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A number of classic stereoscopic (also called “3D”) films have been available on modern DVD in only their 2D forms. This is because Anaglyph 3D (the kind with the Red/Cyan glasses) is of shoddy quality compared to the Polarized 3D (full color) that the films were initially exhibited in, and Polarized is only viewable with a complex theater setup consisting of dual projectors, filters, and a special screen. Full color 3D home videos have been available, however, in many now Out of Print titles including:
Friday the 13th 3D
Jaws 3D
Dial M For Murder
Creature from the Black Lagoon
It Came from Outter Space
These were all released on an 80’s home video format called VHD. The technology worked by using video’s alternating fields to present the left and right images separately, and then wearing specially timed “shutter glasses” connected to the player which cover each eye for the field it isn’t supposed to see. The flicker is so fast that it’s supposedly not noticable, and the quality is much better than Anaglyph because it’s full-color.
I would like for someone who owns or has access to a VHD player to do some top-quality transfers of these old titles. The films should be as easy to capture as any other analog format, and once captured, can be deinterlaced into separate Files for the Right and Left eyes. There is a freeware application called Stereo Movie Maker which can then convert the Left/Right images into any 3D format: If you have a Polarized 3D home theater, you can load the left and right images into your projectors, if you have a standard DVD player, you can convert the two to Anaglyph, and if you have a modern Field Sequential system, you can convert to that format.
Modern Field Sequential systems are the same as VHD Field Sequential except they’re standard DVDs which play in your DVD player, but require a special box and glasses to view. They’re available on eBay and elsewhere for about $60 (search for “Shutter Theater”). The problem is that aside from Spy Kids 3D, there aren’t any high profile movies released in this format. The movies I’ve listed above exist on Field Sequential DVD only as VHD bootlegs, which I’ve read are of shoddy quality and contain “ghosting” (the left image bleeds into the right and vice versa) because the number of fields in the VHD format are different from the number in the modern Field-Sequential DVD format, so a “direct-dub” bootlegger would ruin the effect. It really wouldn’t be that hard to do a good OT-Quality transfer, and the newer DVD releases could be utilized for the soundtrack.
Does anyone have VHD’s?
