Can you watch 3D movies in 2D?

Glowrdr · January 2011

I've got everything I need for 3D, except for any 3D movies. lol - they have backordered my Avatar, so I have none yet.

The question I've got without being able to find out on my own quite yet is this: Can you buy a 3D movie and watch it in 2D?

What I'm interested in, is buying some 3D movies - but if I have a bunch of friends over, can I just play a 2D track of the movie assuming I don't have enough sets of glasses?

Or does stepping into the 3D world mean that I have to have regular 2D BR's, as well as 3D if I really like the movie?

Glowrdr · January 2011

I had to reword my searches, but to answer my own question for the sake of others - it does appear that all 3D blurays either have a 2D/3D option during the menu (kind of like DVD's used to have full-screen and widescreen on some); or they come with multiple disks for 2D and 3D.

So if anyone thinks they will be getting a 3D set sometime down the road - you might as well buy the 3D versions of new releases as long as the price is good. I'm not paying $40 for a 3D movie, and I certainly wouldn't expect someone who didn't even have 3D capabilities to do that either ;-)

polkfarmboy · January 2011

Glowrdr wrote: »

I had to reword my searches, but to answer my own question for the sake of others - it does appear that all 3D blurays either have a 2D/3D option during the menu (kind of like DVD's used to have full-screen and widescreen on some); or they come with multiple disks for 2D and 3D.

So if anyone thinks they will be getting a 3D set sometime down the road - you might as well buy the 3D versions of new releases as long as the price is good. I'm not paying $40 for a 3D movie, and I certainly wouldn't expect someone who didn't even have 3D capabilities to do that either ;-)

If the whole house is watching a flick in 3D you can buy glasses that convert the movie into 2d at any time you choose via a switch

Glowrdr · January 2011

Never heard of that - not quite the ultimate goal though. Wearing glasses to watch a regular ol' movie? Wearing them for 3D is going to be enough for me I think.

I've already got 4 pairs of glasses, and the wife thinks we whould have 6. I just figure if we happen to have a couple of couples over, and someone else happens to tag along - we can always just watch it in 2D if it comes to it. Doesn't sound like it would be an issue though.

jbooker82 · January 2011

3D is sweet. What kind of TV did you get? The only down side to 3d on a LCD is you about need a 240 hz refresh rate min. The tv shows an image for each eye. They cycle back and fourth. So a 240 Hz LCD is really only a 120 HZ in 3d mode. That is kind of one of the reasons why I went with a Plasma.

Yea you can watch movies in 2d. Most 3d blue ray's also contain the 2d version. I have Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and Resident Evil in 3d.

Resident Evil is pretty cool. There is one part where the lady is checking a room out with her pistol out. She is coming at the camera. The gun is coming out of the tv screen and is in your face.

polkfarmboy · January 2011

Glowrdr wrote: »

Never heard of that - not quite the ultimate goal though. Wearing glasses to watch a regular ol' movie? Wearing them for 3D is going to be enough for me I think.

I've already got 4 pairs of glasses, and the wife thinks we whould have 6. I just figure if we happen to have a couple of couples over, and someone else happens to tag along - we can always just watch it in 2D if it comes to it. Doesn't sound like it would be an issue though.

The glasses are 3d and 2d . You watch in 3d and if your eyes get tired then you can press a button to convert the movie into 2d , this way everyone gets what they want .

cheddar · January 2011

Glowrdr wrote: »

So if anyone thinks they will be getting a 3D set sometime down the road - you might as well buy the 3D versions of new releases as long as the price is good. I'm not paying $40 for a 3D movie, and I certainly wouldn't expect someone who didn't even have 3D capabilities to do that either ;-)

Disney is pushing combo disks for everything (Blu-ray, DVD, digital copy all included) and discounting them with coupons at release, so the 3-D combo pack of Christmas Carol ended up being the cheapest option for me. I bought it even without any concrete plans to get 3-D hardware.

grif32 · January 2011

polkfarmboy wrote: »

If the whole house is watching a flick in 3D you can buy glasses that convert the movie into 2d at any time you choose via a switch

This just doesn't make sense why people would even do this or a company make glasses like this. If you want to watch some thing in 2d you just pop in the 2D disc which I think they all come with or most anyway.

