My first RealD setup

[Gae43]

Just wanted to share with everyone my pleasure after just finishing putting together a RealD 3D setup in my home.
Now it's not perfect, as I had a very small budget but I'm pretty pleased with the results as a first attempt. I really wanted to see if I could get something working with my two projectors as I'm happy with my DLP projector and shutter glasses 3D setup. In the end I spent around £40 on all of the materials.
What brought about the opportunity to make one was the fact that recently, a friend of mine gave me some silver polyurethane fabric to test polarised 3D on and to my surprise, it worked really well. The only problem was that the fabric did have lots of wrinkles and creases in but I was confident that they could be ironed and stretched out. So today, I spent 6 hours buying materials and building a frame. I cut 5 pieces of wood and using L shaped brackets and screws, created a frame size of 66" x 50" which gave me a 16:9 diagonal screen of about 70". After creating the frame, I used a staple gun to stretch the fabric over it. It was great to see the material stretching and flattening out as I did this. I'd previously ironed the reverse side of it in an attempt to get rid of any wrinkles and creases etc. Finally, with the material nicely stapled into place and looking nice and flat, I put the screen up onto the wall using a couple of mounts to rest it on. For the projection, I was using a Panasonic AE900 LCD and the Infocus X1 DLP. I know that ideally I should have the exact same projector but I have to make use of what I have. I set them both to 1024 x 768 60 Hz and dual output in Stereoscopic player. I was just using the lens from a pair of RealD glasses taped onto each projector lens. I aligned the two superimposed images using the desktop icons as a guideline, put on my glasses and there for the first time I could see 3D using my RealD glasses. There was some slight ghosting on one image but overall the effect was really good. Not quite as good as the shutter glasses and DLP 3D but very watchable nonetheless. Blacks are definately better on the silver screen and with a bit of tweaking I managed to get each image to look almost identical in colour and brightess too. I like the fact that the RealD glasses are so easy to wear and take off etc. I kept forgetting that I was wearing them and kept looking out for the wire of my shutter glasses...lol.

So overall, for £40 I'm very pleased with my first RealD setup. For that cost, I've got a 70" widescreen that, apart from some slight ghosting, has a decent 3D image that I can view with my RealD glasses.

Gae43

[cybereality]

Very cool man. Sounds like a nice setup. Lucky that you just had 2 projectors lying around otherwise it would have cost a lot more. The one thing I did hear about using the RealD lenses for projectors is that they get hot and can melt after a little bit. Something to watch out for. Otherwise sounds pretty good.

[Gae43]

Very cool man. Sounds like a nice setup. Lucky that you just had 2 projectors lying around otherwise it would have cost a lot more. The one thing I did hear about using the RealD lenses for projectors is that they get hot and can melt after a little bit. Something to watch out for. Otherwise sounds pretty good.

Hi Cybereality. I also read that somewhere. I checked the lenses after watching a movie and they didn't even feel warm at all. It's something I'm aware of though.

I have a couple of questions to those in the know. Is the ghosting more likely to do with the screen or is there a possibility of light leakage as the glasses lenses don't completely cover up the projector lenses? Also, I believe that the lenses only work in one direction (the opposite to the glasses I think) but does it matter whether or not they are positioned horizontally or vertically over the projector lens etc?

I'm just trying to see if there is anything in particular that may cause the ghosting.

Thanks

Gae43

[Likay]

Real-d glasses are circular polarized. You can decrease ghosting if you're able to use the glasses "the linear" way instead. A circular polarizer works similar (not exactly though) as a linear filter when you turn them around. In my experience circular filters ghosts close to twice as much as linear filters no matter how high quality you use for filters.
When using linear polarization instead you of course loose the ability to turn your head but believe me: The stereopsis sense makes sure that all viewers keep their heads strictly horisontal when viewing anyway.
As for frying filters: I have experience of frying polarizers myself. At the moment i used linear polarized camerafilters which fried after about 10 hours of usage. As for you they didn't turn warm by touch so i assume it's radiation that kills them. They didn't physically melt though, just lost their polarizationproperties. The circular filters might work better if the retarderlayer in them works as an ir or uv-filter... It's just a theory and it remains to be seen though.

[bobv5]

Just a thought,
What about making somesort of easy to change mount for the filters. That way you can use the linear filters for general use, then switch to the circular ones if you just feel like lying back, and not keeping your head straight?

[Likay]

Making an easy mount of filters and also making it slightly adjustable is never wrong but it's not really necessary. However it'll give an easy way to try the difference and if you want the best experience i recommend doing it.
Since you're already using circular polarization it's easy for you to try messing with the stereopsis sense. Tilt your head slightly when viewing stereoscopic material and check what's happening. Then let your brain find the best viewing position and you'll see that you'll end up having your head straight horisontal. I'm no expert but i'll try to explain below:
Since the stereoscopic material is horisontally rendered he brain will automatically make you adjust your head until the image seen and expected matches (part of the stereopsis sense). So: while rotating your head (even if the eyeviews are maintained during rotation) the impression of 3d will be distorted/uncomfortable.

It's very true that linear polarization is sensitive for tilt but if you align the filters and the glasses filters properly it'll guarantee that the viewers will keep their heads in the best possible alignment, ironically not to minimize ghosting but to have the best 3d. It's sort of "two flies in one blow".
If you're able to quickly shift filters you'll probably also notice that the image is slightly "softened+bluish toned" when using circular polarizers but imo this effect is neglectable. Choice of projectors makes more impression of the image than this.
There is one advantage that should be counted in by using circular polarization: Each time you visit a real-d cinema you'll get one extra pair of glasses!