3D Movies on DVD - LCD Shutter Glasses and Anaglyph

Do you remember the fads in the early 50's and in the 80's for 3D movies? This guide will explain how to view some of the classic movies on your tv, the types of movies you'll see for sale here on okay and things to avoid.Movies in the 3D format work much like the Viewmaster or stereo card viewers for still photographs. During production, two cameras or two lenses producing images on different parts of the film frame photograph what your left and right eye sees. In theaters, the images are projected on the screen at the same time, each polarized differently. You wear Polaroid glasses to separate the images for each eye.With television, polarized images aren't possible, so there are two main methods for viewing 3d at home. The most gemon is to use a set of red/blue or red/cyan glasses. This method, called anaglyph, distorts color in the original image and can be difficult for some people to watch. The best quality 3D home presentations use the field sequential format - the video is encoded with the left and right images interleaved in the signal. You view the tapes or disc with a small box attached to your tv that sends a signal to a set of lcd shutter glasses, alternative the left and right views thirty times each second.Some okay merchants offer lcd shutter glasses with the controller box and sometimes a couple of movies in the format. If you watch the tape or disc without the glasses, everything is a blur, since you're actually seeing two images at the same time.There have been many 3D movies produced through the years and many are available on VHS and DVD. The films were originally released in field sequential format on VHD and VHS and turn up on occaision on okay. These include 1950's classics such as "It Came From Outer Space", "House of Wax" with Vicent Price, Hitchcock's only 3d movie "Dial M For Murder" and minor cult classics like "Gog" and "Cat-Women of the Moon". Other films that turn up occaisionally include shorts such as "Sam Space" or "Pardon My Backfire" with the Three Stooges. From the 1980's, films that have been seen include "gein' At Ya", "Treasure of the Four Crowns", "Spacehunter" with Molly Ringwald, "Friday the 13th Part 3" and "Jaws 3".There are some "fake" 3d discs seen once in a while. Usually these are rare 3d movies that have never been released on video in 3d format in any country or movies not originally filmed in 3d. These have been reprocessed by geputer for a faux stereo effect, sometimes called "Living 3D" - the 3D effect in these reprocessed films is minimal and there can be motion artifacts and other anomalies that make them hard to watch.Some 3D movies have been released in anaglyph format on VHS and DVD. These include "gein' At Ya", "Cat Women on the Moon", "Amityville 3D" and "Creature from the Black Lagoon". Some work well and some don't, depending on the accuracy of the color of the transfer. If your tv set or projector is properly adjusted to match the red/blue lenses of your 3d glasses, some 3d effect can be seen, but the odd colors can produce eye strain.To enjoy your 3D movies in the sequential field format, make sure you set the polarity of your controller box to the proper setting - some tapes and discs send the left images first, others show the right image first. If the disc or tape you're viewing doesn't look quite right, try changing the polarity. Also, don't sit too close to the screen - just the average distance from your tv to the couch should be sufficient to give you a good 3d effect.If you're thinking about diving in to 3d movies for the first time, you might purchase one of the sets of inexpensive sequential field controller boxes that include wired lcd glasses. If you enjoy viewing them, you can upgrade to wireless glasses at a later time.LCD shutter glasses only work with tube-type television sets. If you have a normal analogue (NTSC) tube television, the controller box and glasses should work fine with a sequential field tape or disc.If you own a tube-type high definition set, the controller may work - you'll need to set the dvd player to progressive scan and your dvd player will need to output a normal NTSC signal to the controller box at the same time that it outputs a progressive scan signal to the high definition television. In addition, your dvd player or tv must not do any line doubling or processing of the video signal - I have a Panasonic player that works well with a HDTV tube set and a Sony with "Cinema Progressive" that does not since it processes the video signal, gebining the left and right images improperly. LCD shutter glasses currently (as of mid-2006) do not work with plasma or lcd television sets or monitors.