Monsters vs Aliens was the first movie I’ve seen at TPB, which was ready for Nvidia’s 3D Vision glasses. But hardly anybody took notice of it, because the first comment was quite devastating, but very precise though. The file description itself laconically states: “3D” – that’s all. The subs were hardcoded on the left eye, the video was out of sync and the language was Russian.

The second comment, a sun of a gun btw 😉 , tried to save the situation, by describing the necessary steps to make this piece watchable somehow. He wrote:

This is the first available complete s3d (stereoscopic 3d) movie I know of. It’s viewable with Nvidia’s Stereoscopic Player and the NVidia 3D Vision glasses. The quality is outstanding. The resolution (1024×768) is small enough to be played back on standard hardware, and it looks great on a beamer @1280×720. The aspect ratio have to be adjusted manually to 16:9 though. The 3D impression is amazing! Here are some facts about it:

• ID_DEMUXER=avi

…

• ID_EXIT=EOF

As mentioned before, the audio is russian and the hardcoded subs suck big time indeed. To get rid of the sync problem, just remove the first two frames (or 0.083 secs) from the beginning of the right eye movie. This is easily done under Linux e.g. with avidemux. If you don’t correct the sync problem, you’ll likely puke after a couple of minutes 😉

It’s astonishing, this is what many people have been waiting for, but it’s quite quiet in here, and almost no seeders or leechers.

Anyway, big thanks!

And if you’re not up to Russian language, the audio track could be replace also, and here you go with the first almost usable stereoscopic movie for the Nvidia 3D Vision glasses.

Avatar for the Nvidia 3D Vision

But what about Avatar – as the title mentioned it? Well – it’s been told several times, this flick won’t hit the 3D Blu-ray this year, not to mention the official availability of a video format watchable with the Nvidia 3D Vision glasses.
The idea behind is clear. Release the movie as late as possible and milk the cash cow until the udder bleeds.

Don’t know if the content lobby is eager to repeat the same mistake, like they did with the mp3 downloads those days. But even before Avatar hit the 3D Blu-ray there’s already a stereoscopic version of it available at TPB. And again – there’s some odd fish to swallow, like Chinese subs and also a Chinese 5.1 AC3 audio track (no English at all). The origin of the source is likely a movie screen, too. But the creator of this piece did his job well, because the stereoscopic 3D impression is excellent, the sync of both screens is perfect – and the movie size of 1280×1056 is small enough for fluent playback on standard hardware.

And if Chinese isn’t your mother tongue either, then a search at TPB reveals a few common languages to replace it with.

To do so on Linux, use mkvtoolnix

aptitude install mkvtoolnix

Identify the audio track number of your language

mkvmerge --identify Avatar_engl.mkv

Extract the audio Track ID with the language of your choice.

mkvextract tracks Avatar_engl.mkv 2:Avatar_engl.dts

Now replace the Chinese audio track with yours and get rid of desync:

mkvmerge -o Avatar-3D_engl.mkv -A Avatar-3D-chin.mkv -y 0:-1050,273252/273506  Avatar_engl.dts

Desync
The desync part is a bit tricky. If you suffer from desync, you must eliminate two different possible causes.

• offset in miliseconds:   -y 0:-1050,273252/273506
• drift:   -y 0:-1050,273252/273506

The values are just an example (although they really worked for somebody). The first number after -y is the audio track number. Because we are referring to a single DTS stream with no video at all, it has simply one track, and it’s track 0.
The red and green number from the drift can be evaluated like this:

• go e.g. to position at 2h and 30min
• now determine simply by listening and a wrist watch the delay between audio and video
• determine the number of frames for this position. If you are at a frame rate of 29.790fps, then multiply it by the number of seconds 2h and 30min have (150min x 60s x 29.790fps = 268110 frames)
• let’s say your video is 5 seconds ahead. You see people moving their lips, but you hear the voice 5 secs later. Hence the audio is too slow. Then you have to speed up audio by 5 seconds. ( 5secs * 29.790fps = 149 ). Add 149 to the amount of frames you’ve got in the last step ( 268110 + 149 = 268259 ). And here’s rule of thumb:
  • Lips first then voice: bigger number divided by smaller number.
  • Voice first then Lips: smaller number divided by bigger number.

Anyway – if you confuse both number – just turn them around. You make this mistake only one time 😉

Offset
The offset cat be recognized at the very beginning of the movie. If it starts right away with a few seconds delay, you can play with the value, start the mkvmerge for a few seconds, press Ctrl+C on the keyboard, and start playing the movie again to see if the offset has gone. Repeat this until you exactly match video and audio.

Drift
Drift is PITA! If you suffer from drift, and you mostly see/hear drift at the end of the movie, you have to merge the whole flick, and check the end of the movie again. On a trial and error basis you can come slowly closer to a perfect sync. If you’re experienced – you might do a ugly drift within a few minutes.

Is it legal?
Well – depends on the country you live in. If you’re uncertain, then check this site [1]
It contains trailer which are definitely legal to watch.
I’ve seen this movie three times at the theater, and I would spend money for it, if it is available in a playable format for my 3D Vision glasses. And – NO – I won’t buy an 3D Blu-ray player for it – because player sucks in general – I don’t use them – I don’t need them – I’m on Linux – I prefer big hard disks and I prefer instant access to all my media! 😐