Problem playing 3D content on Apple TV 2

fillame said:

Hey guys,

I have a Samsung 3D TV (6 series) and an apple TV 2. I'm trying to play 3D content (SBS files) from the apple tv 2 (streaming from my NAS). The movie does play, but in "3d" mode the picture is visibly blurry. The 3d effect is still there, but it seems like the two images from side-by-side are not lining up exactly with one another (fuzzy would be the right term, I guess).

To make sure it wasn't the TV or the movie itself, I played it from a USB. 3D mode works perfectly directly from the TV.

The only two problems I see now could be:

1. HDMI cable connecting the apple TV to the TV (This is a couple of years old, and I'm not sure if it could be the problem)
2. Apple TV is on my wifi network (and hence streaming wirelessly from my NAS. still not sure if this could be the problem since all other videos play perfectly).

Any ideas would be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

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It's pretty much going to be the cable.....The newer high speed HDMi is what you need....I haven't yet tried streaming any 3D to my ATV's, but my Blu-Ray drive should be here Thursday....Will check then...I have some 30 or so 3D Blu-Ray disks to rip.

Do you have full size 3D SBS rip? As in 3840x1080? Or is it a compressed 1920x1080 one that is anamorphically expanded?

If it is a full size rip, more than likely the bitrate to the movie is too high and the ATV cannot fully support it. iTunes will then try to downsize the film for the bitrate to be supported, which will in turn cause blurriness or pixelation.

fillame said:

Its the scaled down 1920 by 1080 version. SBS movie plays fine when not in 3D mode so I doubt its got anything to do with the horsepower on the Apple TV. Picture becomes fuzzy once I put it into 3d mode. No stutter or jerks at all.

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Interesting... I will say that it certainly does not sound like it would be your cable to me. If you have no issues with regular 1080p video you won't have an issue with a 1080p SBS rip. The only time you need the extra 1.4a bandwidth is when coming from an actual 3D source such as a 3D Blu Ray. This is because that streams 2 full Blu Ray quality 1920x1080 pictures at the same time.

This may be a problem over my head, and it is something I have never had an issue with before. If you can, try changing the 3D setting on your TV and switching the right and left images (it should be somewhere in your TV's video settings) and then switching them back WHILE the movie is playing. If this clears it up it may be a post-processing issue, if not, I'm out of ideas.

EDIT: To be more clear, when changing the right and left images, look at them when they are switched, then again when they are back to normal. See if either of these look better/worse/same.

I also just realized that you are using an Apple TV 2, not 3. The blurriness you are experiencing may be from the downscaling iTunes has to do to display it in a 720p resolution. Can you try and re-encode the file to 1280x720 SBS instead and see if this fixes the issue?

fillame said:

Changing left/right images made no difference.
Changing "3D depth" setting made no difference
I tried playing with overscan/underscan options but no difference at all.

It could well be the fact that ATV 2 is downscaling to 720p before displaying. I'll encode the same movie at 720 and see if that helps...

Will keep you guys updated.

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Your ATV2 cannot handle 1080p content, you would need an ATV3 to do so. ATV2 is 720p max, this might be the source of your problem. I have no issues playing 3D-1080p on my ATV3 (also on a Samsung TV).