Meant to be Seen

From the publicly released 3D portion of HDMI 1.4 spec, it looks like the 1080p24 and 720p50/60 mandatory frame packing formats are indeed full-resolution (for progressive video) top-bottom picture formats (with aditional guard band interval in between the frames) and so they have twice the bandwidth of the similar mono signal. Frame packing at 1080p50/60 and 1080i50/60 are defined as optional formats. Interlaced video is supported, so it's basically a format that can support both full-resolution frame sequential (active shutter glasses) and half-resolution passive polarized line-interleaved formats. (Hats off to Blackshark, seems like you nailed it down pal).

Standard definition resolutions such as 720x480p are supported for stereo as well.

Quincunx sampling and horizonal interleaving are a part of the optional side-by-side half format; this includes Real D format. TI's checkerboard format is NOT included; curiously, line (vertical) interleaved half is not included as well. I guess the latter will be added in the forthcoming revision 1.4a.

Other formats include side-by-side full, field alternative (interlaced stereo) and line alternative full. 100/120 Hz frame alternative format is NOT included, however sequential frame devices will be effectively handled by the frame packing format.


I have updated my bandwidth and resolutions table with some common frame packing and side-by-side formats.

It's strange that they didn't include the checkerboard method, but it certainly brings up a nice conspiracy theory.

Possibly for the extra revenue Mits and/or RealD will get for the converters?

taz291819 wrote:It's strange that they didn't include the checkerboard method

They did include checkerboard, it's just not TI's checkerboard but RealD checkerboard But even if HDMI did include TI's variant (or will include it in a future revision), a converter box or a firmware update would still be required for current DLP TVs, since the supported stereo modes are communicated with HDMI control messages which are not defined in HDMI 1.3. So the decision was really up to Samsung and Mitsubishi, and they opted not to implement support for HDMI 3D formats in a firmware update, even though HDMI LLC does allow legacy HDMI 1.3 devices to support any of HDMI 1.4 3D formats and do so without supporting all the mandatory formats.

DmitryKo wrote:From the publicly released 3D portion of HDMI 1.4 spec, it looks like

For viewing convenience (not to have to fill the form), I've uploaded it to http://www.sendspace.com/file/j0m2k8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What's the difference between RealD's checkerboard format and TI's?

It's really only the grouping of pixels - TI's checkerboard is fixed at odd sampling for the Left frame and even sampling for the Right frame, while the side-by-side half format supports diferent sampling methods.

I think RealD samples the Left frame at the same positions as the Right frame (either odd/odd or even/even), which means objects at screen depth (zero convergence) will look identical in both eyes, giving a better stero picture since the interpolation to the full resolution would introduce less artefacts.
Here is the screenshot from this thread; see 3D Portion Of HDMI Version 1.4 Available For Download thread for a diagram which explains possible sample positions in horizontal and quincunx sampling.

That makes sense.

Basically, Mits' converter needs to incorporate both of these in a single device:

http://www.reald.com/Content/POD-Seq-Page-Flip.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and

http://www.reald.com/Content/POD-Side-B ... rlace.aspx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If so, the Mits converter would be compatible with 3D Blu-Ray and Directv's 3D (which is using RealD's SbS format).

Is this a safe assumption? (Not saying that's what it's going to do, but plausibly)

taz291819 wrote:Mits' converter needs to incorporate both of these in a single device ... Is this a safe assumption?

The broadcasting encoding format is independent from video link format. You can use some legacy half-resolution pattern in broadcasting, since your set-top box won't support TDV-codec for MPEG-2 or H.264 MVC "Stereo High" profile, but the decoded picture would be upsampled to full-scale 3D in the set-top box and transmitted as full-resolution frame-packing to a 120 Hz frame-sequential LCD TV.

I guess Mitsubishi converter will certainly accept standard frame packing formats, since these would be required for Blu-ray 3D movies and PS3 gaming; anything else is a big unknown now. Their TVs will still continue to accept standard checkerboard from the PC, so there's no real need to implement each and every stereo format, including the ones which require a 3rd party license.

Wow.. in the dozen or so various Forums (computer, rocketry, film, etc) that I'm a member of, this has to be the most technically advanced group I've come upon (meaning that as a compliment)

I've learned more in this single thread about the technology (or possible technology) than any other thread I've ever looked at..

Thanks to everyone for being as knowledgeable as you all are and I can only hope to learn as much as I possible can from you all..

Nice to see my intuition was right, but it was mainly guessing from the numerous declarations of Panasonic then joined by Sony consistently requesting the BluRay3D format to be fullHD in both eyes.
I didn't make any sense to me that Full3D would not be mandatory since the display technology is already available and widely backed by almost every single display manufacturer (Full resolution shutter based displays).

So hdmi1.4 frame packing sends the two full pictures (which i used to call sub-frames) with each individual sync signals (the non visible data pixels around the image) and calls the whole package as one frame is that right ?
I haven't read the published documents yet but in the additional sync data around the frames, do you know if there is specific metadata to distinguish the left and right eye frames or is the frame order already imposed from the hdmi spec ?

NASAGuy wrote:I've learned more in this single thread about the technology (or possible technology) than any other thread I've ever looked at

I learned to never speculate about anything related to HDMI LLC.

BlackShark wrote:it didn't make any sense to me that Full3D would not be mandatory since the display technology

And to me, it doesn't make any sense to name a full-resolution top-bottom format the "frame packing"

So hdmi1.4 frame packing sends the two full pictures ... and calls the whole package as one frame is that right ?

Well, in frame packing, the active pixel area of each frame contains two pictures for Left and Right views - there are no additional sync intervals in between these pictures, and the guard intervals are just empty spaces in the active pixel area which should be ignored. The same goes for other formats - except for field interlaced stereo which does contain additional Vblank periods. The difference is only semantic though.

Check the spec, it has big nice pictures to explain the layout for each format.

do you know if there is specific metadata to distinguish the left and right eye frames

The design of HDMI protocol prevents this, since all control data (the InfoFrame message which contains the description of the signal format) must be transmitted in Contol Island periods, and all video and audio data must be transmitted in separate Data Island periods (see the freely available HDMI 1.3a specification) - so only full frames can be marked, not some arbitrary parts of the active pixel area.

The position of L/R pictures in the active pixel area is pre-defined for each format, so there is not need to additionally mark each view. This would only be needed for frame sequential signal where each view is transmitted as a separate frame, and there are no such formats in HDMI 3D.

Thanks for the explanations.

DmitryKo wrote:

BlackShark wrote:it didn't make any sense to me that Full3D would not be mandatory since the display technology

And to me, it doesn't make any sense to name a full-resolution top-bottom format the "frame packing" .

Haha, well it was not surprizing to me. Remember the .avi video compression B-frame packing stuff.

I had already been introduced to putting 2 normal sized packages into one single bigger package to make the postman happy but still having the two independant package once arrived at destination.
(where you replace packages by frames and replace the postman by the hdmi decoding chip or the .avi file spec)
And it's called "frame packing".