Where can I download a sample of this format? I'd kinda like to see it, but I ain't expecting anything really all that great...

You can find a sample 2D + depth image in the over-under format on the 2D-plus-depth article on Wikipedia, but I don't know any stereo image viewer that can display this format in 3D.

Stereoscopic Player has support for 2D + depth images but you need them in the side-by-side format, like this one for example : http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/7573 ... 113ni5.jpg

Yeah that's what I wanted to see. I wanted to see a video in Stereoscopic player. But I guess that is not to be.

How does this work? Do yew need a camera? It looks like a conversion, maybe? Is there software to convert from 2D to the depth version? Oh dear. So many questions.

According to the Stereoscopic Player version history it seems the 2D + depth is an input option, so I guess it should not only work with images but also with videos.

For video games I think it should be quite easy to extract the Z-buffer (depth map) as well as the 2D render to obtain a 2D + depth video (Z-buffer extraction is part of the shadow mapping algorithms for example). But I don't see the benefit of this over making a stereoscopic rendering using a second point of view.

For videos shot in 2D, the problem would be the same than for general 2D to 3D conversion, but I'm not aware of any existing solution that is acceptable at this time.

For videos shot in 3D it should be more or less possible to extract the depthmap at each frame with existing algorithms, but I really don't see any benefit in doing so since you've already got a 3D video in the first place. The only use I can see for this would be to retarget 3D videos for different screen sizes and viewing distances, like what has been done here : A stereoscopic movie player with real-time content adaptation to the display geometry.