• Peter Jackson reveals 3D secrets behind ‘Hobbit’

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    Peter Jackson on the set of "The Hobbitt"

     

    Here’s something for “Lord of the Rings” fans eagerly anticipating the upcoming movie “The Hobbit.”

    In a recent post on his Facebook page, director Peter Jackson gave fans a sneak peek at some of the innovative techniques used to shoot the film in 3D. The movie is being made with 48 RED Epic digital cameras, and since it’s shot in 3D, those cameras have to be paired and positioned a specific distance apart.

    Sounds easy? It isn’t. While the RED cameras are a lot smaller than regular film cameras used in Hollywood, the lenses they use make it nearly impossible to place them close to each other. The filmmakers had to engage the help of 3ality Technica, a company that makes custom camera rigs, to create specialized mounts for the cameras used in “The Hobbit.”

    The mounts, which allow one camera to be pointed straight at the subject while the other shoots the image reflected off a mirror, lets camera operators change the distance between the two camera lenses–called the interocular distance–easily. This keeps the lenses at a distance similar to our own eyes and should ensure that the 3D effect looks more believable and causes less fatigue.

    The movie is also shot at 5K resolution–more than six times that of 1080p–at 48 frames per second, which means “The Hobbit” could be one of the best-looking 3D films we’ll ever see. Well, until Avatar 2 comes out, at least.

    Watch the video below for a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of “The Hobbit” and see more on Jackson’s Facebook page.

    Watch this to see artwork in 3D towards the end.

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  • Stereoscopic Editing with FCP and AE (Part 2 of 2)

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  • Stereoscopic Editing with FCP and AE (Part 1 of 2)

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  • 3D Blu-Ray Spec is Finalized

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    The Blu-ray Disc Association on Thursday released the final specifications of the Blu-ray 3D specification, paving the way for 3D players to be at least talked about at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

    The spec will be released “shortly,” the association said, “with the technical information and guidelines necessary to develop, announce and bring products to market pursuant to their own internal planning cycles and timetables.”

    The association also blessed the Sony PlayStation 3, stating that the console will be able to play back 3D discs in 3D. The BDA offered no further explanation of how the PS3 will accomplish this, although Sony said earlier this year that it would ship a BD-3D PlayStation 3.

    In September, the BDA announced that it had set up a task group to work on the project, with the goal that even 3D-encoded discs could be played back on today’s 2D Blu-ray players. That is still the case.

    “From a technological perspective, it is simply the best available platform for bringing 3D into the home,” said Benn Carr, chairman of the BDA 3D Task Force, in a statement. “The disc capacity and bit rates Blu-ray Disc provides enable us to deliver 3D in Full HD 1080p high definition resolution.”

    The technology will bring 1080p content to each eye, almost certainly through the use of 120-Hz technology with offset 60-Hz fields. The BDA did not describe how the technology would work, although most require some form of 3D glasses. The BDA did tout BD-3D as display agnostic, working with LCD, plasma and other displays, and functioning regardless of whether the display itself has its own 3D technology or not.


    Courtesy ExtremeTech LabNotes (Mark Hachman)