\n<\/p>\n
Why am I suddenly buying up every 3D Blu-ray I can find after 3D became one of the biggest tech flops of all time?<\/p>\n
The technology\u2019s finally ready for 3D movies to shine, more than 15 years since James Cameron\u2019s Avatar<\/em> wowed me on the big screen and went on to become the highest-grossing film worldwide. Video glasses are giving me the experience I\u2019ve always desired.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always loved 3D movies, but viewing them was awkward. Walking into a movie theater with a pair of polarized glasses, I would only get half the resolution and roughly half the brightness, since those glasses had to split one reflected image between my two eyes. Almost every 3D technology cuts something you care about in half, whether it\u2019s resolution (see also: Nintendo 3DS) or the refresh rate and flicker you get with active shutter glasses.<\/p>\n But what if you had a full screen for each eye? That\u2019s what video glasses can provide.<\/p>\n The Xreal glasses have to be plugged into a USB-C source of 3D content, like a laptop or handheld or phone.<\/em> Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales \/ The Verge<\/p>\n Standalone VR headsets like the Steam Frame, Meta Quest, and Apple Vision Pro also work.<\/em> Photo: Kelsey McClellan \/ The Verge<\/p>\n Last year, I began testing a pair of Xreal One Pro glasses, which primarily give you a gigantic flat screen, like a private theater, for whatever you plug in. But that screen doesn\u2019t technically<\/em> need to stay flat. If you press and hold the right button, Xreal can give you independent left and right views for side-by-side (SBS 3D) content. With proper content, you get a full 1080p view for each eye.<\/p>\n There are SBS 3D toggles in popular video player apps for VR headsets like the Meta Quest and Steam Frame, too \u2014 and the Apple Vision Pro and upcoming Meta VR Glasses let you natively stream 3D films.<\/p>\n The water in Moana<\/em>, a glass-covered clock in Zootopia 2<\/em>, the helmets in Gravity<\/em>, suiting up in giant robots in Pacific Rim<\/em>, lightcycles in Tron: Legacy<\/em>, comic book panels coming to life in Into the Spider-Verse<\/em> \u2014 there\u2019s just so much more depth to see.<\/p>\n When the ocean parts to let Moana through, it no longer feels like looking at a flat wall of water. It\u2019s a living chunk of ocean with life swimming inside. The Lego Movie<\/em> went from \u201cwow those are some realistic-looking CG Lego bricks on a flat screen\u201d to \u201cI just got teleported into an entire Lego diorama.\u201d In Avatar<\/em>, the holographic displays in the ops room are mind-blowing. Even the flat rectangular monitors have 3D layers within.<\/p>\n Almost everything in <\/em>Avatar looks amazing in 3D, but the ops room is a special treat.<\/em> Image: Avatar.com<\/em><\/p>\n Cockpits and helmets and Tron: Legacy<\/em> lightcycles and Mad Max: Fury Road<\/em>\u2019s convoy of battling vehicles \u2014 anything with transparent glass is a treat. There\u2019s distinct detail on the faces inside the glass, the structures outside, beads of water or scratches on the glass itself, even reflections of the outside world, depending on the film.<\/p>\n Billie Eilish\u2019s new concert film, shot by James Cameron with 16 twin<\/em> cameras including four remote-controlled AGITO camera rigs, looked incredible in the Meta VR Glasses during a brief demo. He got up close and personal with the concert, like few VR concert recordings do. In a demo with the Google \/ Xreal Aura, I watched a tiny bit of the interactive nature documentary Galapagos: The Last Eden <\/em>and was entranced by the gorgeous baby seals, the grains of sand in their shiny fur, the fuzzy depth of the hair on their skin.<\/p>\n Regardless of the hardware, it almost feels like I can reach out and touch a character\u2019s face in 3D, feel their emotions and wrinkles and scars more vividly, once they have depth.<\/p>\n Or, in the case of Werner Herzog\u2019s cult-classic 3D documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams<\/em>, I could appreciate how the world\u2019s oldest surviving art isn\u2019t flat \u2014 the 32,000-year-old cave paintings took form thanks to their three-dimensional canvas. \u201cA bulging rock is now a bulging neck of a bison that attacks you,\u201d Herzog explained to us earlier this year.