3D How To Distinguish Discrete Blu-Ray Discs From Anaglyph (1 Viewer)

[bepaof17]

Today I got scammed again! I bought Final Destination 3D only to open the case and find enclosed red/cyan glasses. I had already been scammed by buying Coraline 3D, which turned out to be the Anaglyph version. I'm new to 3D so I'm the perfect patsy for passing off the crappy copies! I didn't even realize that Final Destination 3D was done in Anaglyph!


I was sitting in the audience in the late 50's when Anaglyph 3D movies played. I thought it looked stupid then, and it looks even worse now that stereoscopic 3D exists.


My question: Is there a list anywhere of the 3D movies that were done in stereoscopic 3D and also Anaglyph 3D so I can avoid buying another useless POS? I would really appreciate it if anyone could steer me to it!

 

[RolandL]

Where are you buying these Blu-ray's? If Amazon, they will list that the 3D glasses are included for the anaglyph version. For the Blu-ray 3D version they sometimes show you the back of the box which tells you need a 3D TV, 3D glasses and Blu-ray 3D player.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

Polarized 3-D has been around since 1936 and unless you were watching some comedy or burlesque shorts in the 1950's, all the features were polarized.


See myth number 1: http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/home/top-10-3-d-myths

 

[bepaof17]

Polarized 3-D has been around since 1936 and unless you were watching some comedy or burlesque shorts in the 1950's, all the features were polarized.


See myth number 1: http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/home/top-10-3-d-myths

The glasses I used in the theaters had two colors, and one of them was red. The time was late 50's. I didn't see any comic books - just movies. Facts. The movies I see referred to were from when I was younger than 10 - when I was watching cartoons on that new thing - a TV!


The anaglyph 3D movies I bought were from Ebay. Guess I should stay away from there, huh.

 

[Mark-P]

You're not being scammed. You just have to pay attention to what you are purchasing. Both the movies you refer to were released in multiple formats on Blu-ray. You have to look for the Blu-ray 3D logo when choosing a version:

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Friday the 13th Part III is only available in anaglyph format. They had a chance to re-do it properly for a box set that came out last year, but instead they just included the obsolete disc.


Journey To The Center of the Earth is another title that has an anaglyph version, but also a proper 3D one.

 

[StephenDH]

I suppose it's possible you could have seen anaglyphs at a cinema which wasn't able to show polarised 3D.

 

[Bob Furmanek]

No, we've gone through studio records and this is well documented from primary source materials.


Fact: there were no anaglyphic 3-D features released in the 1950's.


Many people confuse 13 GHOSTS with an actual 3-D feature from that period. There's more info here: http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/golden-age-3-d

 

[bepaof17]

No, we've gone through studio records and this is well documented from primary source materials.


Fact: there were no anaglyphic 3-D features released in the 1950's.


Many people confuse 13 GHOSTS with an actual 3-D feature from that period. There's more info here: http://www.3dfilmarchive.com/golden-age-3-d

It's not whether or not polarized glasses were being used, which I have already said were red/blue glasses. It's not whether or not it was a feature film I was watching, which may have been some short like a three stooges something (whether or not it was called a movie or short doesn't really matter - see the last sentence). I remember someone pointing a needle or something at me from the screen, apparently highlighting the 3D effect. I remember the red/blue glasses - which can not be confused with polarized non-red/blue glasses, even by a 12 year old 60ish years later. But if your thrill is to call me a liar, then go ahead and get your rocks off! What's the point though, if your response is a complete twist away from the point of the thread?


The point I was trying to get across is are there any more 3D bluray movies that you use red/blue glasses to watch so I can avoid buying them?



POST EDITED BY OWNERSHIP DUE TO ATTACKING ANOTHER MEMBER

 

[Charles Smith]

And hasn't that been addressed by more than one person above? Read the package description before buying.

 

[TravisR]

But if your thrill is to call me a liar, then go ahead and get your rocks off!

I'm not going to speak for Bob but I think he's saying that your memory is incorrect not that you're deliberately lying.

 

[Mike Ballew]

Bepaof17, please don't engage in ad hominem. As you look over the existing threads, I think you'll find plenty of respectful disagreement, emphasis on the respectful. Let's keep it that way.

I personally am willing to entertain the idea that you may have caught an anaglyphic short, maybe a stray print of Metroscopix or something. But a number of us have had the experience of speaking to persons who conflated the Illusion-O of 13 Ghosts with stereoscopic 3-D. I will add, mainly for the sake of others reading this, that if some rogue exhibitor was bucking the system and showing two-strip 3-D through colored filters, he was putting himself through a lot of trouble for no gain. Projecting stereo images through colored gels sucks up a lot more light than does polarized projection. Better for this hypothetical showman to just leave 3-D alone.

 

[DaveF]

Let's take this back to the original topic of how to correctly identify the 3D format of disc media, so people can buy the product they want.


There's no need to turn this into debate thread on the historicity of anaglyph movies; I'm pretty sure we've got at least one of those already.


