3D movies using Kodi on Fire TV

[Sizzlechest]

Not sure if my issue is Kodi related or Fire TV related, but 3D MKVs (1080p SBS) do not work well on my Samsung TV in 3D mode through Kodi. They do display in 3D once I change the TV into that mode, but there's ghosting. Playing the MKV using the TV's built in Media Player has always worked fine. I suspect Kodi isn't converting the SBS video completely correct. OTOH, I had to calibrate the Fire TV due to my TV's overscan, so perhaps that has something to do with it? I'm not sure. Does anyone have any tips for getting 3D video to work?

 

[Calibaan]

You´re TV is using additional filters etc. when the playback is run internally but the TV does not use these for external input via HDMI. It´s most likely you would see this also with other external players.
Concerning overscan: when you don´t need it (for e.g. you´re not using any analogue video inputs), set it to 0 in you´re TV or deactivate overscan. It´s the better solution than to calibrate all attached devices for overscan which isn´t needed for digital HDMI input normally.

 

[Sizzlechest]

You´re TV is using additional filters etc. when the playback is run internally but the TV does not use these for external input via HDMI. It´s most likely you would see this also with other external players.
Concerning overscan: when you don´t need it (for e.g. you´re not using any analogue video inputs), set it to 0 in you´re TV or deactivate overscan. It´s the better solution than to calibrate all attached devices for overscan which isn´t needed for digital HDMI input normally.

That's interesting because I have two different TVs connected through HDMI that both required the image to be reduced 2-3% with the Fire TV. That ought to be digital. Am I missing something?

EDIT: Okay, here's what I was missing. Both TV sets were NOT set up to the optimal screen settings. The Samsung was set to 16:9, which you'd think would be the right setting, but it's not. The "User setting" with the option to move the picture horizontally and vertically is the "correct" one to use. On the other TV that I was using overscan on had a similarly poorly worded option called "Fullscreen 100%" or something like that that gave the actual resolution instead of the default "Normal" setting. Unbelievable!

The happy ending to this story is that 3D movies work perfectly. I hear there is a plugin for Kodi to automatically switch the TV into the correct 3D mode assuming the MKV file has the 3D encoding option specified. (I went through and fixed all the MKV metadata to include it.) I'll try to find it and test it out.

 

[Calibaan]

Those overscans mechanism do imply scalers which may also corrupt the proper displaying of 3D content. I wonder why still today TVs are preprogrammed with overscan for digital inputs.
But you´re 16:9 issue isn´t clear for me. A 16:9 TV should display everything at 100% or is it a non 16:9 TV, for e.g. with 21:9 aspect ratio? In that case the TV probably tried to stretch the 16:9 content instead of letterboxing which may also lead to a bad 3D behaviour.

 

[Sizzlechest]

Those overscans mechanism do imply scalers which may also corrupt the proper displaying of 3D content. I wonder why still today TVs are preprogrammed with overscan for digital inputs.
But you´re 16:9 issue isn´t clear for me. A 16:9 TV should display everything at 100% or is it a non 16:9 TV, for e.g. with 21:9 aspect ratio? In that case the TV probably tried to stretch the 16:9 content instead of letterboxing which may also lead to a bad 3D behaviour.

The default option on my Samsung 55" TV is "16:9". There's also "Wide" (4:3 stretched to fill the screen) and "Zoom" (4:3 zoomed so the top and bottom are cropped). It's not until you go to the "User" option that you realize that the default "16:9" option (the first setting) is actually zooming the image 2-3%! I can only suspect that Samsung assumed people would be watching a mix of analog and digital sources. You'd assume the cable company's box would take care of any issue with displaying analog signals to a digital TV, but I guess not. The moral of the story here is to not assume the TV isn't implementing an overscan on ALL signals by default.

EDIT: Apparently, my TVs are the only ones like this: http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/27/hd-101-overscan-and-why-all-tvs-do-it/