GregK
Screenwriter
- Joined
- Nov 22, 2000
- Messages
- 1,056
...Somebody pinch me! For the first time ever in the United States, an A-List Hollywood feature has been released in the field-sequential 3-D video format. ..It's not another 3-D bootleg .. nor a low budget skin flick.. nor is it an obscure large format 3-D film.. This is a true high dollar played-in-all-fifty-states 3-D feature! Sure.. SPY KIDS 3D is more of a kid's flick and certainly is no HOUSE OF WAX, but never the less, this release represents a major field-sequential milestone.
Sensio had first released SPY KIDS 3-D in it's own proprietary 3-D video format, which squeezes the left and right images side by side and is then stored on a DVD. A $3000 processor (yes, that's the correct number of zeros) is required to play it back. ...Given the cost of the Sensio processor, I think it's safe to say the official Sensio 3D format will stay a very niche market for now.
But now under the HQFS banner (high quality field sequential) Sensio has quietly re-released SPY KIDS 3-D in field-sequential 3-D on DVD. As expected, when one compares this version to the first anaglyph "red/blue" 3-D DVD video release, a couple layers of murk is lifted from the image along with a reduction of ghosting normally found in color-anaglyph video. Colors finally look natural. The 3-D experience takes on a new life. In short, the 3-D presentation far surpasses the original anaglyph theatrical and DVD presentations. ..But is this to say Sensio did everything right? Nope.
The HQFS version of SPY KIDS 3-D was mastered to DVD with an improper 4x3 flag. Meaning the disc itself *is* 16x9 enhanced, but the flag is set to 4x3. So if you have a 4x3 display device, you will see the entire image .. but it will remain slightly stretched. If you have a 16x9 display device, just instruct your display device to unsqeeze the image and you're all set. But again, 4x3 viewers will be forced to see slightly thinner actors, along with oval moons and so on... While this glitch is for the most part benign to widescreen users and may go unnoticed to younger viewers watching in 4x3, this was a very sloppy oversight that should have been caught before the release.
Besides the 16x9/4x3 flag issues, the other critiques come down to minor nit picks. The feature has some occasional interlace artifacts which could have been avoided if the conversion to field-sequential been done correctly. The Sensio version changes the convergence in a few scenes when compared to the original anaglyph 3-D version(s), but fails to correct the occasional rendering errors that present some backgrounds and/or objects in reverse 3-D. But to be fair on this last point, these rendering errors are also present on the anaglyph theatrical prints, the anaglyph DVD, and the previous Sensio squeezed side by side 3-D video version. So perhaps the raw elements to correct these scenes are either no longer available or are not easily feasible ($$) to correct.
The HQFS SPY KIDS DVD is available from select on-line outlets, including Amazon.com. The field-sequential 3-D format reqires an interlaced display device, or a progressive scan display that properly converts interlaced 3-D video to progressive.
Sensio had first released SPY KIDS 3-D in it's own proprietary 3-D video format, which squeezes the left and right images side by side and is then stored on a DVD. A $3000 processor (yes, that's the correct number of zeros) is required to play it back. ...Given the cost of the Sensio processor, I think it's safe to say the official Sensio 3D format will stay a very niche market for now.
But now under the HQFS banner (high quality field sequential) Sensio has quietly re-released SPY KIDS 3-D in field-sequential 3-D on DVD. As expected, when one compares this version to the first anaglyph "red/blue" 3-D DVD video release, a couple layers of murk is lifted from the image along with a reduction of ghosting normally found in color-anaglyph video. Colors finally look natural. The 3-D experience takes on a new life. In short, the 3-D presentation far surpasses the original anaglyph theatrical and DVD presentations. ..But is this to say Sensio did everything right? Nope.
The HQFS version of SPY KIDS 3-D was mastered to DVD with an improper 4x3 flag. Meaning the disc itself *is* 16x9 enhanced, but the flag is set to 4x3. So if you have a 4x3 display device, you will see the entire image .. but it will remain slightly stretched. If you have a 16x9 display device, just instruct your display device to unsqeeze the image and you're all set. But again, 4x3 viewers will be forced to see slightly thinner actors, along with oval moons and so on... While this glitch is for the most part benign to widescreen users and may go unnoticed to younger viewers watching in 4x3, this was a very sloppy oversight that should have been caught before the release.
Besides the 16x9/4x3 flag issues, the other critiques come down to minor nit picks. The feature has some occasional interlace artifacts which could have been avoided if the conversion to field-sequential been done correctly. The Sensio version changes the convergence in a few scenes when compared to the original anaglyph 3-D version(s), but fails to correct the occasional rendering errors that present some backgrounds and/or objects in reverse 3-D. But to be fair on this last point, these rendering errors are also present on the anaglyph theatrical prints, the anaglyph DVD, and the previous Sensio squeezed side by side 3-D video version. So perhaps the raw elements to correct these scenes are either no longer available or are not easily feasible ($$) to correct.
The HQFS SPY KIDS DVD is available from select on-line outlets, including Amazon.com. The field-sequential 3-D format reqires an interlaced display device, or a progressive scan display that properly converts interlaced 3-D video to progressive.
