2015-10-08, 08:56
(2015-10-07, 17:51)Stereodude Wrote: [ -> ]This shouldn't be all that confusing. From a decoding / player standpoint SBS and TAB are not 3D. They're just plain old 2D. 3D video is MVC. People want MVC decoding from an .ISO output as framepacked 1080p24 (really 24/1.001), just like a 3D Blu-ray player does. Also, the ability to play back MVC in M2TS, MKV, and other containers.
Well it is confusing, and you are confused as well
There are 3 layers:
- Demuxing
- Decoding
- Rendering
Decoding
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MVC is an extension to the h264 codec to more efficiently encode left-right images. When you decode MVC, you get 2 full resolution images for the price of 1 for a given timestamp: left & right.
It's THE standard for 3D, but not actually a must. Any way to encode LR picture can do
Rendering
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The next part is how to render those 2 images:
1) Framepacking: the LR images are rendered Top-Bottom with a gap in between (see http://www.best-3dtvs.com/what-is-frame-packing-3d/). I never actually see it working, but I assume you pass the 2 images to the kernel, which does the assembling and pass it thru HDMI to the TV. @popcornmix surely knows more technical details, here.
2) Full SBS/TAB: The 2 full frames are rendered in software as one frame, producing 1920x2160 or 3840x1080. This combined frame is then passed to the TV which split the frame to produce 3D.
Problem here is that you must have 4K support both on the box and on the TV, and the TV must support this (as an example, my sony TV is 4K but doesn't support Full SBS/TAB)
3) Half SBS/TAB: This is the most common one. The two full frames are squeezed in 2 times 960x1080 or 1080x540, producing a standard 1920x1080 frame. The frame is sent normally to the 3D TV which produces a 3D frame out of it. All boxes are able to do this and all 3D TV are able to play it.
From what I get, the zidoo is doing 3) out of MVC, currently. To get it working 100%, all that is needed is telling the TV that what the 1920x1080 image the box is sending is 3D. The box can do it by sending a special HDMI signal, or you can do it manually on your TV.
Demuxing
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Based on the above, the 3D files can be a number of things:
- For 3) (HSBS/HTAB), the files are mostly simple mkv files with normal h264 1920x1080 frames. There is an unofficial extension, MK3D, which adds metadata to the mkv to be able to recognize it as 3D. Kodi does not support this, but uses the file name to "guess" it's 3D, with, e.g., .HSBS. or .HTAB. in the filename.
- For 1) and 2), the files can also be simple mkv/h264, or they can be mkv's with the video encoded as MVC (see above).
- For ISO BD 3D, this is more complicated, as we are not using mkv but 2 m2ts video streams. One is the left image in h264, the other is the MVC part, with the right image.
To create a valid MVC stream, you have to combine the 2 m2ts.
The experiment I did, that zidoo is using, is to read the SSIF file on the BD, which is the 2 streams combined, and reconstruct a valid MVC stream, which is then decoded by the box, which is rendered as 3)
As you can see, confusing stuff