And there's no need to attack people for trying to bring some historical data into a thread. We get a lot of 'cross pollination' of topics, and sometimes it takes us astray of the original question. That's life on a forum


Thanks

 

[Mike Ballew]

Hi, David,


In all sincerity, would it be possible to change the title of the thread to something that dials down the specificity of the topic? How To Distinguish Discrete Blu-Ray Discs From Anaglyph, maybe?


The name of the thread, Anaglyph 3-D, does imply a broader discussion than simply identifying the correct format.


(This is one of those cases where I really wish you could hear my tone of voice, as I absolutely do not mean for this to come across in a snide way, which I think it easily could.)

 

[Egore]

Any movie that was originally shown in polarized 3-D (old or new) can be converted to the anaglyph format and released on a DVD in anaglyphic 3-D. This makes it cheaper to produce, because it's unnecessary to use a 3-D Blu-ray disk. This lowers the quality of the 3-D image, but it gives the DVD a wider audience, because not everyone has a 3DTV. I think this is what was done with your copy of The Final Destination movie, because it was originally shown in theaters in polarized 3-D. Also, if people make illegal copies to sell on ebay, then they have to resort to anaglyph conversions. I grew up in the 1950's and I saw all the 3-D movies, and all of the films that were released by the major studios were originally shown in polarized 3-D. However, there were some cheaply made burlesque comedies that featured partial female nudity that were released in the anaglyphic format with red/blue glasses. So, technically speaking, not all 3-D movies used polarized projection in the Fifties. However, nothing in your answer indicates that you saw a risque movie, so there is one other possibility I can think of. Some of the black and white 3-D movies of the 1950's, which were originally shown in polarized 3-D, were converted to anaglyphs at the end of the Fifites 3-D boom. The anaglyphs were put on color film to eliminate all the problems associated with dual projectors or beam splitters. These films were released to some small neighborhood theaters that didn't have dual projection setups. I think it's interesting that you mention a hypodermic needle coming out of the screen, because the Three Stooges Short, Spooks, has such a scene in it and it's a very effective. I saw Spooks in a theater in the 1950's and it was projected in the polarized process, but I was able to buy it a few years later as an 8mm anaglyph on color film. Because it was originally a black and white film, it worked very well as an anaglyph, and the 3-D was excellent, especially that scene with the needle. It's possible that this short was re-released to a theater near you as an anaglyph at the end of the 3-D boom and maybe that's what you saw.

 

[Mike Ballew]

Good points, Egore, except that single-strip anaglyphic prints of big studio 3-D films from the 1950s didn't really start to appear until the early 1970s.


In the 1950s proper, there were single-strip anaglyphic prints of things like A Day in the Country and College Capers. (In fact, if I'm not mistaken, the reason these latter titles still exist at all is because individual anaglyphic prints survived, from which discrete left and right images have been harvested.)


Maybe the most widely distributed example of anaglyphic 3-D in the 1950s was Metroscopix, a kind of compendium of stereo footage originally released as separate shorts during the 1930s and '40s. If someone came to me and insisted they saw anaglyphic 3-D projected in a cinema in the 1950s and could not cite a specific title, I would think Metroscopix the most likely answer.


When some 3-D films were revived theatrically in the late 1950s-- House of Wax, Phantom of the Rue Morgue, several of the Universal titles, and I think a couple from United Artists-- they were specifically pitched to that dwindling number of houses that had retained the appropriate equipment from 1953-'54. My impression is that this momentary resurgence of 3-D exhibition, circa 1958, led eventually, in a roundabout way, to the production of September Storm (1960), which of course is itself a two-strip film.

 

[StephenDH]

Even Wikipedia perpetuates the myth that the 50s 3D movies were anaglyphs so it's no wonder people get confused. It also appears to say Jaws 3D was anaglyphic.

 

[DaveF]

Hi, David,

In all sincerity, would it be possible to change the title of the thread to something that dials down the specificity of the topic? How To Distinguish Discrete Blu-Ray Discs From Anaglyph, maybe?

Done.

I trust the original poster, Bepaof17, will be ok with clarifying the title to reflect his key, and useful, question.

 

[FTL]

Even Wikipedia perpetuates the myth that the 50s 3D movies were anaglyphs so it's no wonder people get confused. It also appears to say Jaws 3D was anaglyphic.

Where are you seeing this? Here's what Wiki has on the 3D Film page:

"As with practically all of the features made during this boom, Bwana Devil was projected dual-strip, with Polaroid filters. During the 1950s, the familiar disposable anaglyph glasses made of cardboard were mainly used for comic books, two shorts by exploitation specialist Dan Sonney, and three shorts produced by Lippert Productions. However, even the Lippert shorts were available in the dual-strip format alternatively."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_film#The_.22golden_era.22_.281952.E2.80.931954.29

 

[StephenDH]

Wikipedia has a separate section on Anaglyph 3D. I may have misinterpreted it as it was a bit late in the evening when I looked at it.