Thursday, June 3, 2010

Youtube 3-D

In the past I've mentioned the Youtube 3-D player, which was quietly implemented in 2009. I recently had the pleasure of meeting the programmer at Youtube who has been working on the 3-D functionality, and he showed me that the player is now embeddable in websites. This is an amazing breakthrough for the 3-DIY community, as we now have the capability to create video enabled 3-D websites. In addition, Youtube supports the "frame-compatible" side-by-side squeezed 1080p format supported in most of the new 3-D televisions coming on the market. This means that Youtube is now capable of providing a distribution platform for independent 3-D content to reach consumers in their homes. I'm very excited!

To this end, I have created a Youtube Group dedicated to providing a forum for the growth and exhibition of Do-It-Yourself 3-D content. I encourage anyone interested in creating their own 3-DIY movies to sign up with Youtube, and join the group which can be found at www.3-DIY.tv

Here is an example of the Youtube 3-D player embedded in a blog page - you can select a viewing method from the menu that pops up when you float your mouse over the 3-D icon.



It's still a beta release, so it will continue to evolve, and it has its quirks - for instance, the 3-D menu cuts off when displayed on a small playback window, and you must click "fullscreen" to see all of the options - but my new friend, "Youtube Pete" is working to make it more user friendly, and I'm sure he'll do a great job.