[trikong]

Guide to play SBS 3D video in 3D mode on a 3D TV with external player and NVIDIA 3DTV Play Software

I'd like to share my method of how to get SBS (Side-By-Side) 3D video files to be automatically detected by XBMC, launched and played full-screen with a 3D video player on a 3D TV in 3D mode.

Requirements:

A 3D TV
NVIDIA 3DTV Play (free 14 day trial) - *Note: This requires an NVIDIA video card
Stereoscopic Player
3D SBS Video File(s) (example)

Installation and Configuration:

Install NVIDIA 3DTV Play and set it up with your 3D TV. A list of supported 3D TVs is available here. Your 3D TV must be set to be the primary monitor for this to work.

Stereoscopic Player

Install Stereoscopic Player. You may also need to install codecs to play video files outside of XBMC (such as K-Lite Codec Pack).
Go to File > Settings... > select Playback Options on the left. For Viewing method choose NVIDIA 3D Vision. For Aspect ratio choose Full Size.
Now click on Advanced Options on the left. Select the Troubleshooting tab. Under NVIDIA 3D Vision, next to Resolution, deselect Use default and then type in the resolution 1280 x 720. (Please refer to the end of this guide for why this step is necessary)
Click OK.

playercorefactory.xml

To get XBMC to recognize a SBS 3D video file and execute Stereoscopic Player to play it with, an external player needs to be set up (How-to Wiki).

An external player is set up by placing a xml file called playercorefactory.xml in your userdata folder. The userdata folder can be found in various places.

Windows Vista & Windows 7: C:\Users\<Username>\AppData\Roaming\XBMC\UserData
Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<Username>\Application Data\XBMC\UserData

Place the xml in that directory and edit it to point to your StereoPlayer.exe. (The reason I use Stereoscopic Player rather than NVIDIA's 3D Vision Video Player is because it appears to be updated more regularly).

Here is an example of my xml file (I am running Windows 7 64-bit):

Code:

<playercorefactory>
<players>
   <player name="SBS-3D" type="ExternalPlayer" audio="false" video="true">
     <filename>C:\Program Files (x86)\Stereoscopic Player\StereoPlayer.exe</filename>
     <args>"{1}" -il:SideBySideRF -ihw -fss -ol:NVIDIA -term</args>
     <hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
     <hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
     <warpcursor>none</warpcursor>
   </player>
</players>
<rules action="prepend">
   <rule filetypes="mkv|ts" filename=".*sbs3d.*" player="SBS-3D"/>
</rules>
</playercorefactory>

What this code does is finds video files in your library that have ".sbs3d" in the filename and launches Stereoscopic Player in fullscreen mode and automatically plays it in 3D. You will need to add ".sbs3d" to the filenames of your SBS 3D videos (for example, "mymovie.sbs3d.mkv") so that it works!

Issues to Fix:

• 1080p @ 24fps
  

• NVIDIA 3DTV Play does not allow you to use 1080p @ 60fps in 3D mode. If you try it, you'll see red text along the bottom of your screen telling you so, and your video will not be playing back in 3D.
  
• Note: If anyone could help figure out, maybe by using ReClock, how to automatically set the mode to 1080p @ 24fps, which NVIDIA 3DTV Play does support, that would be outstanding.
  

• XBMC Resolution Incorrect on Exit
  

• When exiting the player and returning to XBMC, the resolution is sometimes incorrect.
  
• Temporary Fix: Restart XBMC.
  
• Note: This happens randomly and I don't really understand why.
  

Extra: 3D Video Sets in XBMC

You can have XBMC group all your 3D videos together into "sets" (for example, "3D Films" or "3D IMAX"). This helps to differentiate your 3D content from your normal 2D content until XBMC integrates 3D support. Read the Movie Sets Wiki for more information on how it is done.

Conclusion

There you go, that is my method and it works quite nicely for me. I hope people find this guide useful and can help to make it better.