NVIDIA 3D Vision Ready Notebook – Asus G51J 3D Review

3D video files are standard encoded videos but contain left and right eye video streams displayed side by side. A media player that supports this format is then used to alternate the two portions of the frame into a stereoscopic image, which in turn appears as 3D when using glasses.

Two separate left and right fields when viewed in a standard player.

There are a number of demo films which you can find at NVIDIA’s website, as well as a few other stereoscopic 3D trailers scattered around the web, including an unofficial Avatar 3D trailer that someone converted into 3D from the “2D” original.

Video game trailers looked good using the stereo glasses, with crashes and jumps in a Burnout Paradise demo reel having a strong 3D effect. Filmed movies, on the other hand, was more of a mixed experience and it largely depended on the scenes being shown and the way it was filmed.

Two rather poor examples of stereoscopic 3D was of the Rhine Valley, and the other about Heidelberg. These two films featured a number of segments with cityscapes and sweeping nature scenes. As the films showed people walking into the distance, it really did feel like they were walking into a three dimensional world. But the backgrounds in these films appeared so flat, like a backdrop in a theater, that it almost looked like the people walking were going walk smack into a wall with a painted scene.

The trailer for The Eye is a full 1080p Stereo 3D movie.

It had better effects the the Rhine video, but suffered from poor playback.

A trailer for a film called “The Eye” is a much better example of a Stereoscopic 3D movie, and unlike the Heidelberg and Rhine Valley films which was shot in 1440×576 resolution, The Eye was filmed in full HD (1920×1080). The Eye’s effects were much more believable and vivid than the other two films, and is likely the result of using more modern equipment, better filming techniques, and later technology, and of course the higher resolution doesn’t hurt either. However, decoding performance was a bit laggy with frame rates jumping erratically between 10 FPS and 25 FPS when played with the NVIDIA 3D Video Player.

In order to get the full 3D effect, the original movie must be recorded or converted to be compatible with Field-Sequential 3D for the desired effect using the shutter glasses. This means majority of the movies available today is not compatible, but this is slowly changing with major cinematic 3D movies are making their way to viewers like Monsters vs. Aliens 3D, Dragons, Clash of the Titans (although that’s a 2D film converted to 3D) and Avatar later this April.

With 3D movies just starting to gain popularity and the availability still a bit limited, buying the Asus G51J 3D for 3D movies should not be your only reason.