<\/p>\n When I fired up Gravity<\/em> for what I thought would be a brief test, late at night in bed, I wound up watching the entire film. It all feels a bit like when I bought my first decent set of headphones \u2014 I never knew what I was missing, but now I want to revisit all my favorites to experience them more deeply.<\/p>\n Not all 3D content is equal. Few live-action movies were truly filmed with twin cameras in recent years. In fake or poorly converted 3D movies, you\u2019ll often see a \u201cbillboard\u201d effect where it looks like there are flat layers of people or objects in the background instead of true depth.<\/p>\n Even \u201cfake 3D\u201d can intrigue. Watching this scene from <\/em>Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in Meta\u2019s VR Glasses, the kids were awkwardly billboarding \u2014 but my eyes were drawn to the couch\u2019s textured blanket, the objects on the mantlepiece, the cartoon on the TV.<\/em> Image: Disney Plus<\/p>\n But the biggest catch is that 3D movies aren\u2019t easy to just buy and play. Even though 3D films are still coming to theaters, you can\u2019t necessarily stream them or buy a high-quality copy. 4K Blu-ray doesn\u2019t support 3D at all. 3D Blu-rays were the last discs to offer 3D, and as FlatPanelsHD<\/em> pointed out last year, that means most physical 3D movies are stuck in the past at 1080p, 24fps, without HDR.<\/p>\n Even 3D Blu-rays aren\u2019t necessarily easy to find: I had to nab a copy of Cave of Forgotten Dreams <\/em>off eBay, and paid a pretty penny to ship a rare-ish copy of Into the Spider-Verse<\/em> from Thailand.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the good news: The leading headset makers are starting to convince Hollywood it\u2019s time to stream their 3D collections instead.<\/p>\n In 2024, the Apple Vision Pro launched with by far the best 3D movie experience yet, now with 4K, HDR, spatial audio, some (Avatar<\/em>) films at 48fps, HEVC encoding, free 3D upgrades for many films you\u2019d already purchased in 2D, and exclusive access to the largest catalog of 3D films in existence on Disney Plus. (Modern Disney animated films are natively rendered in digital 3D, and most Disney-owned Marvel films got a 3D conversion to jazz up their theatrical appeal.)<\/p>\n Soon, you\u2019ll no longer need a $3,500 Apple headset to watch those films or convert them from old discs \u2014 you\u2019ll be able to stream them with a $350 Meta Quest 3S or $600 Quest 3, as well as the new $1,300 Meta VR Glasses, Meta director of entertainment Sarah Malkin confirms to The Verge<\/em>.<\/p>\n Meta\u2019s headset will offer 3D movies to subscribers in the Disney Plus, HBO, Paramount Plus, and Peacock apps, she says, with some of that starting later this fall.<\/p>\n And by the time the Meta VR Glasses launch in spring, there will be \u201chundreds of 3D films available\u201d to rent or buy though Meta\u2019s TV app, as well as some free 3D content. They shouldn\u2019t cost more than traditional movies, either, she says: \u201cOur 3D movies will also be in line with typical pricing for 2D Ultra High Definition (UHD) films.\u201d<\/p>\n (In case you\u2019re wondering, she also says the Meta VR Glasses\u2019 three-hour battery life quote should cover a full 3D movie \u201cwatched in Theater mode if starting with the device fully charged.\u201d)<\/p>\n In the meanwhile, I\u2019m experiencing 3D the hacky way: by ripping discs. Every time I walk into a thrift store, I hunt for a 3D Blu-ray or two. I pop them into an old external USB Blu-ray reader, then let MakeMKV spend half an hour per movie to produce a 30-to-40GB multi-view (MVC) file. I pop that into BD3D2MK3D for another 50 minutes per movie to spit out a high-quality 3840 x 1080 \u201cFull-SBS\u201d file that\u2019s half the size of the MVC.<\/p>\n I drop that onto an SD card, pop it into the Steam Deck, plug in the Xreal glasses, fire up VLC Media Player, then flip the glasses into 3D mode. It\u2019s a lot of friction, but for me, the payoff is worth it.<\/p>\n Even though I\u2019m mostly watching old movies, it feels like a taste of the future. But you know what they say: Everything old is eventually new again.<\/span><\/p>\n Follow topics and authors<\/strong> from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.<\/span><\/p>\n\n