.

I'm attaching the latest user manual revision available for the G-201 and some of its features can be gleaned from that. Note that this is a preliminary copy of their G-201 users manual, and may change.

G-201 Quick User Manual-V1.02.pdf 954k .pdf file

Weblink to G-201: http://www.vnstw.com/en/products_view.asp?ID=126&BKID=68

Also of interest is this feature comparison of the G-201, G-301, and G-501 from VNS

3D Product_comparison_chart.pdf 34k .pdf file
Edited by RBTO - 2/5/13 at 1:07pm

You mean VNS dont you ?? VIP has their own models not the 201,301 and 501. i believe the msrp of the 201 is 1295

I guess i dont understand the issue here. is there some encoding here that the demultiplexer cannot work with ? i have played several games using tridef and passed the signal from my nvidia fx4600 into my Geobox G-501 and it played great. i dont have a way to verify the frame rate on the screen but had the refresh set to 120 ??

Sorry, my bad. See corrected post.

They claim on their website: "G-201 low cost professional passive 3D demultiplexer" so $1295?!? they can't be serious For our purposes it's E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E, 2pcs of 3D-XL were $400 or something and it was quite a lot anyway...
They are offering the 301 as well as the 201 and it has other functions...I'm starting to be confused...


what's so computationaly demanding on the demultiplexing of BD 3D that it cannot be programmed for instance in a OPPO-103 etc. since the HD33 got it integrated?
Edited by zorg43x - 2/5/13 at 1:19pm

Tridef stereoscopic 3D drivers have an output menu that allows you to tell the driver what type of output you want to use.
Nvidia stereoscopic 3D drivers dont's have that, instead their driver detects your display via EDID, checks it's database if the display is Nvidia approved, if it finds your display, the Nvidia driver sets the resolution and refresh rate to a preset provided by Nvidia testing labs.
If it can't find your display in it's database, it will either refuse to activate the 3D mode, or fall back to the "discovery" anaglyph demo mode.
This is worth both for the 3D Vision driver and the 3DTV play driver, and is why so many Nvidia users have to spoof their monitor EDID in order to use Nvidia drivers with what would otherwise be perfectly compatible 3D displays, even for some Samsung hdmi1.4a monitors.

How did you connect the PC to the Geobox ? What settings did you use in Tridef ?
Resolution and refresh rate ? (how and where did you select them makes a big difference).
Are there any kind of source information menu in the Geobox menus ? Or in the projectors ? (can you trust the projectors information menu or does the Geobox resize/resample the picture?) etc... Change the in-game resolution to see if the projectors match it or if something is resizing the picture.
You can also check the framerate in games using the Tridef in-game menu, the performance tab displays the current framerate. Use a very light game to make sure your card can reach maximum framerate and activate V-sync in the game settings. The framerate should cap at the graphics card output refresh rate, this way you'll know at what framerate the computer is outputting..
Edited by BlackShark - 2/5/13 at 2:10pm

Motorman, can you try running a dual link DVI connection from an Nvidia card to the Geobox 501 and spoof the EDID to see if you can enable 3D Vision at 1080p120? You would need the EDID of 3D Vision supported monitor. If it does work, could you do an input lag test? ...or does anyone else have the Geobox and an Nvidia card that can try it, preferably a recent consumer model?

It seems like a lot of money to spend on an external box when dual output is supported by 3rd party drivers/some games, but so many games perform better / only work with 3D Vision. You can get the Helix mod patches for so many games that would otherwise be unplayable, like Dead Space 2 only with 3D Vision. Having a box that can do 3D Vision, but can also demux Bluray, PS3 / Xbox or DirecTV is a must for a lot of people to make the switch to passive projection (it is for me). The Geobox currently seem to be the only available option. The 501 with its other capabilities seems like a better investment, since within a year or two the HDMI 1.4 bandwidth issues will be a distant memory, but it would still be cool to own a box that can do warping and edge blending and it might still resell for a decent amount, while the 201 would be less considerably less useful. How much is the price difference and can anyone confirm if the input is Dual-Link DVI on the G-201?