Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I would also like to see a really good 3D system make a come back. When I was a kid in the 70s a local theater showed a double feature of Creature from the Black Lagoon and It Came from Outer Space in 3D! I was VERY impressed. I wish some local theater would do a marathon of old 3D films.

Doug

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I'm hoping the theatre in my tiny town gets Journey in 3D. I doubt they will. I'm wondering if it's worth seeing in 2D...

The last 3D movie I watched was Spykids 3D at home on DVD and I thought it was kind of cool but didn't match what I remember from seeing stuff like Space Hunter and Warhal's Frankenstein in the early 80s in the movie theatre.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I too am curious of this process. The 3D movie I saw was Flesh for Frankenstein in a midnight movie and it was wild.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

That's the one I saw too. Sometimes it's called Andy Warhol's Frankenstein. I saw it in the 80s. Funny, I was about 15 or so and me and a friend who was about 13 went to see it. Ha! Mom dropped us off but the ticket lady wouldn't sell us tickets. Mom was urked. "What the hell...? Why won't they sell you tickets?!" She didn't wait for an answer and bought our tickets for us and sped off. I mean, it was just Frankenstein, right? Even funnier, right in the middle of it my friend was saying "I don't think I'm supposed to be watching this..." (I believe during the imfamous rape scene) and I told him to just put his hands over his eyes. Damn, that's a good memory!!! One of my favorite personal movie moments. Poor mom...she thought it was Karloff in 3D!!!

I have both Fresh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula on DVD now and they are absolute blast! I really wish there were 3D version available on DVD though. There's just something missing watching 3D in 2D.. That's what I'm afraid of with Journey.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I think you are refering to Real D technology. As far as I know its never been called Real 3d.

I work as a projectionist at a theater that has a 3d screen, and I have seen all of the 3D films since The Nightmare Before Christmas. I don't know how to compare it to older 3D films (since I haven't seen any), but the digital technology is supposed to make the images much more sharp, and the polarized glasses fit comfortably and cause minimal strain on your eyes.
The effect works quite well, almost like your watching a stage production.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

REAL-D uses circular polarization to make their system work. The single projector is alternating left-eye/right-eye with an LCD shutter in front of the lens that applies the polarization. The glasses are also circularly polarized.

The big difference between this and "old style" polarized 3-d is that if you tilt your head, you don't get the double-image thing going.

Leo

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

The other big difference is the single digital projector. Previous film based systems had to have two projectors running simultaneously, so film lengths were typically restricted until the platter system came along. House of Wax actually had an intermission so the projectionist could change reels.

Alternate film based systems have been proposed with a beam splitter and a single length of film, but Real D has been the first time a 3-D system has been implemented that requires minimal adjustments to the theatre.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I take it that no one saw Beowulf in RealD last year?

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I saw a screening of a 3D copy of Dial M for Murder at this year's 3D Film Festival in Brookline, MA and it was also polarized with the same glasses. I think polarized came first, with the other formats more middling but easier to handle.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Showing public 3-D features using polarized light has been ongoing sense the 1939 World's Fair. All of the over 50+ Hollywood features produced in the first part of the 1950's were also shown in the Polaroid 3-D process.

There are some minor differences, (Real-D uses circular polarization, while previous theatrical polarized venues used linear polarization) and the methods of getting the two left and right images onto the screen has varied.

The 1950's 35mm polarized set-ups used two interlocked 35mm projectors. This offered the best presentation, but could easily be knocked out of sync if an edit or cue point was set wrong. Properly projected dual 35mm 3-D projection is still a sight to behold, and is highly recommended.

From the mid 1960's on, the two images were crunched onto a single 35mm frame. ..No more dual projection sync issues to worry about, but the resulting image had the equivalent quality of dual 16mm. And because most of these were also shot using the single strip method, these given 3-D movies will always look a little under par.. even when shown in 2-D.

Real-D uses a single digital projector alternating between the left and right images (and polarizing each image as needed) at 144 times a second. Many of the early digital projectors were 720P, but most new Cinema digital projectors are 1080P. Every once in awhile, if there is a camera pan at just the right speed, you may see a bit of strobing from the 144hz alternating images. But this effect is far and few between and is easily far superior to what was shown in the early 1980's. And for the most part for the projectionist, Real-D is a start and forget procedure.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I just graduated college with a BS in Optical Engineering and my dad has subjected my brother and I to a lifetime of film appreciation, so this RealD method is extremely intriguing to me. Any links to articles on this? The theory is pretty interesting, but I'm curious if there are any issues with the polarization being lost/reversed as the light hits the screen. I'm guessing this isn't the case (and if it is reversed, then that's an extremely easy problem to overcome).

Note: I figure I can probably Google/Wiki the term "RealD" but I'm hoping someone on here knows a good, direct link.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Morgan,

Here is a nice PDF article on Real-D's operating system.

http://www.reald-corporate.com/_reso...%20Conf%20.pdf

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

How is Real-D different from the Disney Digital 3-D films like Meet the Robinsons and Bolt, or are they the same process with different branding?

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I saw Beowulf and it was INCREDIBLE. The glasses are comfortable and I did not worry about them after about 20 seconds. The 3-D effect was sweet.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Not that I would know first-hand, but wasn't the Hannah Montana movie also in RealD?

