Friday, November 7, 2008

3-D on Blu Ray

Just a heads up for 3-D enthusiasts: following the release of the Miley Cyrus concert in 3-D on Blu Ray, Warner Bros has stepped up and released their major theatrical films Journey to the Center of the Earth (via New Line) and The Polar Express on Blu Ray disc in 3-D.

I haven't checked out Journey to the Center of the Earth yet (although I'm told it uses a magenta/green anaglyph 3-D encode instead of the traditional red/blue - ostensably to make sure that you can only use the glasses included with the disc to view the movie), but I did pick up The Polar Express and gave it a spin last night.

Polar Express uses the tried and true red/blue method, but because of Blu Ray's VC1 codec the technology is more able to accurately reproduce the correct shades of red & blue than MPEG2 was. I've got a Samsung HDTV and found that by setting the TV's Picture setting to the vivid "Standard" setting, and then by turning off the DNIe (Digital Natural Image Enhancement) I was able to get what is possibly the cleanest 3-D effect I've ever been able to acheive at home, producing very little ghosting and sensational depth effects.

And, to top that off - I've just read that Paramount is set to release the 3-D holy grail: Friday the 13th Part 3: 3D Deluxe Edition on February 3rd, 2009.