Jus trying to figure out why in the world would anyone buy glasses to wach 2D material.

Having two types of glasses 3D & 2D is just plain strange to me. Maybe it's just me.

nguyendot · January 2011

polkfarmboy wrote: »

The glasses are 3d and 2d . You watch in 3d and if your eyes get tired then you can press a button to convert the movie into 2d , this way everyone gets what they want .

Please show me a pair.

They'd have to phase correct... the two pictures are out of alignment. I don't believe these exist at all.

Samsung tv's have a 3D>2D mode built in that can convert the movie back to 2D if you like. It's a button on the remote. It just puts both images in phase... actually it just shows one frame and not the other.

Glowrdr · January 2011

jbooker82 wrote: »

3D is sweet. What kind of TV did you get?

I picked up a Panny 50vt20. 50" plasma, so no worries about the refresh rate. Unfortunately the Avatar packs are on backorder, so I have a couple pairs of glasses but no 3D yet. (TV came with a pair, and I bought a pair + the 2 that come with Avatar)

Kind of off topic - have you seen that the Avatar 3Dbr's are going for $100+ on ebay? That's crazy! I'm debating on selling my copy and just waiting a year for it to be released. I can buy 3 movies for $100. lol

polkfarmboy · January 2011

I will explain a third time

you can buy 3d glasses but you can push a button and watch the movie in 2d

This way if everyones watching 3d you can switch your glasses back and forth from 2d or 3d

Glowrdr · January 2011

polkfarmboy wrote: »

I will explain a third time

you can buy 3d glasses but you can push a button and watch the movie in 2d

This way if everyones watching 3d you can switch your glasses back and forth from 2d or 3d

I will also explain this again. Lets say I have 4 sets of glasses, but 6 sets of eyes looking at the TV.

If 3D movies were in fact 3D ONLY - then the 2 people left without glasses would be out of luck.

BUT - since it appears that just about all 3D movies also come with a 2D version (on-disc, or multi-disc), I could just watch the movie in 2D, and nobody would need to wear the glasses.

If I had a pair of glasses for the whole neighborhood when I have a party at my house, this question wouldn't have been brought up. But at $150 a pop, I have to limit my 3D abilities somewhere.

So, no disrespect to your post - I just think somewhere along the way, the intention was getting lost on what I was looking for.

cheddar · January 2011

nguyendot wrote: »

They'd have to phase correct... the two pictures are out of alignment. I don't believe these exist at all.

What is this phase correction you mention? What do you mean they are out of alignment? I think people get confused that 3-D is more complicated than it is and somehow the TV is creating something that's actually 3-D.

It's our eyes that are out of alignment, not the flat 2-D images on the TV. So when we normally see a 3-D object, our eyes see two different slightly offset pictures of the same object, our mind mashes these two pictures together, and we get a sense of 3-D depth.

Since a TV picture is flat, the current way we can get the same effect is to have two images flashed on the screen, one after the other, meant for each eye seperately. They are regular 2-D images, just slightly offset and meant for each opposite eye. Because they are flashed so fast, without glasses, we would see the images on top of each other. With the glasses, the electronic shutters close and open rapidly enough that each eye sees only the correct alternating picture and the mind is tricked that it is seeing the two views at the same time. Then it mashes them together just like it would if it saw an actual 3-D object.

I can't speak to the existence of the feature, but it would be easy enough to just make the shutters close for both eyes and open for both eyes on the same frame and you should only see one 2D picture.

jbooker82 · January 2011

That makes since. Since 3D glasses are electronic shutters that oscilate back and forth for 3d. They are in sync with each other to convert 3D image displayed on the tv to 2D. It just let's you see only the images for one eye.

With out the glasses you would see both images and it would look fuzzy or blury.

nguyendot · January 2011

If you look carefully at the 3d image on one of these sets without glasses, you'll see they're not only out of alignment, but the images are actually about 1" off the screen left and right. So yes you may be able to push a button to make it '2D', but you'd have a blank spot on the left or right side of the image. I'll take a picture of it when I'm at my dads again. We played with it for a while, and you can clearly see how it's offset in 3D mode.

Can you watch 3D movies in 2D?

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