Men in Black 3??? - Page 2

Anoyone else notice the floating window effect with this release? Black bars popping in and out of the side of the frame throughout the film from scene to scene.

Seriously? That's a side-effect of 2D>3D conversion, but they should have compensated for it in the master. I don't recall seeing it on The Avengers (as an example). I haven't seen this one in 3D yet, though.

They insert them in post, actually. It's so that things that pop out of the screen and get cut off by the side edge of the TV will at least look like they're being obstructed properly.

I'm thinking of something different, where the background is shifted left or right for depth, but they don't fill in the empty space that's exposed by doing that. Background versus foreground (what you're describing is specifically for foreground objects, yes?)

The "floating window" Brett is probably referring to is added in post and "floats" out in front of the screen, serving as a virtual "window" frame that comes out of your monitor to give popout content something to disappear behind out of the shot.

What you're talking about, I'm not sure that's a problem that Hollywood is actually faced with. Because rather than having to paint in the left image to match the right, they could simply crop the right to match the left.
Edited by cakefoo - 12/19/12 at 7:36pm

If that's what they are, they're apparently not working very well if he can see them.

Can't say that for sure. Was he watching through the glasses? Was he bothered by it?

I knew what the problem was having read about it, but this was the first time I have seen it. I guess on smaller screens a lot of people might not notice it, but on a 100+ inch screen I found it very distracting. It literally changes shot to shot, edit to edit for the entire film.

There is some kind of secret sale on this at Best Buy 17.99, just bought it. Rings up $34.99 -17.00 sale. Don't know how long this will last.

Not to get off topic, but Spider-Man in 3D is the same price but no advertised. You have to bring it to the register. It's also available for that price on their website

Finally got around to watching this one tonight.

There is some problems with the framing, I only spotted it because I was looking for it based on Brett's report. It's not a "floating" anything, I think it is some kind of artifact of the conversion process. I took the glasses off, and the entire edge of the frame was blacked out, not just one eye (as it would be if they were trying to reduce artifacts on negative parallax elements, and that did happen in a few scenes, so I could see the difference). Sometimes left, sometimes right, and I think even occasionally both, it became slightly windowboxed.

But, honestly, I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been looking for it. One of the downsides of reading threads like this before actually seeing the film in 3D (I saw it 2D in theaters).

On the whole, I found the 3D quite enjoyable. Subtle, for the most part, good depth to pretty much every scene. A few good pop-out moments where they counted. Definitely the "preferred" method of watching the film, IMO.

Update: Apparently this is something they're doing intentionally, but for the life of me I can't figure out why they would choke up the entire side of the frame in both eyes. I just got done watching Finding Nemo, and they did it there, too, in some cases dynamically, where it would come and go within the same shot depending on what was on the edge of the screen. No idea.

I noticed the normal 3D separation was set forward of the window--ie. most closeups are between the screen and the audience. Once I pushed the scene back inside the window with the 3D separation control on my Panasonic bluray, the window issue disappeared. Correct separation is when objects in the distance (infinity) are separated about 2.5" or normal eye width. But that is assuming you have a reasonably large screen (100" or bigger). Mine is 159". On small screens it's best to keep the separation so that 99% of the images are at or behind the window. Images at the window will appear as single converged images (no apparent 3D separation), when you take you glasses off. Images in front of the window will be separated, cross eyed, and those behind the window will be separated normal.