A few years ago, 3D movies became fashionable in half the world. Do you remember going into the cinema with those rare special glasses and leaving fascinated after watching Avatar? Well, if you were so shocked, you probably even bought one of those expensive 3D televisions or monitors. Did you know that now you can also watch 3D videos with the VLC player on your PC?
Can you watch 3D movies without a special TV or monitor?
Big question! The truth is that if you still have a monitor or a TV specifically designed for 3D, you can consider yourself lucky since currently they are hardly manufactured, and there are not many on the market.
To watch a 3D movie, you will also need a 3D Blu-ray disc and a disc reader for this type of media. Wow, how can I watch 3D content from my sad conventional monitor then?
Fortunately, you can also experience these types of effects from a standard monitor using the most popular free and open-source player on the planet, VLC. VLC only supports videos in SBS (Side-by-Side) format, or what is the same, videos in 3D format with the split-screen (the same image is shown with slight variations, and then they are superimposed to give the effect of depth).
Of course, this will also mean that you will have to get hold of the typical special glasses with blue and red-tinted lenses. They are affordable.
How to watch 3D movies from VLC
If you have a movie in the aforementioned SBS format and some special glasses, the setup process in VLC is like a pleasant boat ride. Quiet and uncomplicated.
- Open the VLC player. If you don’t have it installed yet, you can download it from its official website.
- Play the 3D video you want to view. You can open the file from “Media -> Open file” or “Open disc” if you have a 3D Blu-ray disc.
- Now go to ” Tools -> Effects and Filters “.
- Go to the ” Video Effects ” tab and click on the ” Advanced” menu.
- Finally, check the box ” 3D Anaglyph “.
- You will see how the video now has those characteristic red and cyan blue edges. Put on your glasses and enjoy!
Basically, what we just did was take an SBS video that has the image split in two, and then we have applied the “3D Anaglyph” effect, whose job is to superimpose the two halves of the video and apply the red and cyan 3D effect to it.
Option 2: Use a mobile phone and VR glasses
In recent years, VR or virtual reality glasses have become popular. These types of devices are also compatible with videos in SBS format.
The good thing about all this is that it is not even necessary to apply any filter, since the lenses of the glasses do all the work to form the three-dimensional image in your brain automatically. In addition, the result obtained in general is usually of higher quality than if you use 3D glasses with red and blue-tinted lenses.
The only thing you need is to have the 3D video on the mobile phone (you can go to YouTube to see a lot of 4K videos in SBS format ) and play it. You can do it using the VLC app, but you can also watch the video directly from YouTube or any other streaming platform that broadcasts this type of 3D content on split screen.
Here is a detailed video guide:
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