DeoVR is actually an awesome video player. It's too bad that last year DeoVR decided to abandon the support of Half SBS 3D videos. However, since HSBS videos are only half the resolution of regular 1080p 3D videos, if you have the full 3D bluray ISO, you can actually convert it to a Full Top&Bottom MKV video, then play it in DeoVR.
The benefit is that: now you will see the full resolution of the 3D movie, and DeoVR will handle it quite nicely. I set the Zoom to 1.5x and the effect is amazing.
Of course you can play the HSBS videos in other VR players, but in this topic I want to share how I do it with DeoVR.
Be aware: Most original Bluray's content is encrypted. You need to find a way to decrypt the disc into an ISO before you can continue. I cannot tell you how to decrypt it, or how to obtain decrypted bluray ISOs.
First you need to download a free program called "BD3D2MK3D". It's quite easy to find:
https://www.videohelp.com/software/BD3D2MK3D
After running it, you click on "File->Mount Disc Image" to mount the bluray ISO so it can read the content. Or you can use third party tools to mount it as a drive, like "F:"
Once the disc is mounted, click on "Open Blu-ray 3D" and browse to "F:\BDMV" folder. You will see that the disc content is read. Time to set the tabs.
Tab 1: Open Blu-ray 3D.
Here you just choose the video you want to extract. Usually the long one with more chapters wins.
Tab 2: Select streams.
Here you choose which stream to include in the rendered MKV, but I usually just choose the main audio stream, nothing else.
Tab 3: Title & tags
Here you must type something in the title.
Tab 4: Cover art
You can basically ignore this tab.
Tab 5: Options and Go!
This tab is most important. First you need to uncheck the "Stereoscopy: Half". Then set the next one to "Top & Button"
The "Hardcode subtitle stream on video" is necessary if the movie has some foreign or alien languages. I suggest you choosing the one with "extract forced captions only".
Now you are ready to go. However, it still has 2 problems. 1. The picture quality of x264 is not great. 2. It takes way too much time to encode a movie.
I have a Nvidia GTX 1080, so it has accelerated HEVC encoder. I also downloaded the awesome ffmpeg which supports hardware accelerated encoding. So I prefer to use it instead of the built-in x264 encoder. No problem. This program allows me to do so.
So I click on "Settings -> AVC / HEVC encoder " and choose "Use your own custom command for encoding".
In the Custom Command: I pasted in:
"C:\\ffmpeg\\bin\\ffmpeg.exe" -hwaccel cuda -i "__ENCODE_3D_MOVIE.mkv" -c:v hevc_nvenc -preset slow -f matroska -b:v 12M -maxrate: 20M -c:a copy "video.mkv"
Note: you have to use double backslash for path to point to the ffmpeg.exe location.
And in the "Filename of the video stream", I typed in "video.mkv" . This is the rendered video which is a temporary file.
After all that, I set the Project (temp) folder to somewhere in a big drive, and "Output (MKV) folder" to where I want the final video be. Keep the "mux to MKV file" checked.
All set. Now I just click on "Do It!" and it will start extracting the needed files from the ISO to the temp folder. After that, it will show me the temp folder.
Because I use my own encode command, in the temp folder, I double-click on "_CUSTOM_ENCODE_3D_LAUNCHER.cmd" to start the encoding. The process will generate a temporary "video.mkv" in the temp folder.
If you use the built-in x264 encoder, it will take more than a day, but with hardware accelerating, it will take 1 to 2 hours.
Once the encoding is done, it will automatically mux the video.mkv with audio tracks and generate the final video file in the folder you specified earlier.
That's it, folks. I hope you will find this guide useful. I finally can enjoy 2009 Avatar in full glory so can you.
