Worthwhile 3D Movies so far

Off Topic Movies
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This is from the perspective of watching 3D movies via VR Headset (HP Reverb G2) using paid Virtual Home Theater on Steam (after trying the demo).

I briefly tested the built in Steam VR media player (it uses Unity Media Player), but it doesn’t recognize the most common movie format and I was not going to recode the video files and I was happy to pay for software that worked.

The one drawback is that the GUI is busy as hell. Fortunately you can fiddle with most settings and then save it by clicking the red SAVE button in the bottom right corner of the gui. It is not the most intuitive software to use though.

It does recognize motion controllers, but honestly the best way is via mouse/kb, especially if you’re just watching movies. You can use this software for other purposes (game playing etc, I believe), but I have no interest in that other than playing 3D movies at this point.

Virtual Home Theater doesn’t seem to care about audio format. It renders multi channel audio as virtual speakers inside the theatre environment. I haven’t experiemented too much with it apart from boosting the virtual speaker volume.

The software itself has some annoying default settings - like it displays cubes depicting the virtual speakers by default, so you have to figure out where to turn it off. The GUI config is very busy so it takes a while to figure out what is going on. It stores config files in Documents\Virtual Home Theater so you can edit some text files there to set up some defaults - like network folder paths etc.

The software defaults subs to on.

For testing, I used Spider-Man No Way Home in various formats. Half-OU seems to be best but it is not the most popular format, so while I opted for those usually, in some cases I had to settle for Half-SBS - the difference is honestly not really noticable.

Side note - the 3D in Spider-Man No Way Home is trash. It looks like they half-assed the conversion and that’s just from seeing the first couple of minutes of the movie. I’ll possibly adjust my opinion once I’ve seen the whole movie in 3D. I watched a youtube video review for the 3D version of this movie and the reviewer claims it’s fantastic. Not from what I saw anyway.

Worthwhile movies I’ve watched in 3D so far:

  • Everest (2015) - Hadn’t seen this before, 3D made it horrifying.
  • Gravity (2013) - Watched this in 3D originally on PSVR, watching again on HP Reverb G2 was a treat.
  • Incredibles 2 (2018) - This is an excellent presentation.
  • Dune Part One (2021) - Brilliantly done in 3D, I highly recommend it.
  • TRON Legacy (2010) - Also a decent presentation.
  • The Meg (2018) - This is very nice in 3D.

I’ll update this list as I go.

2

Watch Skyscraper (2018) in 3D. Things move up into your stomach.

3

Is Tron Legacy in VR the same as the cinematic version, where the real-world sequences were 2D and the computer sequences were 3D?

4

I’ve been trying to get a copy, but no luck so far.

5

The whole thing is 3D, or at least I can’t say I noticed that any sequences looked particularly different.

6

I realise I haven’t updated here in a while… :stuck_out_tongue:

I switched to HereSphere VR player, it’s pretty good.

I’ve also experimented with making 3D file conversions from 3D BluRay sources and it works well. Having tried various formats, I’ve settled on Full-OU (Over/Under aka Top/Bottom), which seems to give the best results, at least with playback in my HP Reverb G2.

I can’t say I’m terribly thrilled with the news that Microsoft is sunsetting Windows Mixed Reality. I suppose when I’m no longer able to use my HMD I’ll have to find something else. :frowning:

Anyway, I’ve watched a few more 3D movies:

  • The Walk - Eh, it’s a conversion and while it’s not too bad I got bored so ultimately didn’t finish this movie.
  • X - Don’t bother in 3D, the conversion is terrible. There are some scenes where the ground appears to be curved, and there are some scenes where it’s obvious that certain parts of the image have been put on different planes.
  • My Bloody Valentine - This is a fantastic 3D presentation. Apparently it was the first R rated movie projected in Real D in the US. I really wasn’t expecting it to be so well done.
  • Conan the Barbarian (2011) - Honestly, I recall watching the movie, but the 3D didn’t stand out for being terrible or especially good like My Bloody Valentine - it was very watchable.

I now have a collection of 87 3D movies (Not including X which I removed, or The Walk.), with a few more on the way. I’ll continue reporting if I remember. :wink:

7

I forgot I also watched Scream (2022). Also pretty decent.

I now have 103 3D movies in my collection to get through.

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I’ve just watched Dredd (2012). The 3D presentation is pretty good, and the movie itself is not horrible. It’s just difficult to get over the familiar sights of downtown Johannesburg being used as Mega City One.

I forgot, I watched The House of Wax (1953). Considering its age it’s not bad as a 3D presentation, and they definitely used the 3D gimmick a few times, considering it was Warner’s first 3D presentation. The movie itself is quite dated now obviously.