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Yep. ...and before you start looking at me funny, I wouldn't know firsthand either. I learned all about Hannah Montana when I was trying to figure out why the heck U23D wasn't playing anymore.



I believe it's the same process.

Disney likes to call things that already otherwise have names by something with their corporate moniker. Thus, a DVD in the hands of their marketing department becomes "DisneyDVD", and the standard "DVD" logo gets replaced by a Disneyfied version. I'm actually surprised that the people in charge of the DVD spec and logo haven't complained.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

The only thing I hate about 3D is having to wear glasses over my glasses. Less than comfortable.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

After quickly glancing at the link that GregK provided (thanks, btw) I can see this technology being adapted into regular LCD TVs. And that would be cool. Any word on this yet?

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Yes, RealD and DisneyD are the same (or whatever the Disney name is.)

Also one of the areas that single-projector systems have troubles with is light output. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the theater is properly calibrated for, what, 15 foot-lamberts of light.

When you take the two images in the space of one frame, and spread them out over the whole screen-area, you're probably loosing about 75% of the light. Maybe my geometry is wrong, and it's only half the light, but either way, you're loosing a lot. Okay, let's say you're loosing only half the light, so you've got 7.5 fL of light on the screen for each eye.

Except then you need to put the polarization in. Now the screen is being hit with 3.75 fL of light. But the picture still looks like crap. Why? Because even though it's a metalized screen (to preserve the polarization as asked about in Post #14) it's still reflecting both "eyes" into both "eyes."

Answer: polarized glasses on the viewer's head. Result: well, since the polarizations are supposed to be the same, you shouldn't loose too much to the appropriate eye. -99.5% to the wrong eye, -~15% to the correct eye. End result, 3.19 fL, down from the SMPTE spec of 15fL.

IMAX-3D gets around this by using two interlocked projectors. So they're only in the 6-7fL range. Actually, they may be running the screen hotter to begin with; I'm not sure if they follow the SMPTE spec.

Something that interests me, is someone is running around with a 2-projector 3D system that uses different color palettes. If Projector #1 is using colors X, Y, and Z for it's RGB triad, and Projector #2 is using A, B, and C for it's RGB triad, then the smaller subset of A/X, B/Y, and C/Z is the actual color-space you can display. The glasses are then narrow band-pass filters that pass either ABC or XYZ.

Not sure how well it works, but it certainly is a different solution to the problems. It gets away from polarized filters on the projectors, and it also gets away from having to use metalized screens. Heck, you could shoot it onto a fog-screen if you wanted to.

Leo

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Agreed. One of the many reasons I got Lasik eye surgery last month. One of the best decisions I've ever made.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Leo - The link that was posted above explains the losses due to the components pretty well.

One thing to consider as a problem with using any sort of polarized light is that you need to reflect it off of something that will scatter it (so you can see it from all directions) without significantly altering the polarization. To do this, they use a special silver screen (I'm guessing it's silver-based paint rather than an actual wall of silver, but I'm not sure). A positive side effect of this is that the screen actually has the ability to make the image appear brighter and, thus, lowering the losses due to the polarizer and the glasses.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I saw the first 10 - 15 min of Beowulf before the darn projector broke. It was at an IMAX and I found the result of 3D and IMAX not a great one. It was just a bit tiring to watch. Maybe that is not the right word, but I did not care for it. Mind you, I am not a huge fan of IMAX for any kind of fast moving film. I find it rather blurry or disorienting when the camera pans on such a huge screen. I would love to see the Real-D effect on a standard screen.

Is James Cameron doing anything different for his upcoming movie? I know he is a huge proponent of 3D.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Great to hear. I live in the boonies...maybe there's a little ray of hope for me on seeing this in 3D. I'm still up in the air on seeing this non-3D. So far my cinema's web site hasn't listed it as opening this week. Hellboy II and Meet Dave are the only ones on the "coming soon" section.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Disney has converted prior 3-D shorts into the Real-D process. The first year "Nightmare Before Xmas" was released in 3-D, it included the Pixar short "Knick Knack," which was originally produced in 3-D.

For "Meet The Robinsons," Disney included an old Donald Duck and Chip N Dale cartoon from the 1950s that was originally produced in 3-D.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I share your thoughts in regards to the glasses on top of glasses. I was in Universal Studios and on the Shrek 4D ride that was my only concern. Other than that once you get past it, it really is enjoyable.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

I wear eyeglasses too. The pairs of 3D glasses that came with the DVD of Spykids 3D worked just fine though. Perhaps along with the canned drink and paper bag with our own popcorn, all us FOUR EYES should sneak in some sticky tape to attach them to our glasses.

Re: Has anyone seen a movie that uses the "Real 3D" process?

Try the Wikipedia Real d article, which I can't post cos I'm a newbie.

and about the light loss issues with 3D: try googling "RealD XL" - this systemm is supposed to increase light.

My understanding is that using two projectors for digital 3D pretty much ruins the advantage of digital: the two images can't be calibrated correctly anymore and you're back to an IMAX-like analog 3D that gives you headaches.